After every mass shooting, a steadily growing number of Americans—concerned, activated, enraged—ask the inevitable and necessary question: What can I do?
It's a good question, and two years ago, I posted a piece that offered advice to those who wanted to become part of the solution. You can find it here. It's still relevant. And I encourage you to contact one of these organizations; they have carefully laid out ways for you to help that will fit both your schedule and your level of commitment. We can't all be full-time activists, and the best organizations realize this.
My guess is that each one of you has wondered how our country has arrived at this particular place—more guns than citizens, more mass shootings per capita than any other developed country, more legislators opining about the horrific nature of these slaughters while piously claiming that now is not the time to discuss these senseless tragedies. The NRA and America have a long and complicated history—much too long for me to address in a blog posting—but there are two mini-histories, if you will, that are deeply relevant to our current problem with guns, and they're not complicated.
If you take the time to read these two pieces, you will understand the broad outlines of the two trends that have most shaped the problem that we now confront.
The first piece here was published just after the Las Vegas shooting, and it's titled, "The NRA Wasn't Always Against Gun Restrictions." You want to pay special attention to what happened to this organization in 1971, which is detailed in the section, "The Hardliners Took Over the NRA after an NRA Member Was Killed by Federal Agents."
The name to remember is Harlon Carter, a Texas lawyer who turned the NRA into a conservative, pro-gun, anti-immigration lobby.
And by the way, if you're a fan of the Drive-By Truckers, you'll want to have a look at this video of the band's single, "Ramon Casiano," that details the murder of Casiano by Carter. Carter is never mentioned by name, but it's a powerful send-up of the founder of the NRA's violent campaign, as well as the racism that powers it.
The second piece, "A Confirmed Decline in Hunter Participation Should Be a Call to Action for Sportsmen," tracks in effect the decline in sales of traditional hunting firearms. Faced with this declining revenue, arms manufacturers had to appeal to another demographic simply because Americans have been steadily losing interest in hunting and the firearms that traditionally accompany that sport.
The argument the gun-lobby made was fairly simple: you don't buy shotguns nowadays to shoot quail; you need military-style weapons to repel the hordes of heavily armed invaders that are currently planning to trample the borders of our country, our homes, our schools.
An essentially militaristic advertising campaign and the fear-baiting that provided its fuel—it struck home with many Americans, and the gun industry began to recover its losses.
So—a growing lack of interest in hunting, which led to a drop in traditional firearms revenue, corrected by an NRA that has become increasingly militaristic in its appeal to self-defense and closely aligned with the gun manufacturers whose bottom line they have made their number one priority.
And of course buying the politicians who will support their violent agenda—that too is a priority, and we have learned sadly that many of our legislators will simply work for the highest bidder. That is old news, but it is always tragic news.
In short, we're confronting an unholy alliance between the NRA and the new demographic they have spent over forty years creating to bolster a revenue problem. The gun-lobbies have a head-start, and they are very good at what they do, but reasonable solutions appeal to reasonable people, and I still believe that we are ultimately a reasonable nation.
We will prevail in this struggle because more and more Americans are becoming involved every day, and they are not giving up. Patience and commitment at a sustainable level are the keys to success.
Here in Arkansas, for example, Moms Demand has grown from a fledgling group of women in Little Rock to a broader-based organization that now has representation in many parts of our state, and they have accomplished this in only a couple of years.
And remember, the mid-term elections are coming. And voting is activism in its purest form.
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