By OcJim

How much longer are we going to permit massacres in our country? For too long a minority force in our society, mostly represented by the National Rifle Association (NRA), has dictated what governs the common good in terms of domestic safety and security. The problem is that their common good is wrapped up in their own emotional blanket of fear, suspicion and loathing. Their ideology has no room for the general welfare. It involves a convoluted miasma of myth, racism, and regression – going back to a time of simple, stalwart individualism that only existed in the deceit of their minds.

Perhaps this is too harsh and simplistic, for there are worse things — things like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney being free after taking our country into a needless war that killed upwards of a million innocent people, or Wall Street criminals who scammed billions of dollars from the rest of us leaving average people to pick up meager leftovers, as their scams cut out the heart of our wealth and human investment. But there are too many criminal in high places to deal with here.

The NRA is the principle part of an emotionally-charged scam that keeps our leadership in line and our citizens satiated with dribble about defending ourselves and our rights. When you think about it, their ruthless – and relentless — campaign is a closed circle of self-perpetuation.

You stoke fear about government taking away your rights; then, backed by limitless campaign funds and influence, give ratings to leaders to intimidate them into cooperation; you contribute to the polarization that has already gripped our society, and time and again a resulting mindless slaughter stokes another round of fear and finger-pointing, and with it a slaughter-stoked need for guns to protect us from random violence.

It’s a perfect self-fulfilling prophesy. For example, the current NRA-backed argument will be, “if you had been packing in that Aurora, Colorado theater, you would have stopped the killer.” And the argument goes on — actually already has: “Not only do we not need to regulate gun sales, we need to make arming citizens easier for their own protection.”

Then you parade the age-old clichés: “If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns;” guns don’t kill people, people kill people;” or “we already have 20,000 gun laws,” and “one more law won’t stop criminals.” They are common props for the gun lobby.

If that propaganda isn’t enough, almost indiscriminate gun use is actually encouraged in some 15 states by NRA written legislation. The “Stand Your Ground” laws continue to encourage shooting first when you feel threatened, many times in situations that would formerly have called for murder charges. The Trayvon Martin shooting did not originally even lead to an arrest, though the perpetrator, George Zimmerman, shot an unarmed 16-year-old boy.

The NRA is so powerful that they can not only get away with sponsoring such legislation, they can also easily intimidate government leaders into allowing unrestricted purchase and possession of the most deadly arms.

A continuing policy which serves conservative interests is the demonization of government, not a conservative government which serves the NRA, but a more progressive government is made to sound autocratic. Accordingly, this is further encouragement for some to arm themselves against the government.

Then you add a personal attack on a black president which carries a potential racist target of resentment of an “uppity”  Barack Obama, possibly among the unemployed and Fox-news watchers, who are subtly racially baited. This most likely explains the gun lobby campaign to have hordes of Americans believe that Obama plans to take away their guns, made quite ludicrous by the Brady Campaign gun-regulation lobby which gives Obama an “F” rating for his unwillingness to regulate guns in any way.

Do gun-advocates feel the bloodshed, the suffering of victims who only wanted a fun night at the movies? Can this slaughter engender anything but a cry for your own right to have an arsenal capable of mowing down a potential attacker and maybe hundreds, even thousands of others who get in your way? Is this the NRA’s concept of common good?

How much suffering must innocent Americans endure before gun-advocates support sane laws to govern the most deadly weapons?

We have had one after another massacres in just the last year or so. How many more Aurora-type massacres must we have before something is done?