The anti-gun bogeyman

Some of you may not believe me, but I used to think
the National Rifle Association occasionally — just
occasionally — exhibited a tinge — just a tinge — of
extremism and stridency.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always been a staunch
proponent of the 2nd Amendment, but I just didn’t
understand why the NRA seemed to resist even the
most minor restrictions on gun ownership. Who
was this bogeyman they feared?

Confession: I now have seen that bogeyman, and
he is real. My opinion — which changed many
years ago, but I’m just now getting around to
writing about it — is that it is not the NRA that is
extreme, but the anti-gun bogeyman. While we’re
at it, let me say that I intend to say “anti-gun,”
rather than gun control because I think it better
defines the bogeyman.

Oh, sure, sometimes NRA spokesmen such as
Wayne LaPierre may engage in inflammatory
rhetoric. Even the venerable gun-advocate Charlton
Heston admitted that. Moses was quick to add,
though, that aside from his tone, LaPierre was
correct in his assertion that President Clinton has
been lax in the enforcement of existing gun laws.

The NRA has been ahead of the curve in gauging
the bogeyman’s true intent. They have known that
his ultimate aim is complete private gun
confiscation. They have realized that the bogeyman
would not be satisfied with reasonable restrictions
and would use every incremental conquest against
gun rights as fuel to fight for more.

The bogeyman’s extremism is demonstrated on a
variety of fronts. He demonizes gun supporters as
backwater, paramilitary zealots who are a
hair-trigger away from armed revolt. He
characterizes as evil even the most innocuous and
uncontroversial gun-safety programs such as Eddie
Eagle, simply because they are sponsored by the
NRA. He shamelessly exploits gun tragedies, using
each as an opportunity to emasculate gun rights
further.

The bogeyman advocates ill-considered policies
such as gun buy-backs that make for great
photo-ops, but are ludicrous on their face. He
chooses to ignore repeated studies showing that
these buy-back programs have had no detectable
effect on violent crime or on firearm deaths. When
Congress fails to enact legislation to suit him, he
prevails upon his Constitution-circumventing
president to initiate lawsuits against gun
manufacturers to bully them into making
“voluntary” changes.

He often distorts statistics, such as the number of
children who die each day from gunshot wounds,
because the facts stubbornly undermine his cause.
In his monomania against the weapons themselves,
he apparently overlooks the number of lives saved
each year because of private gun ownership.

He is a selective advocate of the Bill of Rights,
treating the 2nd Amendment as a meaningless
aberration. He has convinced himself that the
framers intended to confer the right to bear arms
only on the militia and not the citizens proper. He
must have missed Phyllis Schlafly’s column citing
framers such as Samuel Adams: “The Constitution
shall never be construed … to prevent the people of
the United States who are peaceable citizens from
keeping their own arms.”

The New York Times reports that the bogeyman
(OK, the Times didn’t use that term, but chose “the
gun control movement”) has begun the most
ambitious campaign in its history to raise money,
recruit soldiers and build public support for
stronger gun laws in preparation for this fall’s
national elections. Lo and behold, whom might you
imagine he is looking to for inspiration in this
effort? The NRA, of course. According to the Times,
the bogeyman is actually copying the NRA’s
grass-roots model.

If you ever thought that it was the NRA that was
single-issue oriented, be advised that the bogeyman
is every bit as focused. In a recent Handgun
Control Inc. fund-raising letter, Sarah Brady wrote,
“My friend, if you and I truly want a safer America,
we cannot allow George W. Bush to be elected
president.” May I ask, “Safer for whom, Mrs.
Brady?”

When judging the NRA, don’t confuse their
vigilance for paranoia. We should all be so vigilant.
The NRA and the bogeyman may be employing
similar strategies but they are quite different in
substance. The difference is that the NRA wants to
protect your rights. The bogeyman wants your
weapons.