Guns have a long history with the USA. This country was established because Colonists owned hunting guns and used them to declare their freedom, liberty from an English King and set up a democracy of, by and for the people. There was no formal military when the USA became a sovereign nation.
The acceptance of guns in the USA throughout it's history have been with the idea they are benevolent. For a better part of it's history long guns have been the majority of ownership. Hunting primarily, but, the West was won with them and Native Americans know that all too well.
Hunting as well as fishing is a valuable commodity in this country. In some places it is even subsistence still today. But, the idea of guns being dangerous and deadly and a problem resulted after they became a military all by themselves on the streets of the USA.
The introduction of automatic weapons literally took control over the streets of the USA. We all know about Al Capone and Bonnie and Clyde. They were very real people who achieved power over government because of automatic weapons. Drive by shootings are not new ideas, they existed at the time of "Gangsterland." Eventually, the automatic weapons would be completely banned from the streets of the USA. Rightfully so. So there is a significant and important history of gun regulation in the USA, Mr. La Pierre.
Today, the USA is a facing a problem with guns powerful enough to make one person their own military. Now you can say it is due to psychiatric problems but it is more than that. It has been more than that for a very long time. There are challenges to Mexico's sovereignty because of the military style weapons available in the USA. Dare I say that dynamic plays out all over the world and empowers rebels and terrorists in far away lands.
The NRA has been acting to support gun manufacturers in a very insidious manner for decades now. The NRA takes extremist positions stating no regulation is going to be effective. That, Mr. LaPierre, is a lie. We know regulation works. What does work well when there is regulation is the decline in sales of expensive military style weapons causing profits to become reasonable to gun manufacturers. That is the real issue. The NRA should speak to that reality and how the gun manufacturers are going to change their focus and survive regulation.
See the thing is this. Guns have a status higher than the lives of citizens at this point and there is no other way to change that status except regulation. Perhaps you noticed how Connecticut has passed significant regulation to end the destruction of their society and the anarchy that existed there. An anarchy that exists across the country in hiding places we have only to imagine.
The issue of regulating guns comes from a very different paradigm than any other dangerous commodity in the country. When it comes to medications, surgical appliances and devices there is an agency called the Food and Drug Administration that acts proactively to prevent danger from entering the American Landscape. Why does that agency exist? Because to prevent tragedy is an American value. The value of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In the 1970s the people of the USA were presented with a newly authored book called Silent Spring. It was about the dangers of chemicals in our environment. As a result of that knowledge being passed along to consumers the legislation for Clean Air and Clean Water resulted. The agency that seeks to prevent damage to our environment is the Environmental Protection Agency. Their approach is a little different. They like to prevent tragedy, but, they also discover and mitigate dangers to citizens of the country.
Now, guns are completely different. There is no agency of regulation for guns. Oh, the ATF, but, that is more a policing organization than a regulatory agency. Arguably there should be a regulatory agency.
I think of it this way.
If there were no guns in the USA and the citizens wanted them what would I let in? What would the agency let into the country that would provide the purpose of the people? We as a country don't have that pleasure. We can't let guns of choice into the country like the FDA or seek protections from danger like the EPA. The guns are already here. What does a society faced with the nightmares we have in the USA today do about that lack of ability to regulate something as lethal and dangerous and destabilizing of governments as guns?
Mr. LaPierre while you seem to want to focus on particular issues and pick apart the virtues of initiatives like Connecticut or New York or cities like New York City or Chicago or Washington, DC; you dearly have been given a very comfortable place to run game on the people of the USA. I don't see that continuing. In the past the NRA wasn't the people's enemy. The NRA wasn't Mexico's enemy. But, one thing we do know that after flooding the country with very dangerous weapons for decades now, the NRA's speech is to undermine the authority of the people and their leaders for the sake of profits by a so called non-profit and the gun industry. That, sir, is hardly a benevolent place and no one can say that it is.
Guns will be regulated and it will go forward from here on. Guns and their regulation will be an election issue from today into the future. There will be no returning to the NRA standard of running game on the people of the USA. We want our streets to be safer than they are now and quite frankly we are tired of criminals getting their hands on weapons to harm us. The weapons the criminals use in the USA and Mexico don't come from any place else but the USA.
I think the people of this country know what the problem is very clearly. Unfortunately, the NRA has't figured it out yet in their cloud of war for profits.
Best regards.
