The reason the NRA lacks increasing credibility among sports men and women is because its 75-member board of directors is largely composed of people whose livelihoods depend on the manufacture and distribution of firearms.
Hence the true goal of the National Rifle Association is not sportsmanship but to make money — at whatever cost.
That’s why the NRA opposes a ban on the bump stock — a device that converts a semi-automatic weapon into a full-auto rifle. The Las Vegas shooter outfitted 12 of 23 guns found in his hotel room in this manner.
Before last week most of us had never heard of bump stocks. That’s because very few gun enthusiasts use the devices. So banning their sale is no great concession nor will it put a dent in gun violence.
The United States comprises 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we own 50 percent of the world’s guns. So it begs the question: Do we worship guns more than life?
“Outrageous!” you say. And yet, exactly because of the wide proliferation of guns, as of Monday, the United States marked its 278th mass shooting for the year. A mass shooting is where at least four people are shot, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which keeps track of such things.
GUN ownership has come to represent what some see as the last of a litany of their fast-eroding rights as American citizens.
If you threaten gun control, then it’s a “slippery slope” to universal health care, opening the gates to immigrants, raising the minimum wage and other perceived threats to the status quo.
Hogwash.
But give credit to the NRA for doing a whale of a job brainwashing the American people into believing it’s our guns that stand between us and the devil.
— Susan Lynn
