A week after the Presidential election in 2008, I walked into a gun shop in Houston. The place was packed. In particular, customers were lining up to buy assault rifles along with as much ammunition as they could carry out of the store. I walked up to one guy who was waiting in line to fill out the 4473 form and asked him what was going on. And he turned to me with a very serious look on his face and whispered, “Armageddon’s coming.”
Ever notice how many products Glenn Beck peddles like freeze-dried food or gold bars which portend doom? And we have long noticed that the gun industry has been selling fear as well as selling guns since old timers like me began to fade away and hunting became something of legend instead of a real-time activity. Owning a gun is now a statement about the importance of self-defense in an age of terrorism, along with, of course, the standard bromide about 2nd-Amendment ‘rights.’
But there’s one other message which resonates among Gun-nut Nation, and it’s the idea that if you own a gun then you have something in common with every other gun owner, and if you don’t own a gun, then you’re not only sh*t out of luck, but you’re also on the outside looking in. I’m a member of AAA but they never try to make me feel special just because I own a car. Ditto AARP, whose almost daily hearing-aid advertisements just remind me that I’m one of more than 46 million people age 65 or more. In fact, I didn’t even know that May was Senior Citizens Month.
But I do know that I am a member of a very special oppressed minority known as law-abiding gun owners who have to make sure that what makes us so special and so oppressed is the possibility that at any moment, my ‘right’ to own a gun could be taken away. And if you think that the purchase of more than 150 million guns under the Obama ‘regime,’ compared to 75 million during the previous eight years of the ‘decider’ was due to anything other than the fear that I might wake up one day and the gun wouldn’t be there, think again. Because if sales levels continue for the second half of 2017 like they were in the first half, things will be back to where they were in 2007-2008.
Back last October, I was finishing up my weekly gun-safety class which is required in my state (MA) before you can apply for a license to own or carry a gun. And a well-dressed, professional woman came up to get her safety certificate and said, “Boy, I’m glad I could get into this class.” And when I asked her why she was so excited, she replied, and I am quoting her word for word, “Because Hillary’s probably going to win the election and then I won’t be able to buy a gun.”
How did such a crazy idea get into this woman’s head? I must admit that I simply don’t know because even though the NRA spent $30 million or more during the campaign to tell its members that Hillary would take away their guns, I simply do not believe that any normal adult could think such nonsense was true.
But you know what? That guy standing on the line in the Houston gun shop wasn’t grinning or laughing when he told me that he was willing to wait half an hour for the background check to be completed because he didn’t want to face the end of the world unarmed. He meant it, and if we want to do something reasonable to reduce gun violence, we’d better figure out how to get inside that guy’s brain. Because what’s in his brain is in the brains of lots of folks who own guns.
Jun 07, 2024 @ 08:15:57
“How did such a crazy idea get into this woman’s head? I must admit that I simply don’t know because even though the NRA spent $30 million or more during the campaign to tell its members that Hillary would take away their guns, I simply do not believe that any normal adult could think such nonsense was true.”
Well maybe because Clinton was very open about her disapproval of the Heller V DC decision, and gave nothing but high praise to nations like Australia and the UK for their gun policies, which indeed included mandatory “buybacks” which is simply a euphemism of confiscation, as well as very heavy restrictions on both what kind of arms their citizens can buy and own, as well as who can own them.
Also these nations are FAR from happy with their gun laws, and are always demanding MORE controls.
Clinton was like every other member of the so-called “Gun Violence Prevention” movement, in that she never saw or heard of a gun control law that was “too far” or was in violation of the 2nd Amendment.
While she did give the vaguest of lip service to the 2nd Amendment (saying as a buzz word that she supported it) She is also a well documented liar, one could argue a pathological one, given that some of her lies (the best example of which was her Bosnian “Sniper Fire” story) would have given her little political gain in the campaign if it wasn’t called out, AND the whole event was televised, so it was easily discovered.
Maybe that’s how she got that “Crazy Idea”.
Jun 07, 2024 @ 16:11:13
Mike, my best theories of what promotes the thinking you describe are: An educational system that promotes a lack of nuanced and evidence-based thinking; a polarized society in which those with whom we disagree are demonized rather than engaged intellectually; media that promote parallel realities; an extreme distrust of government; bigotry (in the reaction to Obama); and sexism (the reaction to Clinton and the ridiculous standards to which she was held). Together, these forces produce quite a toxic stew.