Guns, God and Patriotism?

I recently watched a documentary called "Gun Fight"  about how the gun lobby is framing their fund raising around an attack on the Second Amendment.

Any 5th grader can tell you that the process to have an Amendment made to the Constitution added is a very difficult process and requires 2/3 of the nation to ratify that amendment before it is actually added to the Constitution.  This takes years.  It is the very reason the Equal Rights Amendment has not been added.  Too many white males decided their masculinity would be taken away were women given equal protection under the Constitution.  This is why the 2nd Amendment will never be taken away.  There may be reasonable limitations placed on that amendment, just as there are the First amendment - where you are not allowed to yell "fire" in a public place unless there truly is a fire.

One has to ask why it is that the gun lobby and the right-wing are so closely tied together?  I don't think you would see anyone with a gun openly strapped to their side at a gathering for a liberal politician unless it was to decry that politician's position on gun rights.  Which is again curious, since every piece of legislation introduced since the Brady Bill, has failed to make it out of committee.  Why is God only linked with those who are Conservative in nature?

How does that work?

Another curious note - there are approximately 80 million - yes million - gun owners in the US, but only 4 million represented by the NRA.  Yet, the NRA is one of, if not the most powerful lobby on Capital Hill.  Just goes to show that the squeaky wheel really does get the grease and it also shows just how far to the very fringe right our nation has gone.

I am a responsible gun owner.  I do not belong to the NRA - dare I say that I am the type these folks would rather do away with than have amongst them.  I am an agnostic, queer, gun owner who voted for Obama.

I am a patriot as much as anyone else. I love my country.  I don't love the direction the right-wing fringe is trying to take it, though.  I vote in every election and am well versed in the issues when I do vote.  I READ the ballot measures and check into the candidates I am voting for. I DO NOT listen to the sound bites or vote based on what I hear, but rather make my own educated decisions - I think for myself - I do the work.   I am not a single issue voter.  Single-issue is a dangerous place to be, as we have seen with the mid-term election in 2010.

There is a strong push to from the gun lobby to keep private sales at gun shows from having to go through background checks.  In case you didn't know this - this is a loophole that the gun lobby is desperately fighting to keep and framing as an attack on the 2nd amendment.  Clearly it is not.  There is also the issue of what is called the "Straw-man" purchase - where someone who is barred from purchasing a firearm pays someone else to buy the gun for them with their clear name.  It's like using someone else's clean pee to pass a drug test when you know you have drugs in your system only this is access to a deadly weapon.  If they are barred from having access to a deadly weapon in the first place, why would someone be so willing to place their butt on the line for that person for a few bucks?  For a few bucks.  These are not educated people doing these things.  These are not people who will stop to think about the consequences of their actions before doing them.  These are the kind of people the NRA wants among their ranks - not the kind that will question their logic.

There is also a push to remove the assault weapon ban.  When you do that, you open up anarchy in the streets of our cities.  More so than we see currently.  AK's are already in use with the gang-bangers.  The argument goes that if more people are armed, there will be more chance that those assaults will be stopped before a lot of people are killed.  Just one problem with that logic.  The one doing the assault, has the element of surprise on their side.

Even the best trained officer will not react fast enough if they are surprised.  As was witnessed in Kirkwood, MO when a man shot not one but two police officers - on in the parking lot and the other in the city council chambers before killing the mayor.  Both were armed and trained.  The perpetrator had the element of surprise on his side.  Surprise will win out every time.

Jared Loughner is another example.  There were people who had concealed weapons on them at the time of the shooting in Arizona.  The problem was, they had to assess the situation and make sure they did not shoot innocent people as they attempted to get to Loughner.  when Rep, Franks suggested that the answer was to have more people armed at the scene, he was mis-informed and had never been faced with that type of situation.  Having a weapon and being able to use that weapon in a surprise situation, are not one-in-the-same.  That type of situation must be repeated trained for.  That is what our law enforcement is trained to do.

I for one do not want to go out in public where now we have an armed constituent with itchy fingers expecting the worst at any moment, because they are looking for the surprise factor.  Talk about paranoia run rampant.  Talk about the ultimate in fear mongering.  This is what, in my opinion, the NRA, Faux News, Religion and the Right-Wing have become.