Shoot for the Moon: If You Miss, You Need a Better Gun
Shoot for the Moon: if You miss, You Need a Better Gun
“We stand at the edge of an Obama cliff” says NRA CEO and EVP, Wayne LaPierre on the NRA’s website (www.nra.org). LaPierre endorses the Romney-Ryan team this election, and a look further into this reveals why. On the NRA’s website, there’s a link to an article called “Six Big Reasons Gun Owners Should Vote Like Rights Are At Stake”. The article delves into denunciations of Obama’s supposedly strong anti-gun policies. “From 1994 until 2002 he served along with Bill Ayres and his current senior advisor Valery Jarrett on the 10-member board of the radically anti-gun Joyce Foundation in Chicago. Between 1998 and 2001 the organization contributed $18,326,183 in grants to anti-Second Amendment causes” (1). Let’s see, has Obama really taken away our gun rights? Any reasonable American would say no, and that’s because he has not. Americans can still purchase the same types of guns, and the rate at which they’re doing so is eye-opening. Take Ruger firearms for example. Ruger set out to sell 1 million guns between the 2011-2012 year that the NRA held conferences; donating $1 to the NRA for every gun sold. From April/1/11 to March/31/12, Ruger sold 1,253,700 guns (2). Moving on to Remington, America’s oldest gun maker. In 2004 the company had revenues of “approximately $393 million”; and their ammunition and firearms are sold all over “the U.S. and in over 55 foreign countries” (3).
A big reason why America doesn’t seem to be making much progress in gun control is our tendency to fight fire with fire. As Bill Moyers reports:
“Nonetheless, we have become so gun loving, so blasé about home-grown violence that in my lifetime alone, far more Americans have been casualties of domestic gunfire than have died in all our wars combined. In Arizona last year, just days after the Gabby Giffords shooting, sales of the weapon used in the slaughter – a 9-millimeter Glock semi-automatic pistol – doubled” (4).
This isn’t an isolated case either. The tragedy in Aurora, Colorado experienced a similar situation:
“Background checks for people wanting to buy guns in Colorado jumped more than 41 percent after Friday morning's shooting at an Aurora movie theater, and firearms instructors say they're also seeing increased interest in the training required for a concealed-carry permit” (5).
There is no real justification behind running to the nearest firearms dealer after a shooting tragedy. One may claim that their gun rights will be taken away because of what happened, but maybe they should at least be limited. It is wise to try to apply the motto of thinking twice and acting once to the gun issue. What media, friends, politicians and interest groups tell us shouldn’t have total control over our actions. We alone are ultimately responsible for our behavior and blaming others for our actions or inactions have proven time and again to lead to violence. If one takes nothing away from this article at least consider this: how free are we really if our actions are influenced by others whose job it is to promote a given cause regardless of the outcome?
Sources
1. http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml
2.http://ruger.com/micros/million/results.php
3. http://remington.com/en/pages/our-company/our-company.aspx
4. http://billmoyers.com/segment/bill-moyers-essay-living-under-the-gun/
5. Aurora theater shooting: Gun sales up since tragedy - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_21142159/gun-sales-up-since-tragedy#ixzz29r1JtUGd
“We stand at the edge of an Obama cliff” says NRA CEO and EVP, Wayne LaPierre on the NRA’s website (www.nra.org). LaPierre endorses the Romney-Ryan team this election, and a look further into this reveals why. On the NRA’s website, there’s a link to an article called “Six Big Reasons Gun Owners Should Vote Like Rights Are At Stake”. The article delves into denunciations of Obama’s supposedly strong anti-gun policies. “From 1994 until 2002 he served along with Bill Ayres and his current senior advisor Valery Jarrett on the 10-member board of the radically anti-gun Joyce Foundation in Chicago. Between 1998 and 2001 the organization contributed $18,326,183 in grants to anti-Second Amendment causes” (1). Let’s see, has Obama really taken away our gun rights? Any reasonable American would say no, and that’s because he has not. Americans can still purchase the same types of guns, and the rate at which they’re doing so is eye-opening. Take Ruger firearms for example. Ruger set out to sell 1 million guns between the 2011-2012 year that the NRA held conferences; donating $1 to the NRA for every gun sold. From April/1/11 to March/31/12, Ruger sold 1,253,700 guns (2). Moving on to Remington, America’s oldest gun maker. In 2004 the company had revenues of “approximately $393 million”; and their ammunition and firearms are sold all over “the U.S. and in over 55 foreign countries” (3).
A big reason why America doesn’t seem to be making much progress in gun control is our tendency to fight fire with fire. As Bill Moyers reports:
“Nonetheless, we have become so gun loving, so blasé about home-grown violence that in my lifetime alone, far more Americans have been casualties of domestic gunfire than have died in all our wars combined. In Arizona last year, just days after the Gabby Giffords shooting, sales of the weapon used in the slaughter – a 9-millimeter Glock semi-automatic pistol – doubled” (4).
This isn’t an isolated case either. The tragedy in Aurora, Colorado experienced a similar situation:
“Background checks for people wanting to buy guns in Colorado jumped more than 41 percent after Friday morning's shooting at an Aurora movie theater, and firearms instructors say they're also seeing increased interest in the training required for a concealed-carry permit” (5).
There is no real justification behind running to the nearest firearms dealer after a shooting tragedy. One may claim that their gun rights will be taken away because of what happened, but maybe they should at least be limited. It is wise to try to apply the motto of thinking twice and acting once to the gun issue. What media, friends, politicians and interest groups tell us shouldn’t have total control over our actions. We alone are ultimately responsible for our behavior and blaming others for our actions or inactions have proven time and again to lead to violence. If one takes nothing away from this article at least consider this: how free are we really if our actions are influenced by others whose job it is to promote a given cause regardless of the outcome?
Sources
1. http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml
2.http://ruger.com/micros/million/results.php
3. http://remington.com/en/pages/our-company/our-company.aspx
4. http://billmoyers.com/segment/bill-moyers-essay-living-under-the-gun/
5. Aurora theater shooting: Gun sales up since tragedy - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_21142159/gun-sales-up-since-tragedy#ixzz29r1JtUGd
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