The NRA Press Conference

Yesterday the NRA had a press conference where it stated it's position on the calls for further gun control laws in the wake of the Newtown killings. The presenter was rudely interrupted by Code Pink (apparently uninhibited free speech is OK only when it is people who say what one agrees with) who could have had their own press conference and said whatever they wanted. Anyway, blaming the NRA for murders is like blaming Ford Motor Co. for vehicular homicide or Heineken for drunk driving accident. But this is America where someone other than the perp is always responsible. It is always a bad sign in an argument when insults and name calling becomes a substitute for actual facts and the like. There were no shortage of this after the NRA conference as Bloomberg got into the act along with the expected "liberal" outlets. The Times with it's "NRA Crawls From Its Hidey Hole" was really below it's supposed standard for editorials but not unexpected. Every news broadcast I saw on the subject neglected to discuss what the NRA's actual position was further than "armed police at every school". So in the interest of fairness and actually wishing to see a solution let's actually examine what was actually said by the NRA (opinions as to what the membership believes in terms of race and the like are not on the table).

Politicians pass laws for Gun-Free School Zones. They issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them. 1 And in so doing, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk. How have our nation's priorities gotten so far out of order? Think about it. We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards. American airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses -- even sports stadiums -- are all protected by armed security. We care about the President, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by armed Capitol Police officers. Yet when it comes to the most beloved, innocent and vulnerable members of the American family -- our children -- we as a society leave them utterly defenseless, and the monsters and predators of this world know it and exploit it. That must change now!

I'll wait for anyone to offer a valid rebut to this position. It is a totally factual statement. If "guns" are the problem then ban them all. I would agree with that if you could actually 100% guarantee that nobody anywhere and at anytime could get one. Can you do that? No? right then. So you recognize that some crazy or criminal person can and will get a gun (or guns) then the statement above cannot be disputed. Let's move on.

The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters -- people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn't planning his attack on a school he's already identified at this very moment? How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame -- from a national media machine that rewards them with the wall-to-wall attention and sense of identity that they crave -- while provoking others to try to make their mark? 2 A dozen more killers? A hundred? More? How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation's refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?

Again, a totally factual statement. Nobody can dispute this statement either. I've seen commentary regarding how the mentally ill are currently treated. I think it's beyond the scope of this piece even though it is a valid issue that should be addressed. However this is the NRA not the NIH. The next thing the NRA goes into is about video games and movies:

And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here's one: it's called Kindergarten Killers. It's been online for 10 years. How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn't or didn't want anyone to know you had found it? 3 Then there's the blood-soaked slasher films like "American Psycho" and "Natural Born Killers" that are aired like propaganda loops on "Splatterdays" and every day, and a thousand music videos that portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life. And then they have the nerve to call it "entertainment." But is that what it really is? Isn't fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography? In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing an ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes -- every minute of every day of every month of every year.

I'm not with the analysis that watching violence makes one violence. Yes there is definitely proof that immediately after observing or participating in adrenaline pumping activities that males are more aggressive for some time after and will engage in more risky behavior. There is no dispute in that. I will certainly attest to that in my own life. However; there is no evidence that normal males are "suckered" into acts of criminal violence by playing games. I mean really...you can get shot multiple times and keep going like nothing happened? Really? I'm supposed to believe that? I get to "respawn" after being killed? Really? I can survive a RPG blast and run around shooting people? Really? Look, no rational male thinks that these games or movies are real. We know the fight scenes are choreographed and real fights do not work out like they do in Kung-Fu flicks and the like. There are only a small handful of people that "mistake" that for reality. The NRA pointed them out in the beginning.

To the point of those killers who used games such as Call of Duty to "hone their skills". Believe me, they had already decided to do the killing. Whether Call of Duty was available or not would not have made a difference. Do you really believe that killers actually sit down and say "well I can't practice on my X-Box so I'm going to call the whole thing off"?

Didn't think so.

So if anything, the NRA gets the gas face for the whole movies and video game theory it tried to walk out. Oddly none of the news reports I saw even addressed that fallacy.

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away ... or a minute away?

I made a similar argument not so long ago. It's the same argument I make in regards to rape prevention. Would you rather be a statistic or have a loved one become a statistic while claiming "he shouldn't have done it" or would you rather create a situation where he "cannot" even if he wanted to? I always suggest the latter. But some people apparently would rather leave themselves defenseless against an assailant rather than have an increased ability to protect themselves.

Now, I can imagine the shocking headlines you'll print tomorrow morning: "More guns," you'll claim, "are the NRA's answer to everything!" Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools.

Exactly what happened.

A gun in the hands of a soldier protecting the United States isn't a bad word. And when you hear the glass breaking in your 5 living room at 3 a.m. and call 911, you won't be able to pray hard enough for a gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you.

So why is the idea of a gun good when it's used to protect our President or our country or our police, but bad when it's used to protect our children in their schools?

Cannot even argue with this. Anyone who has had someone enter their home with ill intent has gone for a weapon (assuming they weren't immobilized in fear). And the NRA is absolutely right. We will defend our homes, with guns if available, but will not do the same in a place with our most "valuable" assets: Children? Yes. It is definitely a stupid double standard.

But what if, when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday, he had been confronted by qualified, armed security?

Will you at least admit it's possible that 26 innocent lives might have been spared? Is that so abhorrent to you that you would rather continue to risk the alternative?

I made the same argument. I asked the same question. Not a single one of the newscasters, Bloomberg or Christie, even addressed this question. The NY Times attempted to address it:

In the 62 mass-murder cases over 30 years examined recently by the magazine Mother Jones, not one was stopped by an armed civilian. We have known for many years that a sheriff’s deputy was at Columbine High School in 1999 and fired at one of the two killers while 11 of their 13 victims were still alive. He missed four times.

People like Mr. LaPierre want us to believe that civilians can be trained to use lethal force with cold precision in moments of fear and crisis. That requires a willful ignorance about the facts. Police officers know that firing a weapon is a huge risk; that’s why they avoid doing it. In August, New York City police officers opened fire on a gunman outside the Empire State Building. They killed him and wounded nine bystanders.

You'll note that Mother Jones completely neglected to discuss the Pearl Miss shooting where the gunman was stopped by an assistant principle who retrieved his gun from his vehicle and confronted the gunman. Think if that person did not have to go to his vehicle in the parking lot.

Also there are obvious questions to ask about the Mother Jones research. For example in the 62 mass murder cases over 30 years how many armed civilians were in the immediate vicinity of the event? Obviously an unarmed civilian population is incapable of using a gun to stop a would be mass shooter. So that argument is dead on it's face without further investigation. As to Mr. Lanza, let us think on the hypothetical that the administrators were all armed or there was a contingent of armed personnel on that campus. Adam Lanza broke into the building by breaking the glass. Let us assume that there would have been a set of security cameras that would have alerted someone to Lanza being at the door and armed. NO sooner had Lanza made his entry then he would have been confronted by at least one armed person. Lanza is likely dead at this point. All children alive.

Say Lanza gains entry and no armed person is on the scene. The person who noticed the break in could/would have tripped an alarm that warned all persons to lock doors, etc. Then armed personnel confront Lanza, Perhaps one or two of them are shot. But Lanza is stopped. No children are killed. The NYT tries to equate the Newtown situation with the recent shooting in midtown Manhattan. Two completely different situations. But of course the entire point of the comparison is to raise fear and doubt in an already fearful and doubtful population. Anyway, back to the NRA:

Is the press and political class here in Washington so consumed by fear and hatred of the NRA and America's gun owners that you're willing to accept a world where real resistance to evil monsters is a lone, unarmed school principal left to surrender her life to shield the children in her care? No one -- regardless of personal political prejudice -- has the right to impose that sacrifice.

Bulls eye. Just read that paragraph again. Let that sink in. Because ultimately that is what all the "gun control" talk is about now.

I remember that non-fiction movie "Lean On Me" where Morgan Freeman plays the no nonsense principle who walked the halls with his baseball bat. Oh how far we've fallen.

I won't get into the NRA's specific proposal in regards to volunteer and non-volunteers to guard schools. That is a matter of budget and policy beyond the abilities of the NRA. But what I think needs to be done by the public at large is to stop with the emotional, from the gut reactions to these things. Stop with the dumb politics. Until or unless every single gun in existence is destroyed, there will be someone with one.

Mexico has some of the toughest gun laws in this hemisphere. It has a huge murder problem. Guns are smuggled in via the US (so we are told). So clearly "law" is not the solution.

The oft carted out "western Europe has far less gun crime than the US" argument is nice on it's surface. It is not until you realize that western Europe has almost always had lower gun violence than America and western Europe has less violence period and that has been the case PRIOR to the current gun laws they have undercuts that argument.

If one does not like guns that's OK. Just say so and move along. Name calling and false arguments are totally unnecessary. Media outlets are fast losing credence with the public because facts are far easier to find with studies and the like easily accessible over the internet. I don't care for the Nanny State BS that the left is creating anymore than I like the wild free-for all that the right has been pushing. Being against the NRA or "The Right" does not make one's argument any more factual.