Confidential to the Gun Grabbers

Attention please, Chuck Schumer, Barbaras Boxer and Feinstein, Frank Lautenberg, Carolyn McCarthy and all the rest of you who get your talking points from the same place.  Yes, that goes for you, too, Peter Bogdanovitch and Harvey Weinstein and thanks to Improved Clinch for reminding me I wanted to rant about this.

You've all seen some variation of this argument at least a dozen times since last weekend, when the young feces-brained-psycho decided to act out his frustration over his pitiful life by ending a lot of lives worth infinitely more than his.  This one is from Weinstein, but could have come from any one of them.

“If we don’t get gun-control laws in this country, we are full of beans. To have the National Rifle Association rule the United States is pathetic. And I agree with Mayor Michael Bloomberg: It’s time to put up or shut up about gun control for both parties.

C'mere, scooter.  Let me learn you something.  The National Rifle Association is not taking over the country.  The NRA is doing exactly what its tens of millions of members want it to do and pay it to do: it's guarding our constitutionally recognized, God-given rights.  This isn't some sort of bizarre aberration by a rogue organization on its own, they're lobbying for exactly what we want them to lobby for.  It's not the NRA, it's the tens of millions of citizens.

Unlike you folks, the vast majority of Americans now realize that gun free zones don't work, and all that gun control does is disarm good people while allowing those who don't care about laws to do what they want.  There are many examples of attempts at mass murder headed off by someone with a gun.  Mass murders only happen in gun free zones.  I'd bet real piles of money that someone with practical training and a handgun could have ended that mess in the theater before the body count got anywhere near what happened.  (h/t Confessions of a Street Pharmacist)

Don't give me that crap about "military weapons".  Every single category of weapon there is has been used as a military weapon.  The 12 gauge shotgun, like the 115 year old M97 design, there are tens of millions of them in American's homes, was so deadly in World War 1 that the Germans thought they were inhumane and should be banned!  A shotgun was inhumane, but mustard gas was fine?  Bolt action rifles with built-in box magazines, like the Remington 700, are not only direct descendents of the "military weapon" Mauser used in WW1, but the 700 itself is issued as the M24 Sniper Weapon System.  The first revolver was a major technological breakthrough, allowing a horse mounted soldier to shoot multiple times without reloading.  You'd ban 160 year old technology? 

Don't give me that crap about "they're only designed to kill as many as possible" as you hide behind your armed guards and protection details.  Evil lives in the heart of the person behind the gun, not the gun itself.  The AR-15 you want to ban is the most popular rifle in America.  There are millions of those with 30 round magazines and all they have ever done is punch holes in paper or go hunting.  Why does any civilian "need" a high capacity magazine?  You display your ignorance.  First off, I need one because I said so - you have no right to tell me what I need.  Second off, I know you're ignorant of self defense and target shooting, or you'd never say something like that, so let me tell you: there's a handful of reasons, not the least of which is it gives me more fun per trip to the range.  It's more fun to shoot than to load magazines. 

And confidential to Bill O'Reilly, I know you're sure you're smarter than the world and have The Only Right Opinions there are, so you wouldn't listen to this, but all you will do by limiting ammo purchases is get a list of every competitive shooter, everyone who is training for some goal, everyone who doesn't live near an ammo shop and buys in bulk, and every other active shooter in the country.  6000 rounds sounds like a lot to an outsider, but a competitive shooter can go through that pretty easily in a few weeks.  I seem to recall an interview with Jessie Duff where she said she ran through a thousand rounds a day, or every couple of days, during the peak of the season. 

The NRA is unique among organizations in being denounced by its detractors and its members.  Critics, like Weinstein, think the NRA is taking over the country; members think they're not doing enough to ensure that members are simply left alone.  Members routinely want the NRA to "stop playing DC insider" and speak up more strongly for our rights - even first amendment and other issues that aren't strictly firearms related. Disclaimer: I'm an NRA member frequently critical of those things myself.  I'm also a member of the other big gun rights organizations, SAF, JPFO, GOA and NAGR.

Finally, with all due respect to the victims, why is this getting the fully saturated media treatment?  Granted, the situation is unusual, but more people get shot in Chicago most weekends than in that theater.  Oh, I know, Chicago already has among the strictest gun control laws in the country, and that hurts your argument.