The lunatics are in the hall

At last the NRA have put their official voice the Newtown shooting incident. They had to make a statement in the wake of the slaughter of twenty six small children as the Gun Control debate rages in USA given that the NRA are the leading advocates of every American’s right to bear arms. They are the voice of the gun lobby.

One would expect that they would offer an insightful move towards something akin to a solution. Offer to participate in a commission of enquiry perhaps. Inject their insight into the search for a meaningful dialogue in the direction of safety for our vulnerable citizens. Surely it’s right that those who profit from and supply the means for these incidents to occur have a moral obligation to ensure there is a greater level safety in their deployment. Or is that simply naive?

The NRA’s cure for lung cancer might be to prescribe smoking forty cigarettes a day.

It would appear so. Not only did they not serve up what was expected, they did not move an inch towards the central safety tenet of the debate. Instead they moved to the very perimeter of the argument. They manned the garrisons. Their answer to the problem? No, not less guns or restricted access. Their answer is more guns in schools. The NRA’s cure for lung cancer might be to prescribe smoking forty cigarettes a day.

If a kid in the playground hits another kid with a rock the NRA’s answer would be give all the kids rocks. Brilliant. Stunning levels of duplicity. Come on! This is NOT about protection. This is about losing revenue. No one needs a high powered automatic or semi automatic gun but big firearms manufacturers would lose several hundred millions in revenue and the death of innocents in schools and malls is acceptable collateral damage. A side effect. An inevitable consequence of US gun control policies or rather, the complete lack thereof.

So the choice for the American public is stark in it’s contrast and polarises the nation. They can choose to :

1. Continue to demand the right to own high powered assault weapons either automatic or semi automatic and realise that they are labelling the slaughter of innocents in schools and malls as acceptable collateral damage. The dead children is the price you are prepared to pay or
2. Petition for gun control and start acting like you actually care.

America simply doesn’t care enough. It may show signs of shock and horror but it will watch the TV Christmas Specials and the dead children will be confined to history where their memory will not be permitted to come back to haunt the national psyche because it represents  the fight against a delusional “right to bear arms”.

For US citizens to pretend grief while doing nothing is an insult to the memory of the children and their families

The memory of these kids represent a potential revenue catastrophe to armament manufacturers and marketeers and they will never allow that to happen. For US citizens to pretend grief while doing nothing is an insult to the memory of the children and their families.

The blaming of video games and movies was the lowest the NRA could have gone. No child, to my knowledge, has been beaten to death with a DVD or a games console. If we judge a nation by the way it treats it’s vulnerable, poor and needy then the USA is short of the requisite care. The polls show that 53% of USA are still in favour of no gun controls. After such an atrocity it beggers belief in the rest of the civilised world. The lunatics are now officially running the most powerful nation in the world.

Note (2nd October 2017) : Written before before Trump’s Presidencey. Perhaps the Lunatics are no longer in the hall. They are now in the Oval Room.