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writing for godot

Backlash to NRA Rampage Reloads Gun Reform

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Written by Robert S. Becker   
Tuesday, 19 February 2013 19:03

LaPierre Should Stop Confusing Lying with Speaking

Here's the easy answer to three questions no one expected a year ago: "NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre."

1) Whose sleazy, million-dollar-a-year gun lobbyist perfectly reflects in tone and message our most predatory consumer industry (whose sales surge after school massacres)?

If raging NRA assaults are the gun makers' notion of good PR -- warding off political intrusion -- they're as loony as the terrified arms collectors they profitably equip. Hiring the NRA as industry lobbyist recalls W. pushing Colin Powell out to sell WMDs, and the backfire forces the impossible only last November: actual gun reform. The fiery recoil to LaPierre's shrillness, from children's safety to the looming (ethnic) apocalypse, fills this huge election void by focusing endless media crosshairs on violent gun surges.

2) What earsplitting shill has achieved a second, incredible threshold: to position garden-variety, rightwing obstructionists (from Boehner-McConnell to Romney-Ryan, plus every GOP Primary clown) on the normal side of derangement?

Few bulldoze the airwaves like LaPierre, slavish to my ex-favorite political hack's war cry: "Don't Retreat . . .Reload." Of course, the literate Sarah Palin spoke in metaphor, not so with the NRA. Beware talk radio goons, Wayne's nightmare vision trumps even your blithering! Sorry, West, Bachmann, and Steve King: your delusions are toast, crumbled by this walking, talking, self-caricature of the loudmouth, rabid gun nut.

3) Finally, whose farrago of fear-mongering undermines the "vast, rightwing conspiracy" meme, putting the lie to projections some reactionary cabal masterfully "runs the show," let alone can save the NRA-Good Old Tea Party from growing irrelevance?

Check out three months of rightwing triumphs. Building on its self-inflicted, credibility-busting election debacle, the goon squad top dogs misfire with crude, cliff-dwelling blackmail. And now, as Karl Rove splices his reactionary millions across party primaries, alienating every Tea Partier worth the tea, LaPierre blasts ahead with his house of horrors, pandering to the same extremism that unnerves Rove's billionaires. And throughout, GOP leaders let the bedlam play on, without restraining NRA rants. Oh my, if this is the party's notion of "rebranding," then "bring it on" as the exiled W. often croaked. What did spineless Democrats ever do to deserve such free blessings?

What, No Assault Ban Against the NRA?

The winter of LaPierre's discontent darkens, for the more operatic his fulminations, the weaker his apparent leverage to protect the gun status quo. The unintended NRA impact on "the gun debate" (undermining this still formidable wedge) mimics what nutcases Akin and Mourdock did to their wedge favorite: they shot the "abortion debate" in the head. Who dreamed the two most divisive, gaseous barrages on America would self-destruct, or the NRA would torpedo old-time GOP religion?

All in all, party-wide fiascos remind us that GOP self-immolation as the "stupid party" continues apace, even accelerates. "Extremism in the defense of stupidity is no virtue," I say, shredding the lobbyist's own outlandish lying. Testing limits of ridicule, Wayne's world proves that "Derangement in the defense of the gun culture is no virtue," as NRA rebel yells echo George Wallace on segregation: "Gunfire now, gunfire tomorrow, gunfire forever." Let us, nonetheless, correct LaPierre's worst deviations from reality.

Four Retorts to NRA Grotesqueries

1) In Wayne's world, weapon-laden "good guys" are the only defense against "bad guys with guns." This battle cry died an instant death, didn't it? First, wouldn't that mean arming every teacher in every classroom -- all the time disregarding that Columbine had armed guards ? Wouldn't that lock out our gentlest teachers, suitable for our youngest munchkins? Second, if unstable serial killers, quick to dramatize outrage by mowing down the most defenseless, upgrade their automatic weapons (to offset fully-armed teachers), imagine the terrifying subsequent bloodshed. Finally, consider the astronomical costs for security, in multiple billions: oh, that's outsourced to private mercenaries, right.

2) WL: "we need to look at the full range of mental health issues, from early detection treatment, to civil commitment laws, to privacy laws that needlessly prevent mental health records from being included from the national list." Sure, this will delight the hate-big-government gang. Let us note: 1) the mentally ill aren't any more prone to violence than "sane" gun owners; and 2) the right, from W. through defiance of the Affordable Care Act, vetoes mental illness funding, especially proactive "intrusions" on our freedom.

Oh, the contradictions. Oh, the irony. Oh, the nutcases in power. As if guns aren't hard enough to regulate, let's authorize state bureaucracies to detect, then commit, all with sacrosanct secrecy? More prisons? Oh yeah, the astronomical costs, in multiple billions: right, outsourced to private operatives.

3) WL on background checks: "Let's be honest. They will never be universal because criminals will never submit to them." And worse: [Obama] "wants to put every private, personal firearms transaction right under the thumb of the federal government. He wants to keep all of those names in a massive federal registry. There's only two reasons for a federal list on gun owners: to either tax "em or take "em."

So, government "sanity tests" are just fine, but jamming guns under the dire Obama "thumb," no, no, no. In fact, background checks cover a range of undesirables, not just criminals. "Let's be honest" rings especially hollow, from today's most undeniably dishonest talking head, nothing less than a "paid liar" (Lawrence O'Donnell).

4) WL's opposition to assault/automatic weapons bans, alleging the '94 law had "no impact on lowering crime," is cravenly baseless. Logic first: does cherry-picked data on an 18 year-old law warrant doing nothing? Fact: that law was undermined badly with loopholes and grandfathering. Any new assault ban law would do better. Politically, a huge majorities (including NRA members) support background checks plus banning clip-laden military-style arms.

Judging by public rejection, Wayne is 0 for 4 in the gun debate sweepstakes, immortalizing the LaPierre Backfire Effect (LBE). Republicans willfully ignore NRA excesses, as defenders are conspicuous by their absence. As Alternet headlines, "Tea Party Group 'Deeply Embarrassed' by Failure to Plan Pro-Gun Rallies." Overall, with mounting party blunders -- on abortion, tax giveaways, tickle-down nonsense, "safe" deregulation, immigration resistance, and now the tarnished glory of guns, will the right have any sane pitches by '14? "Rebranding' looks like maximizing GOP losses and, incredibly, digging bigger holes.

Palin Exiled as Top Fibber

Finally, LaPierre is now the poster child that really stupid lying boomerangs. As the Rove-Bush-Cheney-Rice conspiracy proved, lying is no simple art, whether enacting bad laws, installing primitives in top jobs, or redefining what "overseas debacle" means, as in Iraq. Thus, no political carnival barker today matches LaPierre ability to cloud public policy and make himself the issue, especially now that Palin is fading away quicker than melting ice caps.

LaPierre proves again that to be a serious national menace, you have to lie better, or avoid eminences like Paul Krugman (even Joe Scarborough) dismissing you as "insane." Let us distinguish blundering political hacks impaling themselves on their own bayonets from gifted demagogues, like mythomaniac Joe McCarthy, whose deceptions lasted longer and brought about more damage (well, maybe less actual bloodshed).

And since LaPierre sees his slash and burn tirades as insuring job security, one almost imagines him a plant, seeded by God to offset decades of divine miscues. Really, how else do you explain making a gun easier to take home than prescription drugs, tobacco, or alcohol? Months more of mortifying LaPierre face-time, and featherweights like Herman Cain or Donald Trump will be remembered as less noxious to our children's welfare. Now that's one legacy no spittle-covered, gun lobbyist will brag about to his grandchildren, assuming they all mercifully survive grammar school.

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