NRA Distorts History

In the United States, 4 out of 5 support background checks to be conducted in order to purchase a gun. The same number support limiting the sale of assault weapons. About 4 out of 5 Americans agree that gun registration is a reasonable law…and more surprisingly 3 out of 5 NRA members also agree. Amazingly, 7 out of 10 gun owners who are also NRA members agree with a) background checks should be required, and b) there should be at least a two day wait period between purchase and receiving the gun. Yet, politicians are not only slow to support such laws, but most are against such laws.


Watch this video Wayne LaPierre, the Executive Vice-Present of the NRA to understand one of the root causes why the United States lacks sensible gun control laws ranging from background checks to wait periods, from the size of clips to the type of guns, from secure storage to carrying guns.









Mr. LaPierre’s claim that he who has the gun has the power is a fundamental principle that existed from the beginning of the country is blatantly false. Over the last year, I have been reading works by the founding fathers and the Continental Congress that brought forth the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Revolutionary War was not what the founding fathers sought. Their letters to each other speak passionately against king, taxation and English abuses, but they sought a positive non-violent founding. Even after the war started they were looking for a non-violent separation. The war became inevitable. They were willing to fight for the freedom and progressively increased the size of the Continental Army only because the King kept increasing the size of his military.


If he who has the gun has the power was such driving concept, they why was it not included in the original constitution and found as a significant thread in the writings of the founding fathers. It is lacking as the founding fathers did not believe that he who has the gun should have control of either national, state or local governments. Their reluctance to maintain an army of any size was that exact fear, that he who will have the gun will have the control.


Instead the founders had the confidence the power of ideas, not the gun. They modeled and wrote at length about civil discourse. They worked for and wrote at length about the value of listening and compromising for the corporate good. Recognizing that the frontier and an agrarian society expanding into wilderness were fraught with various dangers, the second amendment was added. The amendment affirms the formation of local militias to protect their communities and counties, and affirms that militia (today’s National Guard) could keep their own guns at home. The militia was the means by which the country could maintain a limited sized military.


As long as men like LaPierre in their well practiced righteous anger misrepresent the nation’s history, distort gun control proposals and violent crime statistics, civil discourse with the NRA will be an uphill battle. In modern American politics, control does not rest with he who has the gun but with he who has the deepest pockets and is willing to directly and indirectly contribute to friendly politicians and use attack ads (including funding front groups) to insensately malign unfriendly politicians. The gun lobby and its NRA face are powerful because they have deep pockets and while sounding righteous, are happy to distort history and facts to misinform and defeat efforts at any controls, even laws that help prevent violence and keep guns out of the hands of criminals.