BY ELAINE MAGLIARO
Ana Marie Cox wrote a couple of articles about the NRA for The Guardian in late April—at the time of the organization’s annual convention in Indianapolis. Cox said that the NRA “doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about solutions to inner-city gun violence…” She said that’s because it’s “too busy using it to scare people into thinking they need guns.” She added, “To the extent they pose a strategy for ending it, the refrain is simple: ‘enforce existing laws’”.
Cox reported that during his convention speech, Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, “exhorted the crowd “to a morally obligated vigilantism.” She said that LaPierre drew a vivid picture for the attendees present “of a United States in utter decay and fragmented beyond repair, Mad Max-meets-Hunger Games, divided by Soylent Green.”
LaPierre:
We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and car-jackers and knock-out gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping-mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all.
NRA’s Wayne LaPierre ‘We’re On Our Own’
Cox continued by saying that LaPierre’s vision was a bleak one and was “exaggerated dystopianism in service of sedition…”
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore said that the NRA “is stoking the fires of paranoia and fear in order to pass legislation, sell more guns and make more money.” He added that all one has to do is to listen “to the apocalyptic, conspiratorial speech made by the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre to get so scared you probably will rush right out and buy a couple AR-15s.”
Cliff Schecter (The Daily Beast) wrote about what he saw at the 2014 National Rifle Association Convention after walking through the halls at the Indianapolis Convention Center. He said he witnessed the “modern NRA laid bare”—which was “the inevitable result of its chosen path, to go all in with arms dealers looking to sell ever more exotic military weaponry as their market has shrunk with the decline of hunting in a more urban and suburban America. As long as Sig Sauer and Remington and Winchester are profiting, there can be no gun too lethal, no weapon too powerful, no shooting tragic enough for the NRA to alter course.” He added that the NRA had embraced its new mission “to militarize the streets of America with zeal, scaring the bejesus out of its most faithful adherents with ghost stories about preparing for the breakdown of civilization, to destroy any faith they might have in our democracy or our first responders. You’re all alone, in their telling. Just you and the one thing that’s always faithful: your gun.”
NRA Hypnosis: Guns, Sweet Guns!
SOURCES
NRA Hypnosis (Mark Fiore)
Preparing for War in Indianapolis: Inside the NRA Plot to Terrify America (The Daily Beast
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
Did you know that citizens have no right to police protection unless they are public officials?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales
That’s not exactly what those two cases say.
Warren says that absent a special relationship to the police, the duty of protection owed is to the general public and not a specific duty owed individuals creating an enforceable interest.
Castle Rock distinguished that an RO is a process and that process – not being property – is not protected by the Due Process Clause.
The result in part is that some (but not all) public officials might have a right to individual police protection (for example a DA receiving credible death threats for doing their job), but a general duty is owed to the public.
So why should any means of self-defense be outlawed for all but the wealthy and politically connected?
A few fun facts:
Data collected by the Injury Prevention Journal, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the General Social Survey and population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, found that the number of U.S. households with guns has declined, but current gun owners are gathering more guns.
A 2007 survey by the U.N’s Office on Drugs and Crime found that the United States, which has 5% of the world’s population, owns 50% of the world’s guns.
The number of households owning guns has declined from almost 50% in 1973 to just over 32% in 2010, according to a 2011 study produced by The University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. The number of gun owners has gone down almost 10% over the same period, the report found
The concentration comes, in part, because guns are “marketed by and large to people who already own guns,” Lizotte said.
He also said that guns are specialty items, like tools in a tool box, so those who own guns are more likely to buy additional guns for different hunting purposes, for instance.
“If you use a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot a rabbit, the rabbit won’t exist after you shoot it,” Lizotte said. Therefore a gun owner who is a hunter will use a different gun for different types of hunting, for instance a small-caliber rifle instead of a high-powered shotgun.
Both studies also found that men were more likely to own guns, though the General Social Survey found that male gun ownership is down almost 20% since 1980. The Violence Policy Center’s analysis of the General Social Survey data also found that part of the reason the gun owning population is declining is because those weapons are largely owned by white males, a group whose population is aging.
(Sources listed within the text)
“Militarizing the streets of America” is a marketing tool … gotta give the gun lovers something new to love as the customer base is limited and steadily reducing in numbers.
GSP,
What Gene is saying is that those cases don’t give blanket permission for the police to provide you with a body guard except in extraordinary circumstances. Most communities have safe houses for battered women and abused children; but the resources are simply not there to provide individual protection to civilians in all but extraordinary circumstances. For example, if you are taking a large bank deposit from your business after dark, and your route takes you through a high-risk area, then most police departments will provide an escort to and from your vehicle if they have available resources. The rulings do not say you cannot protect yourself, because you can. Having said that, I don’t think it is a good idea to pack a firearm just to be carrying it, permit or not. We have seen on this and other legal blogs there are too many ways that can turn out badly.
I have other ways besides a firearm to defend myself, none of which require a permit, yet are pretty ugly if a bad guy wants to start something. For example. I have a Streamlight Stinger tactical flashlight in a belt holster. It has an LED bulb that puts out 24,000 candlepower, and also strobes. Directly in the eyes, it is like looking at the sun. I can carry it on my belt, in the map pocket of the car, or even in my pants pocket. Many businesses and banks have warning signs on the door; no guns and no pepper spray. There is nothing about flashlights.
Over the counter pepper spray at sporting goods stores is rated at 200,000 Scoville Units. I like combat grade OC at 5,300,000 Scoville Units.
My friend Jim Foreman is both creative and funny. He lives in Texas.
“So why should any means of self-defense be outlawed for all but the wealthy and politically connected?”
It isn’t.
The specifics of what constitutes self-defense varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but it is allowed as a matter of course and relies (generally) on a reasonableness standard. If you can demonstrate that your self-defense actions were generally 1) reasonable under the circumstances and 2) proportionate, you are going to meet the threshold requirements for that affirmative defense in most jurisdictions.
The key error you’re making is the word “any”. Killing an intruder via a spring gun trap is prohibited by statute in most (if not all) states by some form of anti-booby trapping laws (setting such traps usually being a crime in itself). Self-defense applies usually only applies to the reasonable defense of self, others or property, but the use of lethal self-defense would generally only apply to persons, not property.
And what Dr. Stanley said.
gsp: The word “any” caught my attention, too. People shouldn’t be allowed to carry around suitcase nukes because they fear mob attacks. Same goes for military assault rifles with high capacity magazines, in my opinion.
No doubt you won’t agree, but the most virulent Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, allowed that some type of gun regulation may be considered reasonable to ensure public safety (he just hasn’t seen one yet).