HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsins

A Better Target: the NRA

Enough with the blather about guns: automatic, semi-automatic, bump-stocks, rifles, shotguns…. It would stymie a medieval scholar, accustomed to Jesuitical distinctions. Whether a gun shoots 10 or 20 bullets in seconds only skews the discussion.

Ditto for the blather about the purchaser: teenager versus “adult,” presuming that the “age of consent” means the “age of reason” means the “age to play Vlad the destroyer.” And the blather about the mental acuity of purchasers reaches absurd levels, as though we can test everybody on-site, or pour through reams of records (from local police, FBI, armed services) on-site, or know beforehand that the sweet-faced Visa-armed purchaser is a Natural Born Killer. (To leapfrog over pesky background checks, the would-be Vlad can find a private seller on the internet).

Our president has added a new diversion to the discussion: armed deterrence, focusing on schools. Imagine: the first-grade teacher carries an automatic (an ordinary pistol would hardly suffice) in her pocket. If she leaves it in a locked cabinet, she couldn’t reach it in time. More to the point, savvy first-graders can probably unlock a gun cabinet more quickly than they clean up the mess from finger-painting.

As for armed guards, Parkland had one, who didn’t help. Crucially, today we focus on Parkland, but the United States has seen massacres in workplaces, movies, and dance-halls, as well as schools. Do we post armed guards everywhere? In many countries that is the norm: are we eager to emulate Nigeria or Guatemala?

Before the media rushes to another massacre, let’s focus on money – specifically, the money that the National Rifle Association pours into political coffers, the money that forces politicians to adopt absurd positions. Does anybody really believe in arming teachers? In creating bullet-proof schools? In Rhode Island, the governor and core legislators (bravo to them for what should be construed as minimal common sense, but in this climate emerges as bravery) proposed a Red Flag alert: if somebody warns the police that a specific person poses a threat, the police can take the person’s gun, at least temporarily. Already, aghast at any such Red Flag alert, some legislators are arguing “caution,” which translates to “no.”

The NRA warns, without cease, of the dangers to democracy if we “de-gun” our citizenry. They stretch the Second Amendment’s call for an armed militia to embrace the terrorists, the Natural Born Killers, and the Bonnie-and-Clyde wannabes standing in line, cash (or credit card) in hand, to buy nifty guns.

How about targeting not guns, but the NRA? Shutting off its spigot of lobbying dollars?

We cannot bar the NRA from pouring money into coffers – the First Amendment gives them freedom of speech. But we can shut off the power of their financial spigot.

First, we can elect officials who reject NRA dollars. Today NRA dollars translate into legislators’ votes. Not surprisingly, Congress and the legions of state legislators who accept NRA dollars have voted against any common-sense restrictions on guns, on purchase-sites, on purchasers. Let’s see how legislators not bound to the NRA vote. If all legislators reject NRA money, that money gives no one official an undue advantage. Crucially, a legislator who proclaims that s/he has rejected NRA money should gain votes. Legislators who reject NRA money may still support the public’s right to bear arms, but presumably they will accept reasonable restraints.

Second, we can use the power-of-the-pulpit (not the bully pulpit – this President has emerged as a lapdog of the last special interest who speaks to him, or whom he hears on Fox news) to make gun-money the new litmus test. Religious leaders have made abortion a litmus test for politicians; let’s make NRA money another litmus test. Legislators will be free to vote their conscience on guns; we’ll see whether, without NRA dollars skewing their consciences, they vote to arm school teachers, to reject Red Flag warnings, to continue to allow internet purchases.

Third, businesses can refuse to hold their conventions in gun-friendly states. Businesses refused to hold conventions in states that did not accept gay marriage. Let the NRA’s clout hurt local economies. (The sequelae of gun violence certainly devastates local economies.)

Finally, we adults can imitate the high school students who had the courage to force legislators to talk about ending future massacres. The legislators spouted the anodyne words of comfort, and “effort,” and “complicated” issues. The students pressed for action. To onlookers in many countries, the United States looks like the Wild West run amok: a place where truly anybody can play Vlad the Destroyer just about anywhere.

“Follow the money” is the political axiom. Let’s shut the NRA spigot, and see whether legislators re-think their slavish love affair with guns.

Joan Retsinas is a sociologist who writes about health care in Providence, R.I. Email retsinas@verizon.net.

From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2018

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