The other day it was with a kind of ghoulish fascination that I watched LaPierre speak about how the only way to deal with the gun violence is with more guns. My fascination lasted a few seconds and then I couldn’t stand any more. Any more than I can stand to watch a film with cardboard cut-out characters being badly acted, badly filmed and badly directed.
In the entertainment world it’s annoying. When it’s reality it’s a violation of everything in you that values what is good about humanity. That level of corruption of the soul is beyond description. Of course he was making a sales pitch. Horrifying that the NRA would use the Connecticut shooting to aggrandize themselves even more.
I don’t think LaPierre achieved what he was hoping to, though. 4.3 million Americans love their guns and want the right to own them and use them. Much bigger numbers are fixated with armed conflict and domination and military might in the movies, games and TV shows. But how many of them actually want it in their daily lives?
I suspect not that many, not enough to carry the NRA on a tidal wave that will wash over the whole of America and turn it into a military state, which is what LaPierre was promoting. What he really achieved was to expose the NRA leadership for what they are – rabid, gun fundamentalists who will stop at nothing to gain power. And make a buck.
The gun lobby has developed huge political clout in America. Gun manufacturers have had and are having a heyday, providing the stock for criminals, gangsters and drug lords within America and beyond its borders. As the violence has spread into what used to be safe areas, the NRA has insidiously spread its message of the right to bear arms.
As if it had nothing to do with the gun and arms manufacturing industry. Painting itself as an angel of deliverance when in fact it’s in bed with the devil incarnate. Grossly but expertly manipulating fear amongst people not noted for their ability to think particularly rationally. Keeping politicians in power who do their bidding.
Leaders who spearhead fundamentalism are social predators. They always understand how vulnerable their prey is, and where their weak spots are. With the accuracy of heat-seeking missiles they hone in on fears that are understandable and not completely unrealistic, like a parent needing to protect their child, and work them into paranoia.
They mix liberal doses of national pride with an historical passion for guns that probably has its roots in a highly romanticized Wild West and feed it to a middle class that is struggling to survive and fast losing a status quo that’s been their identity for generations. The internet and all media are wonderful tools to spread the diseased word.
The NRA has succeeded in its mission with some, and that’s frightening enough, but they’re out of touch with the majority of their membership. LaPierre and all the rabids who back him cooked their own goose when they used massacred children and teachers to market themselves. That’s so way over the line of decency that even passionate gun owners are disgusted.
It’s a scary world now, with so many psychopaths and twisted cults, so many guns and assault weapons in the hands of the violent and spiritually disabled. So much understanding of how to manipulate minds and so many different media outlets to do it with, a fertile and utterly uncontrollable internet. A resurgance of prejudice and fear.
But somehow, what is
noble in the human spirit always rises through the muck.
It’s the most remarkable thing.
