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Enlarge textThe National Rifle Association held its annual knees-up in St Louis last week.
Rick Santorum holds his daughter Isabella at a campaign rally in Somerset. (AAP)
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The National Rifle Association held its annual knees-up in St Louis last week.
The event was not just an opportunity to possibly discuss how awesome an AK-47 is (it’s cheap, it’s reliable, anyone can use it!) but also a chance for gun politics to have its say.
Among the speakers were former Fox News TV host Glenn Beck, who claimed without irony “the media is out of control and not a source for truth.”
Add the voice of NRA Executive Director Chris Cox who said, “Mr President, we’ll keep our money and our guns – you keep the change,” and you can detect a theme.
The President didn’t attend the NRA’s convention but it’s instructive that Republican candidates for the Presidential nomination did.
Even Rick Santorum, who has suspended his campaign, made a speech in which he announced he had signed up his daughter Bella for lifetime membership. Bella is three years old.
Not to be outdone, Newt Gingrich proposed that if he were President he would submit to the United Nations a treaty that would give EVERYONE ON EARTH the right to carry a gun. Guns are a right not just for Americans but for all mankind, according to Newt.
Mitt Romney, of course, showed up. He played the fear factor on the mostly white, conservative, older audience. According to Mitt, if Obama gets a second term, he’s going to take your guns away, so vote for me. It appears the NRA vote, hardly likely to endorse a Democrat anyway, is an important electoral bed. You want its members on your side.
It may come as no surprise, though, that Romney as Governor of Massachusetts supported strict gun control measures and once said he didn’t “line up” with the gun rights group. As with other issues, he changed his line as a Presidential candidate.
All this underlines that guns play a powerful role in American culture (excuse the pun), a phenomena that is often seen as bizarre outside the country’s borders. Part of that culture is built on some people having an unshakeable belief in the interpretation of personal freedom combined with a fear – a fear that someone, somewhere, sometime, will come to harm you.
Probably with a gun.
This year’s congress took place in the shadow of Trayvon Martin’s death at the trigger finger of gun-toting vigilante George Zimmerman. Many civic leaders – mayors, chiefs of police – are desperate for increased gun controls. Contrary to NRA fears, President Obama is not going to change the Constitution’s Second Amendment. But try telling that to convention attendees. See how long it takes for them to shoot down your argument.
Trayvon Martin’s death and the demographics of the NRA base make it tricky to navigate any gun rights debate without touching on race but Gary Younge, an insightful journalist with The Guardian and The Nation, reported the NRA declared what the organization quite clearly considers its “opposition”.
“One was Obama, one was Hilary [Clinton] sitting in front a U.N. flag, one was [U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder, and one was [Supreme Court Judge] Sonia Sotomayor.”
One white woman, one Latina, and two black men.
“This was a group of people looking at the future of this country and really not liking it. Not just what they are doing but who they are.”
Younge may be wrong and Glenn Beck may be accurate in his media analysis but some things are clear. The NRA’s fuel is fear and that continues to play big for it’s powerful membership and influential lobby. While America’s gun love continues to bemuse the rest of the world, it will not fade without a fight.
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Comments (9)
Lord
Guns and all weapons should be legal to carry by all humans regardless of rank or measure to argue otherwise is to encourage spite and evil into the world.
21 Apr 2012 15:16 AEST
From: Noosa Heads
Gun Ownership Is A Right.
Has been for ages in Australia. The problem people have is that they don't understand that crime and guns are not the same thing. It's crime that needs attention, not guns.
20 Apr 2012 14:50 AEST
From: Sydney
Oh really?
Mona - i offer you a stark but very real world choice: China - very tight gun control, communism, slavery America - limited gun control, capitalism, freedom. Freedom is messy - you need to accept some stuff you dont like for it to work. Socialists hate oppositon and love gun control so people dont have a voice. I have no time fo rpeople sho dont bother to study history and understand whats what. Under socialism and its love of gun control, as many people died after WWII as WWII
20 Apr 2012 3:46 AEST
From: Allen, TX, USA
Self-defense is THE most fundamental natural right
If you are attacked by a wild dog, are you allowed to defend yourself, perhaps killing the dog in the process? If you answered 'yes', then on what moral principle do you base your answer? All creatures have an innate impulse for self-preservation and that is at the heart of the natural right to self-defense. It is enshrined in Western legal codes which excuse homicide in the case of self-defense. Without the right to own weapons, the right to self-defense can't be exercised in many cases.
20 Apr 2012 3:37 AEST
From: Allen, TX, USA
Forget the identity politics
“One was Obama, one was Hilary [Clinton] sitting in front a U.N. flag, one was [U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder, and one was [Supreme Court Judge] Sonia Sotomayor.” One white woman, one Latina, and two black men. More importantly, 4 political liberals who are hostile to individual freedom. When one does not have a rational argument to make in America, one resorts to talk of race or sex. One of the greatest beneficiaries of private gun ownership were post civil war southern blacks.
20 Apr 2012 3:31 AEST
From: Allen, TX, USA
Regulate gun rights away
Obama is not going to change the Constitution’s Second AmendmentIt is very difficult to modify the Constitution so the strategy used to attack the second Amendment is always to incrementally negate it with a series of regulations designed to make gun ownership ever more difficult and expensive. That is the strategy that was used to eliminate private firearm ownership in both the UK and Australia. Similar efforts in the US have run into the political buzz saw that is the NRA.
20 Apr 2012 3:22 AEST
From: Allen, TX, USA
'Gunwalker' Gun Running to Mexico
The Obama admin has tried to justify restrictions on gun sales by claiming that the violence in Mexico is being fueled by gun running from the US to Mexico. In order to provide evidence to make this claim true, the admin set up a program called Gunwalker (google it) in which the US gov assisted Mexico drug cartels in buying and transporting guns from the US. It is a damning scandal for the Obama admin and a clear indication of how far it is willing to go to subvert the second amendment.
19 Apr 2012 21:23 AEST
From: Toronto
My wife and kids
They're going to invade. Maybe not this week, but it will happen. When they do; I don't want them near my wife or my daughter's house. I don't even want them in my city. I want them out. So... I will join up with the armed forces that are defending this great country. If we're strong enough, we might drive them back across the border where our neighbors can help us defeat them. If they beat us, and get past us; then I want my wife to have a gun, ammo, and good aim. What about your wife and kids?
18 Apr 2012 17:03 AEST
From: Australia
This is such a true article
Everything said is endemic in this nation of domestic warriors. "Guns play a powerful role in American culture" always have. Just a symptom of why the rest of the planet should be very afraid of americans, their gun culture permeates their foreign policies. At least arriving in Australia they have to leave their killing weapons at the airport. Gillard basking in Obamas sunshine is introducing 2500 marines in a new military base so may as well give every Aussie a gun as we are just a USA state.
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Matthew Hall presents a first-hand look at world events from a different angle. Follow @Matthew_Hall
Matthew Hall New York-based writer Matthew Hall has chased fugitives across Texas, been shot in outback Australia and has lunched with Liza Minnelli.
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