There are two main reasons that people often claim they require ownership of a firearm: 1) self-defense and 2) freedom comes from the barrel of the gun. I believe it was actually Mao who I am quoting in reason two. More simply put, people believe firearms protect from oppression.
Out of the two, I must confess there is a certain logic to number one. We are a geographically large nation with huge rural areas where people reside for whom a call to 911 is not likely to lead to good results. This is why there should be different laws for different places, and different people. The "one size fits all" model, which the NRA loves, ensures that our nation has guns everywhere. It is reason number one around which an authentic debate, and eventually more sane gun laws, will inevitably stem. The universal constant of change is not likely to allow the phony gun culture created out of whole cloth that resists every single sane attempt to prevent the carnage our nation witnesses to continue on this path of destruction.
Reason number two is worthy of only contempt. If you have read about Iraq and the fact that Saddam Hussein allowed Iraqis to own firearms (in fact, assault rifles like the infamous ak-47) and it did nothing to stop Hussein from murdering and terrorizing his own citizens, you should already realize this. And if you have read Bob Woodward's article on the tagging and tracking methods of the US Military, you are certainly aware that it would not take much to hunt down Americans here in the mainland US. Particularly when our massive domestic surveillance efforts have netted so much data on typical Americans already. I must confess that I find it humorous that the NRA and their ilk rant and rave about the draconian nature of a gun registration database, but seem completely unaware that their good friend George Bush already made short work of the kind of privacy that prevented the government from knowing who has guns anyway.
If you have never heard of Carnivore or it's newer version NarusInsight, then you probably aren't aware the government has the ability to "sniff" email traffic for emails that might be useful. This is not a conspiracy theory, it's public knowledge that the government has this capability. So if you ever mentioned you owned a gun in an email, it's game over already.
In answer to this argument, I always here the same rejoinder: "well, the military is going to side with us anyway..."
True or not, it simply does not dawn on the people making this argument that it shows precisely why guns don't protect Americans from tyranny. If the only thing protecting you from tyranny is Benedict Arnold, then you have a problem that guns won't fix.
But the point of this post is to describe what appears to me to be the dual purpose of the NRA fear-mongering. 1) it feeds American fears about violence perpetrated by criminals, and by creating and maintaining this fear, Americans will vote for the "law and order" candidates, who are quite often conservative and 2) feeds American fears about the oppressive, negro-run liberal commie/pinko gumnit which is determined to arm us all and enslave us.
Although democrats long ago sold out and became "tough on crime" clones of the Republicans, it's still a conservative mainstay. Liberals let bad guys out of jail and want take your guns. Conservatives will lock away bad guys and throw away the key, and let you make certain you have all the weapons you need. If you live in fear, who are you going to vote for? By substituting a fantasy solution to a fantasy problem, they are able to hold onto a big chunk of voting power and push other conservative policies.
It is this strain of conspiracism that generates a large amount of support for conservatives. So while they publicly denounce terrorism and rebellion, the advocate sedition out of the other side of their mouth, and preach treacherous and traitorous poison at every turn.
"It is very effective to mobilize mass support against a scapegoated enemy by claiming that the enemy is part of a vast insidious conspiracy against the common good. The conspiracist worldview sees secret plots by tiny cabals of evildoers as the major motor powering important historical events; makes irrational leaps of logic in analyzing factual evidence in order to "prove" connections, blames social conflicts on demonized scapegoats, and constructs a closed metaphysical worldview that is highly resistant to criticism.~1"-Public eye
Tim McVeigh was the most notorious conspiracist activist, murdering people at the Oklahoma Federal building in the aftermath of the botched ATF raid in Waco Texas that left cult leader David Koresh and his followers dead.
Yet modernly, there are no shortage of so-called Americans, who have no problem at all advocating outright treason.
So while the NRA claim to be mainstream, normal, guys, they are nothing of the sort. The NRA's belligerent, bellicose threats show that they believe the only way obtain freedom is to impose their will upon others by force of arms, and THAT is the cornerstone of our democracy.
Ask this simple questions to the pro-gun crazies. If the US people voted for a gun ban, would you respect that or would you engage in armed, open rebellion? If the answer is rebellion, then you can see it is not democracy that they really respect. In fact, you don't even get the concept. It is not surprising at all that conservative Americans don't understand that imposing your will upon others by force of arms is not the cornerstone of democracy. And after all, if the pen wasn't mightier than the sword, why would we be subjected to so much of their nonsense?
Only the fool, while milking the cow, denies the existence of the cow.
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