Ian McLaughlin

The NRA is Just Another Corporate Front

Ian McLaughlin
The NRA is Just Another Corporate Front

Why do the Democrats bend over backwards to accommodate the NRA’s fetishization of gun ownership?

I grew up in northern Minnesota, and I hunted pheasants, partridge, and ducks throughout my childhood. In 9th grade, I was the only girl to get a medal for passing the gun safety course, a course that our father required both my brother, Marty, and me to take in order to get to go hunting with him. But surely by now we all know that the NRA isn’t about hunting enthusiasts. Surely by now we all know that the NRA is entirely about money and protecting the corporate profits of an $8 billion industry.

But we’ve been inculcated with so much marketing appealing to patriotism, fear, and masculine pride that nobody seems to be doing the math.

Lie Number One: Crime is creating a post-apocalyptic hellscape on our borders and in our cities. We all need guns for protection.

A study done by the Brennan Center for Justice in 2015 entitled: “What Caused the Crime Decline?” concludes:
“Overall crime rates in 2016 are projected to be nearly the same as last year, with crime remaining at an all-time low. …Violent crime is less than half as prevalent as it was in 1991, when it peaked at 758 offenses per 100,000 residents. Homicides, likewise, are less than half of what they were in the 1980s and 1990s.” Our violent crime rate has declined to the levels of the 60s, and it continues to steadily decline.

Lie Number Two: Harsh policing and incarceration measures are what have brought the crime rate down, and personal gun ownership plays a part in that decline.

But the Brennan Center study concludes that:
“… over-harsh criminal justice policies, particularly increased incarceration, which rose even more dramatically over the same period, (after 1990) were not the main drivers of the crime decline. In fact, the report finds that increased incarceration has been declining in its effectiveness as a crime control tactic for more than 30 years. Its effect on crime rates since 1990 has been limited, and has been non-existent since 2000.”

Lie Number Three: Lots of guns make men irresistible to women. Just plain stupid. But hey…

But for anyone interested in understanding why the decline in crime is a fact in the US and globally, I suggest reading Steven Pinker’s 2012 book entitled: “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”.https://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our-Natu…/…/ref=sr_1_1…

As we all know, the gun lobby in the US controls all of GOP politics and is present in Democratic politics as well. Donald Trump’s "American Carnage" inaugural speech contained these lines:
“The crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential,” …. “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”

This is, of course, right out of the Nazi handbook: The Big Lie. And it is nothing less than state propaganda. But on whose behalf?

Trump speaks for the NRA and the $8 billion dollar firearms industry that it supports.

So what is the NRA? Paul Waldman, former senior researcher for the Annenberg Public Policy Center, writes:

“For the NRA, it's about members and money. For the gun manufacturers, it's about sales and protection from legal liability. And as long as gun owners are kept agitated, angry, and afraid, they both win.
…The NRA gets tens of millions of dollars from gun manufacturers, through a variety of channels, not just checks but advertising in NRA publications and special promotions the manufacturers run. For instance, every time someone buys a Ruger, the company donates $2 to the NRA. Buy one from Taurus, and they'll pay for a year's membership in the NRA.
The NRA feeds twin climates of fear. Wayne LaPierre describes an America where only the armed can survive. ...he says, “What do you call the frightened, paranoid, insecure guy having a midlife crisis who prepares for the inevitable breakdown of society and shakes his fist at the president? You call him a customer. He's money in the bank.”

So here’s where you get if you Follow The Money: 
In the year following the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, the three largest gun makers—Sturm Ruger, Remington Outdoor, and Smith & Wesson—netted more than $390 million in profits on record sales. Shares in publicly traded Sturm Ruger and Smith & Wesson jumped more than 70 percent that year, benefiting institutional investors such as Vanguard, Blackrock, and Fidelity. The hedge fund that owns Remington Outdoor—maker of the assault rifle used in Newtown—saw the annual return on its investment grow tenfold. Sturm Ruger’s profits increased 56 percent. Sturm Ruger’s largest shareholders are mutual fund giant Vanguard Group and a private investment firm, London Company of Virginia, which has assets worth $10.6 billion, including holdings in ammunition, cigarettes, missiles, and caskets. (“Fully Loaded: Inside the Shadowy World of America’s 10 Biggest Gunmakers”
https://www.motherjones.com/…/fully-loaded-ten-biggest-gun…/)

So, to NRA claims that: It’s really a mental health problem; my right to arm myself is constitutionally granted; gun laws wouldn’t prevent mass shootings; just arm the teachers; the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun….

I think back to my gun safety class in junior high school when it wasn’t guns; it was cigarettes. More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette; 11,105 doctors say Lucky Strikes prevent throat irritation; As your dentist, I would recommend Viceroys, You've Come a Long Way, Baby; Come to Marlboro Country; and I'd walk a mile for a Camel.

Second Amendment Patriots: You've been had. It’s a sales pitch – nothing more.