The 2013 NRA Convention: An Exercise in Neurotic Reinforcement

Today in Huston Texas, the NRA is holding its 2013 National Convention.  After puppeteering the recent defeat of the Manchin – Toomey Background Check Bill in the United States Senate, the NRA is in a joyous celebratory mood, along with all those who manufacture and sell guns and bullets.

In his book Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler wrote “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.”

When Hitler published this in 1925, I wonder if he had any idea how many others would apply this principle in the future.  Eighty-eight years later the NRA has, thus far, successfully applied this psychological scam on the American public and the American political system.

The Hitlerian-based scheme of the NRA is to con the American public and political system with the concept that any form of gun regulation is a direct attack on the Second Amendment of the United States and must be defeated at all cost to defend the rights of Americans to bear arms.  The fluke of this Hitlerian-based scheme is that all respected public opinion polls shows that over 80% of the American public, despite political affiliations, supported the Manchin – Toomey Background Check Bill and yet the NRA was successful in killing this legislation in the Senate.

Form my fallible role within the greater pastoral community, I am amazed as to the ability of the NRA to create and maintain their control over our society and political system.  In many ways, the controls exercised over our society and political system has enslaved such just as the philosophy of Apartheid held over South Africa – a system in which a neurotic minority controlled the majority of the country.

Over 80% of Americans believed in and supported the concepts articulated in the Manchin – Toomey Background Check Bill.  This begs the question of whose rights are actually being denied – the majority or the minority?  Given the supposed fidelity of the NRA to the Second Amendment I am forced to ask where is their fidelity to the wishes to the majority of the citizens in this democracy.

Captain Mark Kelly, husband of Representative-emeritus Gabriel Giffords of Arizona, has reminded us that NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre and the gun manufacturers he represents exploit people's fears and in return gun manufacturers gave LaPierre and the NRA tens of millions of dollars last year alone - and he spent almost $1 million of it on his own salary.   Nice work if you can get it.

In its infancy, the original purpose of the NRA was to promote and educate gun owners on the safe usage of firearms.  It now seems that the principle role of the NRA has evolved to being the industrial pimps for gun manufacturers.

I have no personal or professional desire to delete the Second Amendment from our Constitution of the United States, but I do have a desire to embrace and ensure that each and every person in this country has the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Sadly, the apartheid stranglehold which the NRA has over our political system failed the children of Sandy Hook and all other locations where the slaughter of the innocents has taken place.  I believe that the Manchin – Toomey Background Check Bill would have protected the rights of our national family to experience life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness at NO expense to the Second Amendment.

I must confess my sadness at the political cowardness recently exhibited by the democratic members of the United States Senate.  I am not sure what strings the NRA employed to manipulate their votes, but they did indeed know which ones to pull.  I must also extend my gratitude to those members of the Republican party who supported Mancin – Toomey.  These individuals demonstrated their understanding that saving lives comes before politics.

History has taught us that us that the evils of Hitler and Apartheid had limited life spans.  I can only hope and pray that the current stranglehold which the NRA has over our country shall also have a limited life span. For as long as the NRA continues to endanger our rights to experience life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the body county will surely continue to grow.

Let me conclude with a suggestion.

To those families who will loose their loved ones due to the failure of the passage of Manchin – Toomey, I recommend that you send the bill for their funerals to the NRA and also to those members of Congress who opposed the Manchin – Toomey Background Check Bill.

They have enough blood money to cover the costs.