A Global NRA: Our Government Is the Largest Federally Licensed Weapons Dealer on the Planet<\/p>\n
Given these last weeks, who doesn\u2019t know what an AR-15 is? Who hasn\u2019t seen the mind-boggling stats on the way assault rifles have flooded this country, or tabulations of accumulating Newtown-style mass killings, or noted that there are barely more gas stations nationwide than federally licensed firearms dealers, or heard the renewed debates over the Second Amendment, or been struck by the rapid shifts in public opinion on gun control, or checked out the disputes over how effective an assault-rifle ban was the last time around? Who doesn\u2019t know about the NRA\u2019s suggestion to weaponize schools, or about the price poor neighborhoods may be paying in gun deaths for the present expansive interpretation of the Second Amendment? Who hasn\u2019t seen the legions of stories about how, in the wake of the Newtown slaughter, sales of guns, especially AR-15 assault rifles, have soared, ammunition sales have surged, background checks for future gun purchases have risen sharply, and gun shows have been besieged with customers?<\/p>\n
If you haven\u2019t stumbled across figures on gun violence in America or on suicide-by-gun, you\u2019ve been hiding under a rock. If you haven\u2019t heard about Chicago\u2019s soaring and Washington D.C.’s plunging gun-death stats (and that both towns have relatively strict gun laws), where have you been?<\/p>\n
Has there, in fact, been any aspect of the weaponization of the United States that, since the Newtown massacre, hasn\u2019t been discussed? Are you the only person in the country, for instance, who doesn\u2019t know that Vice President Joe Biden has been assigned the task of coming up with an administration gun-control agenda before Barack Obama is inaugurated for his second term? And can you honestly tell me that you haven\u2019t seen global comparisons of killing rates in countries that have tight gun laws and the U.S., or read at least one discussion about life in countries like Colombia or Guatemala, where armed guards are omnipresent?<\/p>\n
After years of mass killings that resulted in next to no national dialogue about the role of guns and how to control them, the subject is back on the American agenda in a significant way and — by all signs — isn\u2019t about to leave town anytime soon. The discussion has been so expansive after years in a well-armed wilderness that it\u2019s easy to miss what still isn\u2019t being discussed, and in some sense just how narrow our focus remains.<\/p>\n
Think of it this way: the Obama administration is reportedly going to call on Congress to pass a new ban on assault weapons, as well as one on high-capacity ammunition magazines, and to close the loopholes that allow certain gun purchasers to avoid background checks. But Biden has already conceded, at least implicitly, that facing a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a filibuster-prone Senate, the administration\u2019s ability to make much of this happen — as on so many domestic issues — is limited. <\/p>\n