Have you ever noticed how phone solicitors always seem to call when you are home? It’s almost as if they are watching the house. So I walk in the door, lay my keys down on the table and the phone rings.
I’ve pretty much gotten into the habit of checking caller ID and not answering numbers that are either blocked or outside of our area code, but when you have just walked through the door, you act on instinct so without thinking I picked up the phone.
“Uh, Mr. Sheeeveuo?” came the extremely southern accent on the line. Crap, I thought, they got me! I immediately put on my gruff, one word answer, gotta go kind of voice.
“Yea, what do you want?” I figure if they can’t even pronounce my name, I don’t have to be nice to them.
“I’m Joe Bob from the NRA and we’d like to get your opinion.” “Oh boy,” I thought is this guy is going to be sorry he called and why do folks from the south always have to use two first names?
“What do you think is the greatest threat to our Second Amendment rights today? Obama’s executive gun orders, the UN’s international gun treaty or Mayor Bloomberg?”
Now I’m sure that Bloomberg is thrilled that his name even gets mentioned with the president and the United Nations but I thought it was impressive that the NRA considers him such a threat. I thought everybody knew his game was just a lot of noise.
“Actually,” I started, “None of the above. The biggest threat to our Second Amendment rights today is the NRA’s unwillingness to recognize that there can be reasonable rules regarding gun ownership and to compromise in those areas. By not agreeing to close the gun show loophole and to require that background checks stop those with mental illness from owning firearms, Mr. LaPierre has hurt the credibility of our organization and its members and made us look like fanatics.”
So I waited for his reply. After a few moments of silence he finally says, “Well those people know more about this stuff than I do. Aren’t you an NRA member?”
So I explained to him that I was in fact a member and that I have concealed carry permits from three states and that I regularly carry a weapon (of course only when I am not in the Peoples Republic of New Jersey).
What I find most disturbing was his response that the folks running the NRA know more than he does, like there is some secret information that they know that we don’t.
Amazingly, polls show that the majority of NRA members are in favor of reasonable background checks. We are not, however, in favor of disarming honest citizens and leaving them defenseless against criminals who will carry weapons regardless of what the law says.
It’s time for the NRA to wake up and realize that they should be representing the views of the majority of their members as opposed to taking these fanatical positions.
The only fanatics out there should be the folks living under the false premise that by outlawing guns we can in any way reduce gun violence. Remember that criminals not only don’t care about gun exclusion zones, they exploit them knowing that honest citizens will be unable to defend themselves in those areas.
I wonder if I’ll end up on the NRA’s Do Not Call list now.
