The G's ...

The G's ...

When I was a college columnist I would not write about the "G" issues of the day unless I had to. In short, I felt that columns about Gays, God, Guns, Gorbachev, and the Greek System were essentially wastes of ink that really only served to polarize the campus and bring in a lot of new letters to the editor.

In another post today I touched on the issue of Gay Rights.

I am about to break another of the "G" rules.

The NRA. Gun control will not be an issue in 08 despite the best efforts of the Republican Party. Democratic candidates are unlikely to talk about it, unlikely to get baited into it, and ultimately, they know it is an issue more likely to hurt them than to help them nationally. The Democratic nominee will not spend time on this issue. Frankly, it is an issue that doesn't seem to generate a lot of support any more other than philosophical support since it is so clear that general gun control measures simply cannot ever win in the federal courts.

The best way to lower the influence of the NRA is to take away their fundraising myth, that the government will ever confiscate their guns.

Even if gun control measures are passed and get through the courts without being overturned there will never be a day where the us is able to confiscate hundreds of millions of guns door to door. But, ... It makes good drama. It riles up the NRA rank and file. It brings in a lot of money. It gets people to vote against their economic interests in order to vote for something emotional. And, it will never happen.

I hear, "Don't ever say never." They will argue, "What about Stalin or Hitler?" (etc ...) First of all, in a time or place where there were no guns, perhaps it would be possible to keep them out of hands, but in a huge nation with a culture of guns in a significant portion of the population and the willingness to fight back against their government I will actually say it, it will never happen. The people who would be asked to go around and collect the guns are generally part of the gun owning culture. The order to confiscate the guns of this country is not an order that they would follow ...

This nation is too vast and the military operation necessary to facilitate gun confiscation make it so that it would never be accomplished.

In this nation prohibitionary laws routinely fail. There needs to be a general cultural agreement and a willingness to address the problem in question for a prohibitionary law to really take hold. Also, there needs to be a lack of resistance to the enforcement of the law or else the subject changes to civil rights and government power. If any of these things happen, then the law will ultimately fail to do what it is professing to do and it basically becomes a case of politicians looking like they are trying to do something they don't have an actual solution to. Since all politicians really know how to do these days is talk and not actually lead, we get more bad laws on the books that do nothing to solve actual problems.

Most gun control advocates acknowledge most laws they propose will be struck down, that they are trying to keep an awareness out there and to exhaust NRA resources in order to alleviate their influence. But, the best way to alleviate NRA influence is to ignore them. Don't let the myth of gun confiscation take hold and watch their fundraising decrease. Watch people vote on economic issues instead of emotional ones. The last thing the NRA ever wants to admit is that they are guaranteed to win in the courts in the big picture, because that will actually diminish their power ...

Also, I am not a fan of the NRA because I find their political approach distasteful, especially in the way they label gun control advocates. I shoot trap on occasion with my father. I have taken gun safety classes. My kids will take gun safety. I enjoy shooting. I don't think the Second Amendment is vague.

But, I am not the NRA.