The latest mass shooting this past Sunday night in Las Vegas might have been so shocking, that rare action might be taken to restrict access to deadly weapons. Some Republican Congressmen, and even the NRA, to some extent, seem to be at least open to the idea of these restrictions, if not exactly enthusiastically going after them.
Perhaps it was the shock value of video clips that not only show the shooting in progress, but the clear audio of what sounded very similar to machine gun fire coming from the corner room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, where Stephen Paddock was firing from. He used semi-automatic weapons with Bump Fire Stock devices attached, which essentially allows a semi-automatic to fire even more rapidly, almost as fast as banned automatic weapons are capable of shooting. In this way, Paddock was essentially able to spray almost machine gun fire down on the crowd, and obviously this enabled him to do the level of damage that he did, with this being the biggest mass shooting in modern American history.
One way or the other, the NRA released a rare statement yesterday which, at least on the surface, seems to suggest that they actually might be in favor of restrictions on these bump stock devices that allowed Paddock to fire his weapons at such an incredible rate. Here, according to a recent New York Times article, is part of what the statement said on Fox's News' Sean Hannity show:
The bureau should revisit the issue and “immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law,” the N.R.A. said in a statement released Thursday. “The N.R.A. believes that devices designed to allow semiautomatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.”
Wow! So, the NRA, of all people, is actually seemingly in favor of tighter restrictions?
Whoa, whoa! Not so fast, there, partner!
Many people seemed to jump to this conclusion following the release of the statement, interpreting it as a rare endorsement of tighter control by the NRA. So, not to be mistaken, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre tried to make it clear that his organization did not call for or endorse a ban on bump stocks (quote taken from Talking Points website - see below)
“We didn’t say ban, we didn’t say confiscate.”
“The other side has been so outright trying to politicize this tragedy that we did feel the need to speak out today on this whole bump stock issue.”
LaPierre added what he apparently considers his checkmate point:
“If legislation worked, Boston massacre wouldn’t have happened, San Bernardino where California has every gun law on the books, that wouldn’t have happened.”
Once again, it amazes me just how convinced gun advocates seem to be about gun access and violence in states and cities within the United States which have tighter gun laws than elsewhere in the country. The fact of the matter is that even if there are tighter gun control laws in some cities or states, guns can easily pass through state lines, which means that legally purchased firearms can easily be bought in one state and brought to another. That will continue to be the case until tighter laws become uniform across the country.
As I posted earlier this week, other nations faced with massive violence from mass shootings did pass tighter gun laws, and for the most part, gun violence indeed went down in each of these countries.
Frankly, it makes sense. The logical conclusion of making guns scarcer and more difficult to acquire, which translates to less guns, would indeed seem to result in less gun violence. That is not difficult logic to follow, truth be told.
Yet, here in the United States, a lot of people who support the NRA and are against even the slightest restrictions on gun access truly seem to believe that the solution to gun violence is more guns. According to them, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a good is a good guy with a gun.
But you know what? Nevada has pretty lax gun laws, but no good guys were able to stop that bad guy on Sunday. And frankly, how effective would anyone with a handgun have been in trying to stop a man on the 32nd floor of a hotel, who was almost literally spraying down bullets on anything that moved down below?
Here is one more area where many Americans seem to truly believe in their exceptionalism. Indeed, on guns, the United States does stand apart from all other peacetime countries, as it leads all other developed and peacetime nations not at war in gun violence, and it is not even close.
And with logic like Mr. LaPierre's continually winning out, that is not likely to change any time soon, either.
These mass shooting incidents, to say nothing of the other episodes of gun violence, should be easier to avoid, but instead, we cannot get past our own sense of exceptionalism. And these mass shootings a serve as both an embarrassment and a disgrace to the country, with the whole world watching. It is times like these that I feel ashamed to be an American.
We as a nation have the blood of mass shooting victims, like those in Las Vegas, or Newtown, or Aurora, or Virginia Tech, or Columbine, on our hands. And no has more blood on their hands than idiots like LaPierre, and the millions who support him.
N.R.A. Supports New Rules on ‘Bump Stock’ Devices By The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/las-vegas-shooting.html
NRA CEO Emphasizes They Didn’t Call To ‘Ban’ Or ‘Confiscate’ Bump Stocks by CAITLIN MACNEAL Published OCTOBER 6, 2017:
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