what i think about the nra. yes that nra.

They act as representatives for a percentage of American people. They are agents of someone you probably know or love or rent a trailer to or work or drink with.
It’s not the NRA, it’s the people who support the NRA that are the issue for me. It’s the inactivity of these people that remains the most serious challenge to any progress.

And where are those who oppose the NRA who are not in the anonymous reality of cyberspace?! I get emails like this from you and others who are outraged, with little else but an angry email as a result. I remember my feeling of discouragement when the assault weapons ban was not extended (in 2004). I had called my Rep and Senator–as I’ve done many times–in vain; the emails I sent to friends and family to encourage them to support it and the bits I wrote about its merits in my blog fell on deaf ears. Where are the “anti-NRA” people when you need them to do something more than forward angry emails?

But even that ban is still questionable and you can find statistics that show it was as much ineffective as it was a success. (Time magazine’s latest issue has a timeline of mass shootings that includes the period of the ban and shows that the deaths due to mass shootings did not decrease during that time. Of course, which data they included would alter the result but too few people would consider that, and the fact that this timeline was published at all in a Time/Warner periodical that is NOT known for its conservative pro-NRA position is in itself a kind of failure of the anti-NRA campaign because readers will see that timeline and conclude that gun-control legislation doesn’t even work!)

The NRA’s victory–like other organizations–is fueled by a group that is larger than popular public opinion will acknowledge, and the apathy and laziness of those who confuse complaint with compassion and non-compliance.