Priorities Shot Full of Holes.NRA Advances Handgun for Everyone Law in Senate, While Healthcare for Everyone Caught in the Mud.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

By Mark Karlin

When Obama was talking about change, he apparently wasn't including the white man's last refuge of power through violence: the gun.

Since Obama has come into office, the NRA has cut through Capitol Hill like a hollow point bullet through your skull.  It's managed to quietly pass legislation allowing handguns in National Parks, one of our last refuges of peace and tranquility.  It continued to impede crime solving crimes through an obscure law called the Tiahrt Amendment because it doesn't want police to share information about guns. 

On the state level it is getting more gun guys to be able to carry their guns anywhere, including in bars -- as most recently signed into law in Arizona and Tennessee, but long on the books in other states.  

The gun lobby -- and their sponsors the gun and bullet manufacturers -- are getting anything and everything they're asking for. The list goes on and on, like some sort of nightmare you can't rouse yourself from.

Sure, Attorney General Holder said he was for an assault weapons ban like the one that lasted from 1994 to 2004, but it's just talk.  Obama has shown his lack of support for such a bill -- and the last one was outsmarted by gun makers who just slightly modified models to make them legal under the assault weapons ban -- by largely remaining silent about it, except for one or two sotto voce unconvincing vows of support.

Now, the NRA is going after its wet dream of bullet spray: a national law allowing anyone with a right to carry a handgun to carry it in any state based on national standards, not ones determined by individual states.

The New York Times, in a July 21st article called "Gun Crazy in the Senate," opines:

Passage of the amendment would make it much harder for law enforcement to distinguish between legal and illegal possession of a firearm. It would be a boon for illegal gun traffickers, making it easier to transport weapons across state lines without being caught....

Between May 2007 and April 2009, people holding concealed handgun permits killed at least seven police officers and 44 private citizens, according to a new study by the Violence Policy Center, a gun control advocacy organization. Other examples of crimes committed by concealed-carry licensees are plentiful.

For Alaska to permit residents who have committed repeated violent misdemeanors or who have committed misdemeanor sex offenses against minors to carry a concealed weapon is terrible public policy. For the Senate to extend that permit to 47 other states would be the height of irresponsibility, as well as a breathtaking violation of legitimate states’ rights.

The NRA is the last refuge for the white male who has lost power and sees the gun as his final defense against the power sharing with minorities and women that he has had to endure over the past few decades. 

And lets not forget all the "fun" the right wingers have had -- like Beck and Bachmann -- in stirring up fantasies of armed rebellion, and the not so subtly coded message that a black man (and another more despicable word is used or pops up in their heads) is in charge.  So we see both real and exaggerated reports of a run on guns and ammunition by white guys scared that the end of a white male dominated Christian America is at hand.  Just ask Pat Buchanan.

One gun control group, Freedom States Alliance, warns, " The Thune Amendment?Now Pending on the Senate Floor? Will Nationalize and Expand the Worst Concealed Carry Systems, Forcing States to Allow Dangerous Out-of-State Individuals to Carry Loaded, Concealed Handguns."  They are asking people to call their senators in opposition to this gun mad and anti-law enforcement law.

Meanwhile, most of the same senators who will vote for a national hidden handgun law are the ones trying to kill a system that would provide healthcare insurance for those in need and reduce the profiteering of the private insurance companies. 

It's ironic, our senators fall over themselves to arm our nation, resulting in the largest number of homicides among advanced industrial countries.  But they bow before the insurance companies and delay healthcare reform that will treat the victims of all the shootings resulting from their obeisance to the NRA.

But the vast majority of Americans who would benefit from inexpensive insurance options have nothing to do with gun injuries; they are just fellow citizens in need of medical care.

In our capital, however, the NRA and the K Street lobbyists trump the medical needs of our fellow countrymen and women.

Forget the health insurance, but a handgun for everyone, now that's an idea our Senate can champion.

It's nauseating.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG