America’s gun policy is just a bill of goods

n.pl.bills of goods

1. A consignment of items for sale.

2. Informal A plan, promise, or offer, especially one that is dishonest or misleading

It is stunning to hear politicians in the wake of yet another mass shooting say that it is “too soon” after the tragedy to talk about the problem of guns in America. But it is just as disturbing in the wakes of repeated mass shootings, including 26 dead and more wounded in a Texas church, for God’s Sake, to hear the likes of actor James Woods throwing around shallow opinions about what constitutes responsible gun control.

His defense of the NRA in the wake of these mass shootings was breathtakingly shortsighted. Woods Tweeted that none of the mass shootings of the last few decades were conducted by a member of the NRA.

What James Woods cites as “actual facts” about NRA members never having been involved in mass shootings may or may not be true. But that is hardly the central point in the current debate about gun proliferation in America. The NRA has spent decades promoting the idea that gun rights should not be restricted in any way. Even President Donald Trump, a noted shill for the NRA and its constituents, favored removal of a law blocking access to gun ownership for people with mental health issues.

And yet, immediately following the Texas shootings, Trump was quick to point out that the shooter was mentally ill.

Gun control waffling

So which is it? Are we concerned about people with mental illness having access to guns with which they can murder two dozen people in minutes? Or is the NRA correct in asserting that no amount of gun control can prevent such wanton slaughter?

To believe what James Woods tweeted, we must surmise that the bloody massacre of 26 people in a Texas church is of no concern to the NRA because no NRA member committed the act. We must also believe that there is no connection between what the NRA advocates, which is essentially the elimination of gun control laws in America, as compared to dealing with the fact that people toting guns are mowing down Americans in the tens of thousands each year.

At what point do we point out the massive case of cognitive dissonance at work on gun rights in America? In between those two extremes is the bill of goods we’re all being sold on gun control.

Public emergencies

Consider the fact that mass shootings constitute a genuine public emergency. Cities and towns across America dread the day and prepare at length to combat that sort of violence if it ever comes to visit them. Police and government officials set up entire protocols to manage gun violence because it is a form of terror. The structure of these protocols is always designed to define who is in charge, who has authority and responsibility to act, and how to manage public fear in the face of violence, terror attacks, and other public threats.

The reason why public agencies work so hard to define who is in charge is to avoid confusion during times of public emergency. The parallel goal is to prevent even greater mistakes from occurring in the face of terror or violence. The greatest single factor of chaos in all this preparation is the capacity and availability of guns designed to kill.

The chaos when gunfire breaks out is directly related to the killing capacity of these weapons. It’s true in every circumstance.

Friendly fire in America?

Even America’s military struggles at times to avoid gunfire from taking out their own personnel. The most famous case of so-called “friendly fire” was that of former NFL player Pat Tillman who died in action not from the bullets of the enemy, but from his own military.

Yet the NRA has been a big proponent of the idea that Concealed Carry laws can prevent crime. The principle idea behind Concealed Carry is that the presence of “good guys with guns” will somehow act as a deterrent to violent gun crimes. Some gun proponents think this form of “law” does not go far enough in that regard. Those gun advocates insist that only Open Carry does the real job of deterring violence.

Which means, if you open the mind to that belief system, that a completely militarized society is the only viable option for security and peace. But that is not true freedom, is it?

False heroes

Gun proponents are jumping on the fact that a couple Texas gun-toters chased down the killer of all those people the killer shot up in the church. One of them opened fire before the chase and may have wounded the killer before he got into his car and embarked on a 90-mile-an-hour escape attempt that ended in a crash and his death. Whether the mass shooter died from gunshot or the crash is not fully apparent. Yet gun proponents seem eager to claim the heroics of the two gun-toting vigilantes.

Somehow, twenty-six people still died in that church. The killer was walking down the aisles shooting crying babies. Some people struck by gunfire played dead and avoided further attack by the assassin.

But because the mass shooter was not a member of the NRA, the incident should not be a cause of concern to everyday Americans? That makes it all okay?

The Bill of Goods

So let’s walk this through in a clear and simple fashion. What the NRA has proposed and still supports is the idea that Concealed Carry laws are a specific deterrent to gun crimes. It advocates the idea that everyday citizens bear the responsibility of engaging with any form of aggression they may encounter. And while Concealed Carry training may to some degree discourage the use of weapons in public places except under extreme duress, that is a far cry from the well-regulated standards by which law enforcement personnel must meet.

That means there’s massive gap between what the NRA is advocating with Concealed Carry as the correct interpretation of the Second Amendment. The NRA conveniently ignores the first and qualifying phrase of the Second Amendment, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state…” in favor of the more selfish and individualized interpretation of the second phrase, “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Lopsided interpretations

Constitutional originalists should be aghast at the gutting of that provision as it pertains to gun ownership. But where are their voices? Instead, the Supreme Court in its conservatively lopsided obsession with ‘personal rights’ has enabled people such as James Woods to refuse to be held accountable for anything but their own selfish interests.

As a result, we do not have a “well-regulated militia” at all. The intention of the Founding Fathers has been tossed on a junk heap of Twitter-infused jingoism that equates unrestricted gun rights with real freedom in America. There is no such freedom. Twenty-six people just got massacred in a church. More died in a Walmart. 56 got mowed down as a country music concert. The shootings are happening in succession now. All because they aren’t hard to carry out in a nation where gun proponents have sold us all a bill of goods.

The lies of the NRA have been exposed over and over, but the mantra that ‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people’ has been repeated so often the layers of gun fetishism cannot even be peeled back. Gun fetishism is even more rampant than it was when John Lennon pointed out the folly of gun worship more than forty years ago in his song Happiness is a Warm Gun:

When I hold you in my arms (oh, yeah)
And I feel my finger on your trigger (oh, yeah)
I know nobody can do me no harm (oh, yeah)
Because, (happiness) is a warm gun, mama (bang bang shoot shoot)
Happiness is a warm gun, yes it is (bang bang shoot shoot)

The supposed security about which Lennon sang (sarcastically, mind you) is in truth the massive insecurity of gun fetishists whose fearful worldview insists that only guns provide real protection from harm in this world. They must lie to themselves and even call the government itself a threat in order to sustain the pathetic lack of trust they have in fellow citizens.

Shallow concerns

In the end, this is what it’s all about. James Woods laid bare the shallow concerns of the selfish, insecure fears of an American populace that cannot manage to function without a gun trigger on their frightened little fingers. Yet despite what James Woods says about NRA members, their fingers share the pressure of every trigger pulled in violent acts against fellow Americans.

There truly is blood on their hands of NRA members despite the fact that no supposed NRA member is doing the physical shooting. The NRA and its members have created, sponsored and supported a complete lack of accountability for gun violence in America. They have done so through destruction of the first phrase of the Second Amendment in favor of a second, far more selfish interpretation that says bearing arms “shall not be infringed.”

Tell that to the thousands of first responders, police and other emergency workers who do participate in a “well-regulated militia” in America. That’s how our public servants function, by the authority vested in the structure of a well-regulated militia. For the most part, they abide by the true meaning of the Second Amendment.

But the NRA boldly ignores that fact, favoring instead the ugly vigilantism and unrestricted access to guns for those well-beyond the selfish political party we call the NRA. The organization and its supporters wash their hands of crimes every day in order to protect their supposed status as “pure” gun owners incapable of such violence.

But let us consider that the fact of increasing violence by the police toward the public is a direct result of the NRA’s wanton disregard for the safety of all citizens in America. The police are directly in the line of fire of the cognitive dissonance wrought by wanton disregard of the “well-regulated militia” phrase in the Second Amendment.

Moral perspective

For moral perspective, we can turn to the tenets of the Christian faith to debunk the seflish, deceitful lies of the NRA and its terror-driven impact on human life.

Jesus confronted all those that he perceived to ignoring the works of evil or worse, misleading the easily deceived into dreams of power and authority where it was not warranted. Jesus also condemned those who twisted the law to serve their own purposes, and who created stumbling blocks from legalistic ideology that prevented people from seeing or encountering the truth. All these are characteristic of the sins of the NRA.

Way back when, Jesus branded people like these “hypocrites” for lording themselves over others. He called them a “brood of vipers” for their calculating ways and chastised them for the offenses they imposed on the culture at large. Jesus would not, in other words, like the NRA or James Woods one bit.

James Woods and the NRA are selling America a hollow “bill of goods” on gun rights versus true freedoms in America. They have lied by method of exclusion, and they are avoided responsibility for gun violence by method of inclusion.

Hypocrites. Brood of Vipers. All of them.