Herrington: Operation Peace of Mind

I think that part of the issue with the “gun control controversy” is the way the NRA has made themselves look over the years, even though they have made great strides of late to soften their image. Still, they could use a little damage control and an image make-over.

In light of the various shootings, the major knee jerk reaction from the Second Amendment crowd has been to clutch their guns and promise a fire storming militia to deal with any would-be killers. If everyone were strapping a Glock, then we would be able to drop these lone, insane gunman right on the spot with no judge or jury necessary. Being a gun owner, who is a proud member of the NRA, necessarily makes one an expert in jurisprudence: He was guilty, so I shot him, case closed, and I saved the expense of a trial.

I can actually hear many of you saying, “Hell, yeah!”

Heston made them sound like they were in the wild west, toting guns and making the law as they walked. The idea that a man is right just because he is holding a gun is absurd, although I felt perfectly safe with Dirty Harry in the room. Many times the idea that I got from watching pro-gun meetings was that they were one match away from a mob. I do not want to fear my neighbors because of their owning guns.

I should not have to fear others because of the choices they make in their own freedom. As it is, to me, some people are walking around with what might as well be an operating chainsaw. If you need to give up your freedom to keep him, the potential lone nut job with a gun, from owning a weapon, the person who needs to deal with that is YOU, not me. “I can’t help what others do” is not an attitude that lends my support to your cause. How do we get passed this? Tough for me? Free for you? Maybe I fight it until you help me, then we are on the same team.

So, let me pass back the rhetoric so that you can hear it from the other side, a problem that we have here in America in general, not listening. If someone might come after you, then you can protect yourself with a gun, right? And now you are prepared! But someone might be a little less cautious, and having greater access to guns gives him the gun with which to go berserk. Well, you can’t help what people do; they might go crazy and stab you with a pencil, so are you going to take up all the pencils? (Here I can see on his face the tongue-in-cheek satisfaction in his having rhetorically checkmated me). Would this be a 50 cal pencil where he can smooth blow me away at 1800 yards?

We might all agree that there is a safety concern, for example, at what point is the collection of a family arsenal too much for someone to guarantee the personal safety of a neighborhood if a single family dwelling owns, let’s say, 10,000 guns? Should THAT be a concern for near neighbors? C4? A tank? ICBM? Neutron bomb bought at Army Surplus? The thing is that I will hear people say, “Cool, I want a neutron bomb!” And that is no comfort.

So, to me, this is a public image problem, a damage control issue. The NRA does not seem to have done enough to assuage the fears of those of us who do not tote a Desert Eagle everywhere we go. Now, maybe that is the point. Just wearing a jacket that has the NRA logo on it is a enough to make others walk around you. “I strike fear in the hearts of everyone who sees me!”

I find that a little sad really. In God we trust, except not really. Yes, there are criminals. And, yes, they have guns. But the attitude that you have the God given right to go around striking fear in the hearts of everyone you meet just to assuage your paranoia that you might be attacked does not make me feel at all safe either.

The military has done an excellent PR job of showing soldiers who are armed to the teeth bending over and compassionately dealing with small children, even while wearing every personal weapon a single human being is capable of, a man on the job of soothing the ills of humanity all while strapped to the wall in explosive fire power. The NRA still looks like Billy the Kid. Perceptions are powerful. It’s YOUR image.

Showing a little lady with her pink pistol blowing a human silhouette target away in a 7 shot spray at 50 feet in close group burst is not going to make me feel safer. You’re scaring the hell out of your fellow citizens. And that is not reassuring. “Lethal” is a word that gets my attention. “Peace” is a word that overrides the word “lethal.” Work with that. Operation Peace of Mind?

runningturtle87