National Rifle Association is voice of unreason

Guns. They're big news again after a mass shooting at an Umpqua Community College in Oregon. "Somehow this has become routine," President Barack Obama said at a press conference last week. "The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We've become numb to this." News outlets around the country published a lot of statistics after the shooting. On Oct. 3, The New York Times detailed how 14 gunmen in recent mass shootings acquired their weapons. The executive summary: In at least eight of those cases, histories of mental illness and criminal activity did not impair their ability to legally purchase guns. A 2014 Washington Post excerpt from former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' book, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, was enthusiastically revived on social media. In the excerpt, Stevens argues that the Second Amendment was meant to ensure arms for military purposes so states could exercise local control. He also holds that for 200 years the accepted understanding has been that federal law could restrict private ownership of weapons not designed for personal use. That meant sawed-off shotguns in a 1939 Supreme Court decision and it meant assault weapons in the 1994 legislative ban supported by Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter that was signed by then-President Bill Clinton. The National Rifle Association opposed the ban, which was drafted after five children were killed and 34 children wounded in a school shooting in Stockton, California. The ban expired Sept. 13, 2004. Efforts to pass similar legislation in the wake of the December 2013 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, failed. As the Washington Post pointed out in 2013, Oklahoma City-based Ackerman McQueen has worked extensively on behalf of the NRA's call to arms for more than 30 years. Since the mass murder at Sandy Hook less than two years ago, there have been 74 school shootings in the United States. Since 1997 there have been 51 mass shootings in the United States in which at least four people were killed. In that time, there has been one in the United Kingdom, three in Germany, three in Switzerland, and none in Japan or Australia. The United States has more guns per capita by far than any other country. According to Bloomberg, Oklahoma ranks 19th among the states based on gun registrations. Other data, based on background checks, suggests Oklahoma could be 12th. The state ranks eighth in firearm death rate. Those facts are indisputable no matter one's political leaning. The U.S. has the most guns. It also has the most gun deaths. There is no argument to be made that more guns makes us safer; every piece of evidence, every bit of data ever collected proves that false. But that is an inconsequential point; Americans want to own guns despite the dangers. When I posted some of the data recently on Facebook, several of my friends who own guns answered with their fears that anyone who wants to limit access to weapons in any way has a broader agenda: to take away everyone's gun. There are those who would do just that, and you could kiss your hunting rifle and the 9mm in your nightstand goodbye. Similarly, there are those, backed by the NRA, who would eliminate all firearm restrictions. Extreme positions won't keep children from getting shot. No reasonable person wants to take away deer hunting season. No reasonable person thinks assault rifles should be available to anyone at any time. The NRA has become the unreasonable voice. Reasonable people must stop listening. Published: Fri, Oct 30, 2015