The NRA vs. Civilization

Unrelated rant about gun control in this country. But since anybody reading this cares about the welfare of other people, and of yourselves and your own well-being, I offer this up for public consumption. I guess I got on a roll this morning. And perhaps this says something about my state of health. I'm still shaking like a fish out of water, but my brain seems to be functioning. Kind of a miracle.

This is an open letter to anybody who is siding with the NRA and defenders of the second amendment, or anyone giving pushback to Pres. Obama and VP Biden on their efforts to control gun sales and ownership:

Using the logic of the Second Amendment to protect ourselves from either our own government becoming overbearing or against invasion by a foreign force, we should all be allowed to acquire our own arsenal of nukes, jet fighters, grenade launchers, metal piercing bullets, drones, and so on. Do you really think we can protect ourselves in this era of advanced weaponry, bio threats such as anthrax, and god knows what all else, with just a dinky ak-47, Uzi, or Glock? Let's get real. If we seriously want to be up-to-date in fail-safe self protection, we US citizens must all insist on owning not only a conventional arsenal, but also the most virulent computer viruses and keys to the digital 'back doors' so we could implant malware into the Department of Defense's or foreign invaders' computer systems. Time for a reality check, NRA -- There is no reliable way that you or I could ever defend ourselves against a government crackdown or a foreign incursion with the two shotguns we have hangin' in the gun rack in the old pickup.

On an individual level of self protection, maybe yes, under ideal conditions if I had a pistol in my pocket and somebody approached me down at the 7-Eleven where I go for my midnight slushy and they were brandishing a gun, well maybe (and that's a big maybe) I could whip it out and shoot somebody, hopefully the assailant, and not an innocent bystander or the clerk. Suppose I killed him (or her)? How would that feel? What if it were the wrong person? What if s/he didn't really have a gun? What if it was dark out and he had a hoodie on, and I just thought he had a gun because he put his hands in his pockets? I would have a homicide on my conscience while sitting in my 8' x 10' prison cell, after the trauma and expense of a drawnout trial.

In my family we all had guns. Even my mom was a crack shot. We called her Annie Oakley. She shot squirrels out of the kitchen window, just above the sink, if the squirrels were trying to poach the suet that we had meticulously hung on the Dogwood tree for the pleasure of the birds. Birds outranked squirrels in my mothers worldview. It was like a rite of passage in my family to receive a gun, typically for Christmas. (You gotta love the irony. Who, or what, would Jesus shoot?) I can still see that snapshot of me sitting in front of the Christmas tree holding my new .22 gauge rifle that my dad bought me, down at Sears. I looked a little confused. I guess I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to smile or not. The clip could hold five, maybe 10 bullets. It had a single-action bolt. We're not talking assault rifle here. Still, my dad was was a 'full-bird’ colonel in the Army reserves. He fought in World War II. We had a bunch of guns in the basement. We were supposed to know how to clean, maintain, aim, and shoot stuff at a distance, like shrpshooters do. As far as I can recall, we were never actually told why. Luckily, nobody in my family was ever shot by accident. Considering the amount of alcohol that was around, it's kind of a miracle.

Citing the Second Amendment as proof of our almost god-given right to own and use as many guns as we like is a specious argument put forward by NRA members. Okay, I am willing to compromise: I guess it's alright for everybody to own a musket, a little bag of gunpowder, a flint rock or two, and some musket balls. I think that's what the founders probably had in mind. The 13 little, new colonies were a bit paranoid about how they pissed off King George by winning the revolution with their disorganized, little ragtag army. A militia that used 'cowardly,' terrorist, guerrilla tactics. Our forefathers hid themselves in the woods, shot from behind trees, even shot officers off of their horses. (Seriously uncouth warfare etiquette. We were definitely the terrorists of the day.) But this is 2013. Arming the entire population with high-speed assault rifles, a 45 mm pistol in our pockets, and hiring thousands of armed guards to police every school in our nation is not really a solution, unless you think there's something exciting and romantic about shootouts down the street at your kids' elementary school. And foreign Invasions come in forms that we can't even predict. How come nobody had a antiaircraft missile at Ground Zero on the day the jetliners crashed into the World Trade Centers? Oops.

NRA members argue that if everyone carried a gun, then it would be easy to take down some lunatic shooter who was going on a binge in the middle of a movie theater. Is this the kind of society we want? Everybody packing a gun in their trench coat? Worrying that if you cut someone off at a stoplight that they might pull a gun on you? This isn't a rerun of Bonanza, where Little Joe saves the day with his six-shooter. Can we look to countries who have far fewer gun deaths and far fewer guns, as real-world examples of solutions to the gun-related homocide and suicide? Why are we, as a nation, so afraid to look to other nations to solve a problem that they have already solved? Are we so young as a country and so full of hubris that we can't ask someone else, someone older and wiser, for help? It's time to wake up, and grow up, America. We may still be the land of the rugged individualist, but this is no longer the wild, wild West.

I'm old enough to remember the days when there were no seatbelts in our cars. We had a real 'woodie' Ford station wagon with real wood on the sides. Mom called it Jezebel, long before I knew what Jezebel meant. Then we had a 1955 three-hole Buick, green and white. Wow, that was a beauty. Lots of chrome. Then a Rambler, a kind of ugly, green bulbous thing. Then a very uninspired and utilitarian Ford Comet station wagon, but dad finally made it up to us by coming home with a shiny new Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser. Well, it wasn't actually new. Dad had lived through depression of course, so shelling out for all those unnecessary new-car extras was against his religion. The fruit doesn't fall too far from the tree, so actually it wasn't until I was 50 that I bought my first new car. And what was it? A Prius, of course. Very economical. Anyway, the Oldsmobile Vista-Cruiser, now that car was amazing. It even had two skylights and three rows of seats, and it was as long as a fishing boat. It drove like one, too. In all of these vintage cars, three could sit comfortably on the front bench seats. There were no seatbelts and no headrests. Taking long trips in the car was just like being in the living room at home. You could jump in the back seat, up to front seat, and back again. It was a big playpen on wheels. And no seatbelts to get in the way.

But because there were no headrests, if you got hit from behind, there was a pretty good chance you'd suffer whiplash or a broken neck. I remember Ralph Nader coming onto the scene and writing his groundbreaking 1965 book "Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile" which accused U.S. auto makers of knowingly producing cars that endangered public safety, all for the sake of profit. Detroit went ballistic, and even took very nasty measures in hopes of the defaming and denigrating Nader. But, thanks to the guy whom we love to hate for ruining the potential election of Al Gore, now we take it totally for granted that we have not only seatbelts but maybe even six or ten airbags, and all kinds of crash-survival engineering integrated into our cars. Likewise, all it takes is a trip to, say, China to be reminded of the progress we have made as a nation in exposing and acting in the health impacts of smoking and breathing second-hand smoke. It was a tough battle against the tobacco dynasties of Philip Morris et al. but we citizens scored a 206 billion-dollar settlement on that one. Not too shabby.

My point being that there is precedent for change in this country, change that protects its citizens. Change that is necessary, and intelligent. Even if it's an uphill battle against brobdingnagian political and corporate entities that have no heart, all that is required is a unified and persistent effort.

So, there is my anti-gun rant for the day. And, I'm not stopping until something changes. That's my New Year's resolution. I guess I got inspired by yesterday's inauguration ceremony. I don't know what you thought of it, but I thought it Seriously Kicked Ass (SKA), which means in civilized lingo, it was about the most inspiring thing I've seen in a good while. That arrangement of the Battle Hymn of the Republic was seriously surreal (in a good way). All the other music was quite an amazing as well. Nice to see James Taylor. His fingers must of been freezing but he could still play his old Martin guitar. Afterwards, the local PBS TV station here in the San Francisco Bay area, showed a documentary about the relationship between Martin Luther King and Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy. If you weren't already in tears from the inauguration scene, the incredible music and poetry, and Obama's speech, that documentary would tip the scales.

There is a scene in which Robert decides that it is his responsibility as Atty. Gen. of the United States to inform the gathered crowd that King has just been shot dead. Despite fears of riots and concerns for his safety, Kennedy went ahead with plans to attend a rally at 17th and Broadway in the heart of Indianapolis's African-American ghetto. That evening Kennedy addressed the crowd, many of whom had not heard about King's assassination. Instead of the rousing campaign speech they expected, Kennedy offered brief, unrehearsed, impassioned remarks for peace that is considered to be one of the great public addresses of the modern era. If you're interested in reading more about the speech check this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy's_speech_on_the_assassination_of_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.

As we all know, shortly thereafter, this peace-loving member of a family that had recently suffered one assassination (JFK), was further burdened with another. In relatively short order three of the free world's visionaries were killed by guns. Not by disease or natural causes. By guns. I remember that time quite clearly. I was at a very impressionable age, having been in about the sixth or seventh grade. It felt as though the world was coming apart at the seams. Schools were closed, people didn't go to work. We were all glued to our television sets. I can't help but wonder what this nation would be like today if Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy were still kicking around. I don't believe that if ordinary citizens attending the events where these leaders were murdered had been carrying guns, that they could've intervened. The shootings happened too quickly, and in the case of JFK, the shooter(s) was in the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository Building. No one had a clue.

I believe the statistics make it clear: Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people. People also kill themselves, unfortunately -- intentionally and accidentally -- when guns are handy. Let's sign petitions, write letters to our representatives, talk to one another and make a great deal of noise until something changes.

Bob Cowart