When sticking by your guns misses the mark

OK, I’m a gun owner. Over the years I’ve owned my share of shotguns, pistols, revolvers, and rifles. For the record, I’ve also been a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), off and on, for the past four decades. At the moment it’s on. But, in light of the latest mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and all that has since ensued (the student activism as well as the NRA’s cold hearted response to the tragedy) I’m now somewhat conflicted about the long-term prognosis of my membership.

I first enlisted with the NRA back in the early 1970s when its major focus was lending support to sportsmen and hunters. But somewhere along the line the NRA seemed to lose its way, becoming more enamored with promoting paramilitary tactical weaponry than the rifles and shotguns of sportsmen. So, I let my membership lapse. Later, when I joined the Outdoor Writers Association of America and the Professional Outdoor Media Association, I found that the NRA served as a generous and much valued supporting member. I figured it was only fair that I reciprocate and, to that end, renewed my membership.

But now, as the public outcry for more commonsense gun laws reaches a fever pitch, the NRA’s rejoinder is, quite literally, to stick to its guns, ALL its guns. In the process, the NRA thwarts even the most tepid legislative attempts to stem the carnage now so commonplace in American society. The gun culture is inextricably ingrained in our American DNA, and the NRA wears its no-holdsbarred defense of that culture as a badge of honor. As someone who respects the fundamental freedoms provided by the Second Amendment, I’m starting to wonder if the NRA’s us-against-the-world approach offers the best line of defense.

Because while the NRA has dug in its heels, it has also fallen back on them. In the wake of Parkland, some concerned citizens (unlike politicians beholden to the NRA’s checkbook) are taking action and severing ties with our organization. We NRA members have now found ourselves personae non grata with a number of banks, credit card providers, airlines, and car rental companies. Dick’s sporting goods will no longer carry “assault style rifles” in their inventory and will refuse to sell firearms or ammunition to anyone under 21 years of age. Other retailers have followed suit. This too may pass, but the worm, as my grandmother liked to say, may be turning.

More problematic for the NRA is the children’s crusade, spawned by the Valentine’s Day massacre at Parkland. The NRA pours fuel on this fire with its hell bent intransigence, resisting any concession on guns as capitulation, the first step down a slippery slope leading to a full-blown elimination of all firearms. Dreaded liberal Hollywood types like George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey have thrown their weight behind these kids while helping support and finance a “March for Our Lives” against gun violence slated to descend on Washington, D.C. on March 24. School walkouts all over the country are planned in protest next week.

As always, the folks at the NRA contend that they’re blameless in these bloodlettings. They’ll affirm that their members are law-abiding citizens, none of whom has ever personally slaughtered kindergartners, night clubbers, movie goers, or concert fans. Why should they be punished for the trespasses of a few crazies? Why should their access to exponential firepower be infringed?

I get that. But rightly or wrongly, the NRA’s inflexibility and “no gun left behind” mindset cements them firmly in the crosshairs of the gun debate. An increasingly outraged public (not just those hysterical progressive snowflakes) holds an unrepentant NRA culpable in almost every gun death, particularly sensational mass murders like those at Parkland, Sandy Hook, Orlando, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, and others where AR-15 style “assault” rifles have been the perpetrator’s weapon of choice. Critics charge that the NRA, in lining political pockets with lobbyist largesse, foils any and all gun control measures. This makes them ostensibly accountable for countless shootings, murders, and massacres with the help of a complicit congress. Even moderate, marginal NRA members like yours truly are perceived to have blood on their hands.

So with their collective backs against the wall, our NRA leadership is firing back. In NRA’s March issue of “American Hunter” a fiery editorial penned by NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre equated all Democrats to Socialists. “If the Socialists take power, all of our freedoms could be lost,” warned LaPierre, “especially our Second-Amendment-protected freedom to keep and bear arms.”

This incendiary vitriol spilled over into the the recent Conservative Political Action Conference where LaPierre angrily berated pretty much everyone who’s not a hardliner as enemies of “freedom.” NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch blasted the “legacy media,” cynically charging them with “loving mass shootings” for the supposed TV ratings they bring. Without an Obama or a Clinton to serve as their bogeymen, these folks now point to the enigmatic “deep state,” the FBI, ultra leftist George Soros, and the mainstream media as the greatest threats to our gun toting freedoms.

Membership in the NRA hovers around five million. The rank and file that I know are mostly friends of mine. Almost all of them are fine, upstanding citizens and patriots, family men and women of faith who believe in constitutional freedoms, especially those outlined in the Second Amendment. Good for them -- but they’re not the problem here. It’s our fear-mongering leadership that’s gone off the deep end.

To wit, last week I received a mailer from the NRA-ILA (Institute for Legislative Action) which contained a 12 question “2018 Truth about Gun Owners (Tag) Poll”. Three separate copies of the poll were respectively pre-addressed to Senators Casey and Toomey and Representative Meehan, indicative of how efficiently organized and politically savvy our NRA forces can be.

But all the questions posed in this survey were no-brainers for any NRA member. Question No. 7 was typical, asking “Do you support or oppose ‘Mandatory Storage’ laws, which would require you to lock away and disable all guns when at home (including self-defense firearms), and also subject you to door-to-door inspections conducted by the police?” The other questions were similar in tone and content.

To my knowledge, not one of the chilling antigun measures described in these survey questions is even remotely under consideration by any legislative body anywhere in the country. These survey questions echoed LaPierre’s 1995 call to action against “jackbooted government thugs” poised to kick down your door and confiscate all of your firearms (and maybe kidnap your wife and kids in the process). Clearly, the provocative language and dishonest context of these survey questions are designed to play to the paranoia of the NRA’s base and funnel more contributions to the gun lobby coffers.

If the NRA truly wanted to take the pulse of its membership, they’d lose the inflammatory rhetoric and ask more pointed, nuanced questions. Do you support or oppose 1. Tougher background checks for all gun purchases? 2. Raising the age limit to 21 to purchase any firearms or ammunition? 3. Limiting magazine capacity? 4. Closing gun show loopholes? 5. Outlawing bump stocks? 6. Reinstating the assault weapon ban that was in effect from 1994 to 2004? I suspect the NRA leadership just doesn’t care what their members think.

Finally, there’s a perverse irony in the NRA’s mulish mantra that guns aren’t the problem, schools are. After all, LaPierre’s dubious solution to school shootings is to “harden schools,” one parroted by congressional sycophants and President Trump himself. If your answer to American gun violence is to transform soft-target schools into armed camps full of pistol packin’ professors, make sure you issue every child a Kevlar vest and a bullet-proof backpack, accessories that will come in handy not only in the schoolyard but also on outings to the theatre, night club, concert hall, or shopping mall. Folks, we’re staring at a new normal here that seems profoundly upside down.

Maybe I’m wrong. After all, the NRA enjoys a reputation as one the most powerful lobbies in history. Perhaps their unyielding obstinacy is a key to that. This latest brouhaha may well blow over as all the others have. But some observers believe that Parkland may represent a tipping point in the gun debate. If that’s the case, the NRA needs to get out ahead of the curve, perhaps even engage in some constructive dialogue with the other side. Work together, settle on a few areas of compromise on issues like background checks, magazine capacity, and legal age. NRA attorneys can carefully and cautiously craft the legislation. Call me naive, but maybe that could happen.

In the meantime, my NRA buddies should be forewarned. Erin, my youngest daughter, happens to be an edgy activist with a degree from Cal Berkeley (we’re a very diverse household). She’s already booked a room in D.C. for March 24. I suspect she’ll be joined by a few hundred thousand of her closest friends at the March for Our Lives rally, protesting gun violence and challenging NRA talking points. So batten down the hatches, boys, looks like they’re coming for us this time.