Amidst the celebratory spirit of last week’s column, I
offered my view of the world outside my year of personal bliss with three
observations, one of which was:
In the year since Saturday, March 9th, 2013…
George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering Trayvon
Martin thus granting the National Rifle Association and GOP/Conservatives a
sense of political, legal and moral accomplishment.
That observation brought forth the following response from a
reader and longtime friend:
“You should be ashamed
of yourself for falsely asserting that the NRA gained "a sense of
political, legal and moral accomplishment" in the George Zimmerman
verdict. It is unworthy of you. The NRA took no position whatsoever on the
Zimmerman case. It did, and does continue, to support the right of Americans to
armed self-defense. But it was very careful never to characterize Zimmerman’s
shooting of Martin as being lawful self-defense, nor a falling under the
protections of Florida law. It consistently reported that that was a matter for
Florida courts to decide. However, the anti-gun press took every possible
opportunity to try to tie the NRA to the case. Somehow, every shooting becomes
the fault of the NRA. I wonder why every criminal misuse of an automobile isn't
blamed on the American Automobile Association.
Anyway, I am disappointed in your sloppiness here.”
My friend was right to be critical of my “sloppiness” in not
having researched the NRA’s official position on the significance of the
Zimmerman case, but his comparison of guns to automobiles was a counter
error. Automobiles, unlike guns, are
designed to enhance the conveniences of life rather than for the destruction of
life. It can also be argued that guns,
for a long time in human history, were the chief instrument for the
preservation and even the nourishment of human life on a day-to-day basis. Still, my friend’s point that gun ownership
and the activities of the National Rifle Association have both become
politicized is both valid and accurate.
Hence, my observation about the NRA last week in addition to
being “sloppy” was very, very political.
Had I not included the NRA in my argument and pointed the finger only at
conservatives, or most conservatives, I might well have escaped my friend’s
wrath. My recklessness, the constant
bane of those of us who are budding columnists, was a purely petulant reaction
to an ongoing peeve of mine.
My objection to those opposed to gun control isn’t due to my
hatred of guns; I don’t hate guns any more than I hate people. I agree with those who insist that “people,
not guns, kill people.” However, the
insistence on the part of most conservatives and many gun rights advocates that
progressive or liberal government policies is a legitimate cause to bear arms
constitutes, as I see it, little more than political hysterics.
Insofar as I’m aware, gun control wasn’t a national issue
during any presidential campaign before 1968.
Its chief advocate was Lyndon Baines Johnson who personally owned a
number of guns. In the wake of the
assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., Americans began asking themselves: “If automobiles, alcohol, food
production, medical and legal services, educational and building construction
standards, air travel, and pollution levels ought to be regulated for the
benefit of the people’s safety, why shouldn’t guns be regulated?” With that perfectly logical question, the
political fat was in the fire!
One of the hazards of political advocacy in 21st
Century America is the right of those with darker and even ulterior motives to
attach themselves to legitimate and laudable causes. Thus American liberalism is invariably linked
to socialism and socialists to communists.
American conservatism is linked to fascism and the Ku Klux Klan. Thus President Obama, who is at most a
moderate liberal or progressive, is cast as a socialist or even as a communist
when he isn’t being accused of being a Muslim.
President George W. Bush was invariably linked to Nazism and Fascism by
many opponents of the second Iraqi war.
The NRA is a legitimate organization made up of mostly well-intentioned
American citizens. However, it is both a
political and lobbying group. As I see
it, its primary purpose is business, but its business is primarily pressure politics. The right to bear arms and to be protected
against tyranny is merely secondary to its ultimate purpose which is to keep
the sale of firearms as free from government regulation as possible. It is no more or less patriotic than the ACLU
or, for that matter, than liberal causes such as the AFL or the NAACP.
In his latest message to me, my friend and critic asserted
that I was entitled to my own opinions but not to my own facts. He draws a distinction between his support or
advocacy of a right and any accountability for the ways in which people
invariably use and/or abuse such rights.
Endowed with both a brilliant mind and a powerful intellect, my friend,
more than most people I know, has a capacity to compartmentalize cause and
effect, applicability versus theory, better than most. Thus, he sets a high standard for thought and
theoretical analysis from which I’ve tried to benefit over the past twenty
years.
However, unfortunate as it may be, neither he nor I can
escape another painful modern American truth or reality – take your pick. It’s all about politics which, in most
debates, inevitably trumps patriotism or even principle!
As for my journalistic error, only one word applies – oops!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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