Gun Control Part 1

I know, I know right after I said I didn't want confrontation, but this one gets my blood up. To avoid too lengthy a screed I am going to do installments on this topic, with no particular order or emphasis.

Why does the NRA continue to have any influence or power? To wit: 

- they no longer represent the interests of their membership. A large majority - in many cases over 80% - of NRA members agree with many of the proposals set forth by President Obama, but the NRA execs continue to be outraged by his ridiculous and extreme ideas. In testimony before a Senate committee recently, LaPierre was physically discomfited by questions regarding his continuing opposition to closing the so-called gun show loophole. Couldn't or wouldn't defend his, the NRA's, position. Ninety-two per cent - 92!! - of Americans and 85% of NRA members agree that there should be universal background checks, but the spokesman for the NRA says no - or tries not to.

CBS Poll

(As a topical aside, this might be the definition of no-brainer. Background checks are used to prevent convicted criminals and the mentally ill, among others, from purchasing firearms. Seems sensible, right? But around 40% of guns purchased in this country are purchased privately, read gun shows, where . . . wait for it . . . there are no background checks. So is it a surprise that everybody thinks that should change? No-brainer.)

- they set a new standard for political impotence during the 2012 election cycle. Less than 1% of the money they spent actually achieved the desired result. People they backed lost, people they condemned won, the policies they desperately wanted - and spent handsomely to get - still do not exist.

NRA Ineffective

- people aligned with them or supported by them are starting, finally, not to care. When called to task for their adherence to the extreme gun lobby, public figures who had always lined up with - or bowed to pressure from - the NRA are now cutting ties.

My answer to the question I posed above is: they don't. As a political entity they are an extremist fringe group whose time has passed. Let's put them in the same file as the Flat Earth Society and move on.

Disclaimers and warning labels

You see disclaimers in various places where a higher power doesn't want something an underling says or does to blow back, like before the director's commentary on a DVD. The studio doesn't want to be called to task if their director says something dumb, so they give the blanket "those are only his opinions, not ours, please don't be mad at us if he offends you" blurb.

But in this case while I will try very hard to give credit, cite sources, list references, etc, I will have no one to blame but myself for any opinions expressed. Thus the warnings in case you want to just stop reading based on what you think I am bound to say.

The supposition is that if you are reading this, you know me, but even if that is true, you may not know all of this, and I don't want anyone to have any of my views or stances come as a shock. While this isn't about confrontation - I hope! - I do plan to rant and rave and spew and generally raise hell on occasion, so heads up:

- I am an atheist and becoming more vocal about it every day

- I am a liberal and will go into politics

- I am a smart-ass 

- I am long-winded

- I crack myself up

There, you've been warned.

Here goes . . .

I have been thinking about, threatening, procrastinating about having a blog and finally am giving it a shot. Why now?

- having time on my hands (thank you Vassar for sabbatical) might make it easier to get in the habit
- there is a ton of stuff going on in the world
- I need to stop sending really long e-mails to my team
- I grow increasingly frustrated with Facebook and the sheer mass of nothing that it produces
- why not now?

"What better place than here? What better time than now?" - Rage Against the Machine

I really don't know where this might take me, and kind of like that about it. But it does presuppose a few things that may or may not be true or even valid. 

First, that I have something to say or that what I want to say has value. Well. I am never short of opinion and while it has no more weight or import than anyone else's, when I see and hear some of the opinions that are offered up in other media, I am encouraged to proceed. 

Second, that anyone will care. But who cares? Or maybe I should say I don't care.I will probably ending up addressing some stuff to my theoretical readers, but the truth of it is that it really isn't for that reader - if there are any - but for me. I like to think and I like to write and this lets me do both. And if anybody wants to read it, well far out. There is an argument that good writing has to be written for an audience, but that sounds like a topic for a future post.

Third, that is not just a self-serving exercise fraught with ego and bs. Well maybe it is, but you're the one reading it. 

I hope it will be random, fun, thoughtful, silly, provocative and other adjectives as well.

Here goes.