We are long past the time of explaining the facts. I wrote blogs for years doing this and found it did not effect either sides opinion. It is a knee jerk reflex to be for gun control or against it. Facts, statistics do not change opinions. Its all emotions!
2
We are way past the time to talk about Guns! Talk is cheap! It is time to sue the gun manufacturers, and distributers. Fight! Fight! Fight it out in the courts. Guns have made our country fearful, paranoid and unsafe. Guns have affected and altered our way of life! The NRA's answer is more guns! The second amendment was not intended to make manufacturers and distributer rich and our way of life threatened and destroyed!
8
Instead of demonizing the largest gun safety organization in the USA, the NRA claims to have 125,000 gun safety instructors nationwide, then maybe the NYT and its columnists could tone down the hateful rhetoric, like calling the NRA an extremist organization and catastrophic for the American people, blah, blah.
This article is an example of hate. It's divisive in its conclusions and false with its supporting arguments, but readers won't discover that from the comments who offer proof. The NYT censors any effective dissent.
2
Loose the second amendment. ASAP
3
Dave Chapelle identified what would quickly change the gun laws in America: a couple of million well-armed black men. Let's make it happen!
2
For quite some time now the NRA's main responsibility has been to act as a buffer between itself and the manufacturers in which it primarily "takes the heat" for the regular gun carnage that occurs in America daily/yearly. One little tidbit that emerged in the last few days that I am sure the NRA is "so proud of'" that Nicholas Kristoff didn't illude to in his column, is that injuries from firearms alone cost the healthcare industry in America, every year, over 3 BILLION DOLLARS.
One doesn't have to be a "rocket scientist" to figure out who ultimately pays for that cost in increasing insurance premiums.
5
So here it is - election time. Time to make the choices in the ballot box that can lead to sensible gun control or not and we are not talking about it at all, with the exception of this article. We are talking about some "caravan", i.e. in real talk, another group of ordinary immigrants from Central America and the latest mass murder by gunfire. And, of course, we are talking about Trump, ad nauseum about Trump. Where's the media attention for the issue that has to be one of the most important to our nation - sensible gun control? It's so frustrating -- it happens with every election.
1
I think the most salient part of this whole piece was the survey of NRA members which showed that large majorities support much of the same basic, common sense gun laws that the majority of Americans favor. And yet, the NRA's position is basically to fight tooth and nail any attempt at any legislation that regulates gun ownership. They are, essentially, creating divisiveness and vitriol where there is actually consensus among Americans.
It seems clear then, that the NRA does NOT represent its members, and it does NOT represent Americans. Rather, it seems to represent the interests of extremists and gun manufacturers. In this light, the aggressive "grading" system of candidates the NRA has been pushing for years seems like something of a cynical joke. Voters across the political spectrum should be asking themselves why the gun manufacturing lobby should have any say in who they vote for.
5
This is an excellent piece. But, I found it surprising that the author does not mention Moms Demand Action for Gun, a gun safety organization with chapters in all fifty states and D.C. that is comparable in size and impact to the NRA. Moms Demand Action is changing the culture surrounding guns and sponsors the BeSmart for Kids program, which teaches gun owners and parents how to talk about keeping children and teens safe by safe gun storage.
3
If I understand Mr. Kristof's takeaway, an alternate organization should be organized, to provide gun safety and gun training classes, especially to young people. Took my son to one of the NRA's in the early 2000s, because they offer sensible training at low cost - and provide a training gun. Also, that experience reduced the romanticism of video-game guns considerably.
There are a lot of families like ours, i.e., liberal in the sense of supporting investments to generate opportunity, maximizing social and economic interaction, rules to level the playing field so more can play. Guns are a legacy thing, grandfathered into American culture, so we don't reject them. But we need to adapt. Another gun training group would be fine.
But as Mr. Kristof notes, support is already dwindling for the NRA. Could an alternate organization make it? Best would be if NRA groups branched off, and formed their own effort. They'd have to rework all the training stuff to avoid copyright. Refuse gun money. Who knows, maybe they'd innovate and attract more people than the NRA.
3
Consider NRA positions. Are they willing to compromise even a little? Will they support at minimum, collecting public safety data?
Republicans have prevented government from collecting the data, but now we can rely on other information sources. Hospitals report more than 8000 children a year are victims of gunshots.
We can make reasonable changes to the law to minimize the threat to public health. It's time the GOP told the NRA to sit down and pay up.
4
Lots of government agencies collect gun crime data. It is not prevented. The specific restrictions are in regard to research and publication of 'studies' by the CDC that promote some form of gun control. The restrictions are on the CDC because of past biased, non-objective 'research'.
The R in NRA stands for Republican congressmen and senators, and state legislators, who take the money and run-off their mouths. They are the lowest form of political animals in US history. Their lies cost tens of thousands of lives each year and propagate fear in our cities and towns. Republicans are uncompromising on guns. They don't listen to military and law enforcement professionals, their constituents, their clergy, or anyone else, when it comes to guns. The blood on Republican leaders' hands cannot be washed away, it just doesn't work that way.
4
It's time for the responsible members of the NRA to organize and oust the leaders who have hijacked the organization.
4
As a kid, I used to shoot prairie dogs at my grandpa's ranch in the West (cattle were at risk of stepping into their holes). Once I shot a rabbit in the head. Instead of dying, he jumped up and down repeatedly like he'd gone crazy. I shot him again and again, eventually realizing that I liked it. My reaction made me realize the addictive properties of guns. This is what the NRA has done to America. Put briefly, in Canada they are still shooting at bulls-eye targets, while in America they are shooting at targets of human beings. People in America know what the gun is for: it's for killing people. The NRA put that thought into America, a thought still repulsive to most of the World.
31
I had the same experience shooting ground squirrels. Hit one with my .222 and it ran screaming along the ground. I never shot another ground squirrel or any other animal I did not intend to eat ever again. I still remember that scene over 50 years ago, it haunts me. I still love the opening day of dove season, and have no issues hunting for the table.
6
11 million guns are in a Canadian population of about 35 million but that reflects a more rural and hunting society. The last PM, a Conservative, loosened the gun laws and there has been an uptick fatal incidents, mostly drug and gang related by handguns smuggled in for an ad hoc rental or re-sales at huge mark-up margins.
1
Excuse me for stating the obvious but the fact that you liked shooting that rabbit is not a characteristic of the gun or its inherent nature. That's on you.
It's odd, or not, but every time I was given the opportunity to kill something with a gun, even as a small child with a .22 rifle I didn't do it. I was given many opportunities to take up hunting but I just didn't like it.
As for target shooting at paper bulls eye or man shaped silhouettes one can look to American military training, if you care to. It can be found in books by Dave Grossman where he describes military recruit/draftee training and what the military calls the 'firing rate', actually aiming and shooting at the enemy with the intent of hitting the enemy. After WW2 it was discovered that soldiers were only shooting to kill 20% of the time. The training then was shooting at bulls-eye targets. After that discovery they changed training methods. During the Korean war the firing rate was about 55%, during Vietnam they had brought the rate up to 90-95%. It's in the books and elsewhere. Look it up. You too, Nicholas Kristof. Look it up. Get informed before you pontificate from ignorance.
1
We have war zone numbers when it comes to gun violence fatalities in the US. The NRA, our own national arms dealer organization, is not satisfied with gun sales, so their answer is more guns. More guns for all. More guns for law-abiding citizens (ok), more guns for our schools, more guns reaching the hands of criminals, more guns in our houses, more guns in our streets. One problem, who is even trying to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill?
Congress needs to step up and put many more limits and constraints on gun sales and gun ownership. Gun owners need to go through background checks and training every several years.
We have a problem, it's more than just 'bad guys with guns'. The problem is gun proliferation. If there is a problem, at least try to fix it.
5
Until/Unless attitudes and laws concerning guns in this country change, events like this will continue to occur, over and over and over. Many people in other countries are afraid to visit or move to the US because of the gun situation.
3
As a politically progressive shooting enthusiast. For me, it is a practice in mindfulness. I welcome the suggestion for a progressive alternative to the NRA. I believe in the value enshrined in the Constitution of maintaining a WELL REGULATED militia, particularly now with fascism on the rise in America.
6
Guns became the dominant form of arms because practically anyone can be trained to shoot, and it demands little strength or endurance. To me shooting is a been there done that kind of thing, not a raison d'etre.
1
Your article is disingenuous at best. It's not about the NRA, its about the second amendment of the constitution.
Be honest with yourself and your readers. There is a mechanism to change the constitution, either engage that process or drop the idea. The public understands this and understands that you are not addressing the problem. You are demonizing a group that is backed by the constitution.
Change the constitution or suffer a fools path. The Americian public gets this.
3
"A well regulated militia..." It is indeed about the NRA. Like you, Matt, it has chosen to forget that part of the Amendment because that would mean reasonable regulations and restrictions on assault weapons and overloaded magazines. The guns and ammo industries could not abide that. Most of the public, including plenty of gun owners, understand this. However, the industry funded NRA has morphed into another far rightist mob and lobby who couldn't care less the resulting carnage.
7
Matt -- less than a third of American households own any gun. The large majority of Americans don't feel the need to have one. This doesn't mean that they are sure to support banning all guns, but it certainly does mean what polls show; most Americans support such measures as universal background checks, and limitations on guns capable of killing many people quickly.
6
It is all about mental health. Don't waste time with a boogeyman.
Other countries have mentally health problems but the U.S. stands alone with its constant mass shootings. No other country comes even close. Mental health is a red herring put out there by the gun lobby.
8
By paralysing public education and the working economy, the Republicans have created a mass of ignorant, desperate people armed and primed for servitude, and what else? They're called the base. The media are entirely complicit by giving credence to their lies, fear mongering and scapegoating.
2
Silly. it's not the NRA. It's the 100 million legal gun owners, Democrats and Republicans, in this Country that support legal gun ownership.
3
Outstanding insight as always from NK. I enjoy using firearms, reloading ammunition, working on firearms. Just a country boy at heart. Like many firearm enthusiasts I am appalled at the gun violence in our country, the failure of congress to act, and the toxic NRA. I despise everything about the NRA. Regrettably in order to belong to my two gun clubs one requires membership and the other recommends it. I let the NRA know on a regular basis what I think about their positions on things. They will not talk about anything unless you agree with them. Period. No doubt they are agenda driven fear mongers advancing their own financing and the profitability of the manufacturers. I dread going to gun shows and gun shops some days. I avoid all political conversations at my gun clubs. I participate in a few liberal gun owners' groups. The biggest problem at the NRA is Wayne LaPierre. Sooner or later he will be gone and then we can start to see some change there. The guy is either evil, mentally ill, or both.
3
Guns are emblems of the uncompromising.
1
I must have hit the wrong button, I wasn't done. Is it possible to send it back?
Sorry about that.
Kim Rodriguez
1
Your concern ought to be everybody's concern. The N.R.A. is soulless, and contributes mightily to the carnage in these United States, all to satisfy their god Greed. It is a shame we have republican politicians prostituting themselves, and cheaply, to the N.R.A.'s ulterior motives. This endemic killing of so many innocent folks is a lethal disease; and shall remain such as long as we do not develop the will to change, and find an effective treatment. Did you know there is an ordinance out there prohibiting physicians to talk about it with their patients? If this isn't an insult to our first amendment, freedom of speech, what is? Are politicians this callous, and hypocritical, that each time massive killings take place, aside from the daily one's, all they can say is 'our prayers are with you'? How stupid is that?
3
Rifles are fine, handguns are acceptable. But why in the world do we need assault weapons that can kill tons of people in a minute. We don't need them for hunting (not much meat would be left), we need the police and soldiers at the most to possess these weapons of mass destruction. Oh wait I might know... because the gun manufacturers make them and have all the lovely little republican congress members supporting gun freedom for all, even the mentally handicapped. I say stop the production of AR-15 and the like. If you want to shoot 10 bullets, pull the trigger 10 times, don't just hold the trigger and let loose hundreds of bullets. The hate that Trump has stirred in this country is the major cause of the increased violence. Instead of these crazy, angry people trying to fix things, they make it much, much worse with their hate by only destroying.
5
There are numerous problems with this well-researched article:
1. The NRA does not provide any service with its gun safety training. These classes ALWAYS include very bad, very dangerous advice on firearms handling. If you want to know how to safely handle a firearm AVOID the NRA training classes. They are more likely to get you killed than keep you safe.
2. There is no excuse for concealed carry to be legal anywhere in the USA. Concealed carry is embraced by fools, cowards and bullies. We need to have that fight in this nation.
3. The fight over assault weapons needs to happen, and no matter how ugly it gets, we need to join the civilized world and not stop until those dead-enders are on their knees, in jail, or, frankly, if they want to proclaim that they won't give up their guns until they are pried from their cold dead hands, we should oblige them.
4. This nation will not be whole until wrecking balls and bulldozers reduce NRA headquarters to gravel.
Anything less is like spitting on the graves of the victims of our epidemic of gun violence.
2
I have zero change of being murdered in a mass shooting. Thank you Japan.
67
Sometimes you have to do something to show you’re serious about fixing a problem. It may not be the best thing, the optimum thing, the fairest thing, or even the most logical thing but it must be done. My suggestion is this – outlaw all semi-automatic weapons. This does not violate the 2nd amendment since you can own and use as many guns as you want, as long as there not semi-autos. There is no shooting sport, hunting activity, or self defense need that can’t be met completely with a non-semiautomatic firearm. The current owners of these weapons can turn them in for a fair tax credit or a credit to replace them with a compliant weapon, e.g. turn your Glock in for a S & W revolver. You can. of course, keep your semi-auto if you want to look at it or fondle it, you just can’t take it into a public space or use it for self defense without serious penalties.
2
Mr. Krystof states, "There are no magic solutions to gun violence in America, but neither is reducing the toll an impossible challenge. We can do better, and one step would be to avoid demonizing gun owners, while relentlessly challenging the political influence of the N.R.A."
Regardless whether or not the N.R.A. is an "extremist" organization, a term as easy to define as pornography, it's interesting to note that mass murders are typically perpetrated by the insane, who in most cases obtained their weapons illegally.
Indeed, according to an article in the Washington Post in October 1015 by Eugene Volokh who teaches free speech law, religious freedom law, church-state relations law, at UCLA there is little if any statistical correlation between gun laws and murder by firearm.
He noted that "the correlation between the homicide rate and Brady score in all 51 jurisdictions is +.032 (on a scale of -1 to +1), which means that states with more gun restrictions on average have very slightly higher homicide rates, though the tendency is so small as to be essentially zero..."
As such, attacking the NRA which effectively demonizes its members is itself divisive, won't measurably reduce the risk, and is viewed as just another attack by the left on the qualities of the "deplorables" who for the most part are, if I dare use the term, law abiding citizens who like "us" rarely commit murder.
Sam -- you say "Eugene Volokh ... noted that "the correlation between the homicide rate and Brady score in all 51 jurisdictions is +.032 ... which means that states with more gun restrictions on average have very slightly higher homicide rates, though the tendency is so small as to be essentially zero...""
And he may have said that, but it's nonsense. He's either lying, or totally incompetent at statistics, or both.
Go look at the Brady score data -- they show the correlations
https://lawcenter.giffords.org/scorecard/#rankings
and it is absolutely obvious that the states with stricter gun laws have lower gun murder rates.
The Brady score is a letter grade A -- F, so what Pearson Correlation coefficient you will compute depends on how you assign a number value to A -- F, but the correlation is clearly strong and entirely opposite of Volokh's claim.
2
All the points in this article are well taken, but they mean nothing. The NRA owns the Republican Party and the Republican Party is in charge of the country both at the Federal and State levels. Until that changes, the best we can hope and pray for is that we are lucky enough not to be caught in the crossfire the next time a lunatic starts firing an assault weapon.
1
Yesterday there was an armed robber at a McDonalds in Alabama, this person came shooting at customers and employees, thank god a customer was a licensed gun-owner and shot this potential mass murderer. What the media fails to share is that this type of event occurs significantly more than most readers know. One of the McDonald's employees thanked the customer, he felt he saved his and many others at the restaurant.
1
There's a religious quality to the fervency with which totally committed NRA members embrace the organization.
After Sandy Hook I spoke to a local acquaintance, someone I respect who is totally committed to the NRA, about what could be done to avert future tragedy. Among other things, I pointed out how the NRA serves the interests of the gun industry.
He immediately countered with how environmental organizations have been hijacked by corporations that sell outdoor clothing, boots, etc. This was undoubtedly a talking point from an NRA corporation. It was Trumpist defeat-the-facts-by-fabricating-"facts" years before Trump became President.
Our discussion foundered on this and other distortions.
"Why do we Americans kill each other, and ourselves, with guns at such rates? One answer as it relates to the Pittsburgh attack is a toxic brew of hate and bigotry..."
I think we need to look at this issue more carefully. It's just too simple to say that hate and bigotry are at the center, the real center, of this. This man was a loner, an outcast. What is his story? Why is he this way? Could it be that the hatred he directs outwardly is a symptom of the hatred he feels for himself?
Believe me, I am anti-NRA. And I think Trump is damaging this country with everything he's got.
But I think our discussion of racism has been too limited. We are taking what the perpetrators say at face value. But if some has the flu, we don't say their illness is a headache or fever.
There is an epidemic of mental un-health in this country. People who have grown up in a culture of anger and fear because they do not have the tools and their parents did not have the tools and their grandparents did not have the tools to adapt. Their hatred and anger is really at themselves but they don't have the courage to say it.
We need to establish a stronger system to heal the angry and hate filled people. The loner in Pittsburgh needed a place to get the support he needed---a long time ago--before he turned to to worst options.
The NRA used to be an admirable apolitical organization devoted to hunting and firearms safety. It has since morphed into a rabidly right-wing propaganda organ for the Republican Party, so enamored of Trump it funneled Russian money to his election campaign and even awarded life memberships to Russian agents, as if Russians ever enjoy the right to keep and bear arms.
Yet the NRA has been weakened by resignations of many members repulsed by its politicization. And every gun massacre leaves the organization more silent and more cowed. If our politicians had any guts they would have taken it on long ago, if only to reinstate the ban on military-style assault weapons. Instead our castrated Congress tamely accepts the insane argument that churches, schools, theaters, shopping malls and all other places of public gathering should have armed guards to protect us from deranged shooters.
1
The NRA should rename itself the "National Handgun Lobby" or even the "National Murder Association."
The old NRA was an organization of hunters and rifle enthusiasts. The new NRA is about shoot-em-up handguns and "assault rifles." This is where all the gun market is now (handguns are the majority of sales now, and overwhelmingly the cause of most of the murders and assaults).
The murder rates won't go down without much stronger gun control than we have now ... not going to happen any time soon.
The NRA loves to talk about guns in the hands of "criminals" and to argue that "a good man with a gun" is the only way to stop a criminal. They also love to talk about Baltimore and Chicago.
The truth of the matter though is that most people don't live in the slums of Baltimore or Chicago. The typical gun murder is a domestic argument gone bad; the majority (barely) of murderers do not have a prior felony conviction that would take their gun rights away. (This is particularly true of school shooters.)
And the other important fact to remember is that the gun industry depends on the private sale "pipeline" to keep gun sales going.
People only need so many guns. Only a third of US households have a gun of any kind. Handgun production is over 4 million a year ... where do they all go?
The answer to this is not clearly known. But what is known that a lot of guns change hands from legal gun owners to illegal ones, and that a lot of guns are illegally exported.
2
Americans love guns. Many of us are obsessed with individualism. The gun is the ultimate expression of individualism, my life is more valuable than yours and my gun proves it. I can decide if you live or die, I can administer street justice with my gun just like in those old Westerns.
In a country founded on individual rights and obsessed with individual accomplishment and wealth accumulation, the gun fits right in to defend "me" against those "others".
The NRA has been masterful in exploiting this. They were also masterful when they decided to become the marketing arm of the gun manufacturers.
We are armed to the teeth but are not more safe or united. Over three hundred million people living in fixed borders with a global economy cannot survive by denying the public good while extolling rugged individualism through the barrel of a gun.
3
Want further evidence of the craven, self-interested insensitivity of the gun lobby and its representatives? Yesterday (in the literal wake of the horrific Tree of Life massacre) "my" NYS District 22 congresswoman, Claudia Tenney, actually held a campaign fund raising shooting event at a gun range where the assassin in a Binghamton mass shooting was known to have once practiced his marksmanship. Her guest of honor - whose shooting team $500 donors were invited to join - was none other than NRA President, Col. Ollie North - the controversial and once convicted (though vacated on a technicality) operative at the center of the Iran/Contra guns for hostages scandal. And so it goes ...
3
Guns don't really provide security in your home. If you're scared get a dog. A Labrador Retriever will protect your home better than a gun.
As far as gun safety classes well that is nifty swell. I will bet that when the NRA dies the Izak Walton League, the YMCA or other more responsible organization can step in.
3
Wonderful and important article. Congratulations!
3
FDR proudly called America the arsenal for democracy in WW2 for its timely manufacturing and providing of vast quantities of arms and munitions to allies and anti fascist forces, but this initial source of vital relief and national pride came at the unforeseen the cost of firmly establishing a massive industry that went on after WW2 and between all the wars that followed to create, with its excess supply of guns and ammo what has become an arsenal for instant mayhem and endless sorrow.
I am so glad this opinion piece came out now, ahead of the election next week. I feared this issue had become buried by "everything else". After the Parkland, Fla. shooting there was great momentum forward by the youth. Hopefully this piece and the Times paying more attention to this issue will revive the momentum. I am also so glad you put in statistics about gun deaths in this country among children. As a pediatrician we believe this is also a public health issue and your statistics rightly show this. Just as in an epidemic of the presence of a certain virus or bacteria we feel it is the presence of guns themselves that is causing this very real epidemic of gun deaths.
3
The NRA is a corporate lobbying organization, period. It puts profits over people every time. The other things it does are just to lend a sense of legitimacy to its profiteering. The end.
3
Of the top fifty counties with the most firearm homicides in the US forty six are Democratic, a difference which is pertinent as firearm ownership breaks not only among an urban / rural divide but also among political party. An important question is why are areas with the lowest firearm ownership rates experiencing the most firearm homicides? One needs to look at county level data to discern that, and also to look at the number of firearm homicides instead of rates. Most firearm homicides occur in concentrated areas across the country, something that is effectively hidden by rates.
Findings by PEW support this data as almost 75% of firearm homicides occur among Blacks and Hispanics in lower income urban neighborhoods, and one of the largest state level studies on firearms and homicides found that the portion of Blacks had an impact almost six times more that the number of firearms. Why do gun control advocates refuse to acknowledge such data? They need to look in a mirror to start getting a handle on the major contributors to firearm violence in the country.
Too many progressives claim support for the Second Amendment, or rather the Supreme Court’s recent re-interpretation of the Second Amendment. How many conservatives claim fealty to Roe v Wade but state they only want common sense controls over abortion? No, they say Roe was wrongly decided. Progressives should argue that Heller is law of the land but was wrongly decided.
1
In 1963 I was thirteen years old, at Camp Don Bosco in Newton, New Jersey, and took an NRA course on gun safety before being allowed to join the rifle team. I was also awarded a one year membership for learning how to safely hold, aim, shoot, and clean a .22 caliber rifle. That was also the last year I shot any kind of firearm. Unfortunately, the NRA has turned into an organization that uses lies and scare tactics to promote its gun/ammunition manufacturer driven agenda in spite of so many calls for laws to promote sensible and safe gun use, even by it's own members. It is especially pathetic, that so many politicians don't have the courage to enact those laws, which make them accessories to the violence we see today.
6
On Sunday, the day after the Pittsburgh massacre, I was following a pickup truck with a sticker that said (paraphrased?) "The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine with a rifle." I disagreed with that. A Marine is highly trained in the use of his or her weapon and in the when-and-where you fire the weapon. The recent shooters in Louisville and Pittsburgh certainly were not trained. One can also wager that most non-veteran owners of AR-15s and other semi-military and "civilian" firearms aren't trained beyond the weapon's operation as well. Given the endless validation by the candidate for and now President of this country, that is what makes the haters of people not Just Like Them, and there are plenty of them, want to bring Those People down. As scary as it is, it would come as no surprise that we'll see more of this blood letting increase on a weekly basis through bombs and guns. How are you going to stop them Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions? Sadly, the Marines probably won't be able to help.
4
Make the costs of our gun culture real by taxing or at least charging for the increased security. Insist that Homeland Security give grants to local school boards for enhanced security rather than to rural sheriffs for armored personnel carriers. When suburban school boards start asking for tax money for security, citizens may rethink their tacit support of lax gun laws. Security works in urban schools and it’s time suburban parents faced up to the fact that their neighborhoods are just as vulnerable.
When I see the sign “This movie theater charges a safety surcharge to support our onsite SWAT team. We care about your safety.”, I’ll know we’ve come to grips with what we’ve become.
4
The "fraud" is not as complete as you describe it to be. Even Justice Scalia, immortalized by Trump and the NRA, stated in his majority opinion in Heller that the second amendment did not prohibit reasonable restrictions on gun sales and gun ownership. He pointed out that a shoulder held anti-aircraft weapon is not a gun. Heller was a difficult case because it concerned gun ownership in the home. The real problem with the NRA is its stranglehold over legislators. Coupled with Trump's stranglehold over a majority of federal legislators, it is a virtual certainty that no meaningful gun restrictions will be enacted as long as Trump is president.
17
Thanks for reminding me to renew my NRA membership.
7
not being an NRA member does not mean I don't carry
And I take my opposition to the NRA to the same level you take your membership. Bullies need to be stood up to.,....
1
It's time to arrest the leaders/enablers of the NRA for domestic terrorism.
8
And you wonder why gun owners join the NRA... after you charge the leaders for exercising free speech (which involves no terrorism, of course), then go after the members. I'm a terrorist because I hunt pheasants and ducks and engage in target shooting competitions?
These weird attitudes explain everything about the NRA and its mission.
1
A good first step for the press: Call the NRA for comment every time you report a gun death. If they have no comment, say so. Putting their talking points up against these tragedies will expose who they really.
12
Thank you, NK.
5
I look forward to Dems controlling Congress and enacting legislation that over-turns the Citizens United decision. That will truly de-fang the NRA and dark money in general. But who am I kidding? The Dems like all that money too.
4
I am a die-hard Republican.
The NRA is a terrorist organization, and should be branded as such.
22
How to get your man-card, as Bushmaster puts it? Here's an idea...join the regular military...you know...our nation's real well-regulated militia?...or the National Guard, or train and work as a volunteer first responder...or train for and do triathalons, marathons, etc. There are lots of ways to get a man-card without owning an AR-15 or a semi-automatic side-arm...let lone having a mini-arsenal of them. Other than the hunters who put meat on their families' tables every year, my combat-decorated Marine pals won't even have a firearm in their houses. And all but one has left the Republican Party in disgust. Not saying they'd vote for a Hillary, but they sure won't vote for Trump again.
39
november 6th is looking good
The Second Amendment and abortion are Trojan horse issues designed to advance the American oligarchs' regressive tax/anti-regulation agenda by convincing voters to elect Republicans whom they otherwise might not support.
The NRA is their tool for keeping Republican representatives in line, and for defeating Democratic candidates.
There is one way to achieve gun safety legislation and it isn't the destruction of the NRA. Like the Trojan horse issues, it is just a tool of American oligarchs.
The way to achieve gun legislation is to vote Democratic because it will not occur until Democrats control all three branches of government.
And, that is a twenty-year project, not a mid-term or 2020 project.
14
Well said, and exactly the reason to always vote Republican.
Mr Kristof proposes to "defang" the NRA. I read the entire piece. I'm still waiting for an explanation of how to defang this organization which also taught me gun safety as a 10 year-old. Perhaps the NRA leadership's association with alleged Russian spy Maria Butina will discredit it among members, but I doubt it. This is a nation of millions of gun-lovers and they fervently believe that the NRA is there to make sure they get to keep their guns. And, the NRA has convinced them that all statements from Democrats or even Centrist-Republicans that they are "not coming to get your guns" are lies. So, Mr Kristof, how will you defang an organization of armed citizens who are will to spend $45 a year to be eagerly mis-led?
6
"...one step would be to avoid demonizing gun owners..."
Who is demonizing gun owners? Where are the on the record statements, publications and in general media? Who is leading that charge? They feel put upon? Oh, gee. People are dying by the thousands and we need to be concerned that the gun owners aren't made to feel bad? I'll work on it.
Are we afraid of hurting their little feelings? These are grown men who, in some cases, carry guns because, as the ad stated, they don't feel like real men any more. They can take criticism. If they can't, too bad.
Besides, it is the NRA itself that deserves a measure of demonization because of the radical stance they take and the lies they spread, like saying Obama wanted to ban all handguns. They use fear (Their coming to take your guns!) to keep their membership whipped into a frenzy to keep them willing to pay dues and support hard right candidates. I have no measure of concern about the feelings of gun owners.
17
I'm not a gun owner nor an NRA member, yet I still don't know the answer to what is going to stop a crazy person from killing a bunch of folks. "Defanging" the NRA wouldn't stop the Pittsburgh nut. If what we know about him so far is true, he would still be able to buy a gun legally under any plan that Mr. Kristof offers.
So, shy of banning all guns, which I don't think I would support but would listen to the arguments, how and what new law will stop a crazy from shooting up a House of Worship, or a kids in Chicago from killing each other? The NRA doesn't have many members in the South Side of Chicago.
I'm open and listening. But "defanging" isn't much of a plan.
2
You raise a good point, but it is one that I don't think you fully appreciate, due to the specifics of this mass murder.
Mr. Bowers had apparently acquired these guns legally over time well before he committed this crime. (According to ABC he carried an assault rifle and three (!) handguns, and he had more guns left at home.)
Australian or English (or German, or several other gun regulation systems less strict than the Japanese) would likely have prevented this (making it difficult to acquire semi-auto guns), but these systems are more stringent than anything Mr. Kristof offers, and not realistic politically today.
Many mass murderers get their weapons shortly before the crime. Most underage mass murderers (school shooters) take ill-secured weapons in the family.
Laws that increase storage security for guns and ammunition in family homes would save lives: both murders and suicides. (Teen suicides particularly.)
Laws that implemented delays and testing requirements for semi-auto gun buyers, together with universal background checks would stop a reasonable fraction of mass murders, but likely would not have stopped this one.
For the record, I am in favor of gun regulation comparable to Australia's. In Australia it is not onerous to obtain a license for bolt-action hunting rifle or break shotgun. Anything beyond that, particularly semi-auto weapons, requires strict training, licensing, and cause.
1
"In fairness, let’s also note that progressives have periodically driven moderate gun-owners into the arms of the N.R.A. with muddled commentary indicating that they didn’t know anything about the guns they wanted to regulate. In 2013, for example, New York State banned loading magazines with more than seven rounds, with many lawmakers apparently not realizing that for many guns there are no magazines holding seven or fewer rounds."
Sorry, this is patent nonsense. Many of us want to regulate things that we only superficially understand.
Does Kristof comprehend the intricacies of the science behind climate change as well as an actual climatologist? Yet he knows it must be halted.
Know every nuance about chemical and biological weapons? Yet they must be regulated.
I could go on and on, but pardon those clueless New Yorkers for not knowing that a magazine might necessarily have more than 7 rounds. Do hunters need 7 shots? The "good guy with a gun" who regularly goes to an NRA approved shooting range? Maybe the NRA went out of their way to make sure those legislators appeared clueless?
How do those poor white dudes displaced from their former places as primary wage earners afford all the ammo in the first place?
5
Magazines are cheap to manufacture -- what happened here is that the industry stiffed New York and the legislators caved. As written the law would have required gun owners with larger magazines to surrender them and acquire legal 7-round magazines ... and the industry simply refused to make them.
Cuomo and the legislators were pretty stupid not to foresee that the industry would do this.
New York could have called their bluff by contracting manufacture for commonly-used guns, and dealing with odd-ball ones by either issuing a waiver or offering and exchange for a comparable gun for which a 7-round magazine was available. But the legislators just caved.
I drive into Saratoga county frequently, and while Saratoga Springs is liberal the county is rural and a relative hotbed of anti-NYSAFE sentiment. Until 2 years ago there was an older farm-house without a farm that had "REPEAL OBAMA'S NY-SAFE ACT" painted rather crudely along a fence. The fence has been painted over and the house quite spruced up ... I presume it has changed hands.
1
Ammo is cheaper than dirt.
I absolutely could not agree more. Thank you for writing this piece.
5
1 / Hoping that Mueller proves that the NRA laundered Russian money and spread it out for GOP candidates. That would bury this vile organization forever so a newer one that promotes gun safety (an not feat of The Other) can be reborn.
2 / The trend in America is that fewer guns are bought by new owners every year. Any growth in gun sales is from a guy (almost always a guy) buying another for his arsenal. This is why the NRA is so strident, because it knows that demographics are against them.
3 / Notice that the NRA believes only partly in the 2nd Amendment. Nowhere does it promote a well-regulated militia. Where are the uniforms, training sessions, licensing, feathered hats, and camp songs that any militia should have? State-sponsored militias aren't repressing slave rebellions any more. What are they up to exactly?
2
Maybe those guys who own an arsenal of guns can be persuaded to give it up against a red V8 Mustang with the muffler removed.
5
It’s time to say out loud that there should be no semi automatic handgun in home ownership in this country. You can own, store and shoot them at gun ranges. Shotguns and antique collector guns are OK. It would be a long and painful process to collect them all and there will be many deaths to get them back but we have 30,000 deaths a year now. Background checks are useless and will do nothing. The mathematical formula is simple. Guns + humans = Gun Deaths. Take away the guns.
3
Work out the payment plan for legally owned property and we can talk, $100 Target gift cards are a non-starter.
1
If you need a firearm to feel like a "man," well...
I served with Special Operations Forces for several years. I know all sorts of firearms inside and out. But I don't fetishize them any more than I'd fetishize my socket set, and I don't keep firearms in my home. I used weapons as a tool in order to ensure my compatriots can walk their streets freely without the need to be armed. It seems like a no-brainer to me that any country where you need to (or feel you need to) walk around armed is not a free country. But, in reference to the Bushmaster "Man Card" campaign, I see these "men" (and some of the women who think these "men" are manly) playing dress-up on weekends, with their never-seen-battle chest rigs, velcro accessories, custom patches, and AR-style rifles that are accessorized to the point of hilarity. To my eye, these people aren't much different than little girls playing with Barbie dolls, ever excited for that new accessory.
Like Trump, the firearms industry capitalizes on insecurities. It's pathetic, and I think deep down these people know it and fear that they themselves are pathetic. And it makes them angry, so they double down. And whereas a Barbie doll is a harmless toy, a semi-automatic firearm is not, and in the hands of an insecure hothead it presents a potentially mortal threat to my family's safety and fundamental freedoms. Firearms do not make America free and secure, they make us all victims of the pathetically insecure.
51
Here we go with the real man argument. I'm too old to defend myself and can't defend myself. I can't afford even a punch to the head. Thanks all the same, I'll keep them.
Great fact-filled article. But we need one more trail of information that should be published again and again. Where does the NRA money come from and where does it go?
Which of our elected representatives have been bought and paid for. Who? How much? when? How much has the NRA leadership profited from the gun manufacturers?
Then again, if demand for guns in the US drops, they will start a war.
Follow the money.
6
Thank you for this enlightening analysis of the entity known as the NRA. Thank you for all your incisive journalism, for your empathy and compassion for people around the world. You are a precious resource, Mr. Kristof. In these dark days, we need every point of light provided by courageous individuals like yourself. And for this reason, I beg you to please, please be careful. And those of us so inclined should pray for your safety.
12
If most NRA members don't support the extreme positions taken by NRA leadership on background checks et al., I am curious why a competitive organization could not be formed that promotes gun safety and provides the positive services that NRA members seem be enamored with?
3
The NRA is simply a private organization with a lot of members and thus a very strong lobby. That's it. People are free to join it or not, after all. I've been a member for decades. My benefit is The American Rifleman magazine, a good mag for gun owners.
The so-called "takeover by extremists in 1977" was a direct response to the weakness of NRA leadership at the time in opposing further gun-control efforts after the Gun Control Act of 1968 (the provisions of which have been in effect since it was passed).
The NRA follows a "camel's nose under the tent" approach. This is a wise policy in our "progressive" era, where no permanent lines are ever drawn and one control proposal or measure, if put into effect, will soon be followed by another.
6
@Longue Carabine: "This is a wise policy in our "progressive" era, where .... one control proposal or measure, if put into effect, will soon be followed by another."
Yes, I've noted how the "control proposal or measure" of mandatory installation, and then use of, seat belts was soon followed by the "control measure" that automobiles have airbags, and then by the "control measure" of stricter enforcement of laws against drunk-driving, and the nationwide reporting from state to state of driving violations, has created the dreadful result of dramatically lower mortality rate among drivers and passengers.
Are you also against those "progressive control measures" and the resulting thousands of lives saved by their implementation?
10
I went through basic training for Viet Nam -- didn't end up carrying a 16 and humping a ruck. II've owned guns, I had a job for awhile that required I carry one. For awhile when I was younger I hunted a bit. I still technically own two guns, but they are WWII antiques; Japanese Arisaka rifles -- and I keep no ammunition for them.
I'm also a licensed commercial pilot, and would make four points to you:
* if gun owners had to undergo even a fraction of the training and testing and regulation that a person needs to fly the smallest power planes -- there would be far fewer gun accidents and far fewer murders ... and realistically far fewer gun owners.
* a sarcastic flying buddy of mine once remarked "if gunnies rode on the front of the bullet they'd be a lot more careful." Bingo.
* any fat old fool who thinks they are going to take on the gubmint with a Glock or even an AR-15 clone is sure to end up dead. Look at Iraq and Iran: Al-Qaida and ISIS and the Shia militias found out nearly instantaneously that direct gun combat with American forces was suicidal. They retreated to warfare with IEDs. "2nd amendment remedies" ... is a farce. Civil wars and revolutions depend on the military defecting, snd outside supply of weaponry. Look at our American and Civil wars.
1
I understand that firearms have to be checked at the door for NRA conventions, and that they cannot be carried in Congress. So citizens are at risk but not those who promote an armed populace. I won't say that the NRA has single-handedly ramped up the ideological warfare between the right and the left, but I do wonder--are guns allowed in the corridors and offices of Fox TV? Of all the lost causes in the US, this is the saddest one, the one where we let the NRA hold us hostage.
40
We as a Nation have not hit the critical mass yet for deaths by guns. 4 an hour is just not going to move the needles in Congress. We had Congressman gunned down at a softball game and that didn't move the needles. They trucked out Steve Scalise on crutches and called him a survivor, a hero. No, we have not hit the critical mass yet. Then and only then will change come when someone in Congress has the guts to put their badge on the line and say, 'Enough is Enough.' As Andrew Shephard said in the movie, 'The American President, "I'm going to convince America I'm right and I'm going after the guns"
7
Outstanding piece, thank you Nicholas. I am a hunter and gun owner. I am also a father who has also been threatened by two shooter situations, one of which required a SWAT team to evacuate my family from our house.
Guns for rural home security is real for many communities, and we shouldn't dismiss those concerns. However, I am constantly heartbroken by my fellow friends and gun owners, who refuse to acknowledge they are bent on choosing a hobby of gun collecting over the demonstrated tragic deaths of thousands of innocent children and families by needless guns.
For our leaders out there I would love to see a bipartisan bill that would address both background checks and mental health. You would have a great deal of cohesion around addressing those two issues in combination, as there is a nexus.
18
How do the gun collecting interests of your friends in any way at all contribute to the tragic deaths of thousands of innocent children? I can't get my head around this, and I do have average intelligence. I own a few shotguns for pheasant and waterfowl hunting, one from my dad and one from my granddad, both long dead.
I own some "cowboy" guns, single-action revolvers and lever action pistol-caliber rifles for competitive shooting. That with a couple of deer rifles and two old S&W .38 special revolvers, constitute my "collection". All in all, they add up to 11 or 12. Or, as the media would put it, an "arsenal".
So, please explain: how does this contribute to the "tragic deaths of thousands of children"?
1
It's way past time to talk about the NRA. Something needs to be done about the NRA.
I once was a member of the NRA when it focused on hunting and conservation. Those days are long gone replaced with protecting the gun industry, lobbying Congress, and helping to make the war machine an ongoing part of America. It's become part of the problem instead of part of the solution to a better life in the USA. Trump and the NRA need a thorough investigation of its money, lobbying, tax, and political activities.
13
The problem is you don't give gun owners an alternative. Someone there needs to start a gun owners organisation for moderate people who want to see positive change. Give them something to join and feel a part of, don't demonise them. You need these people on board if you are going to make a change.
As for changing gun laws to something like we have here in Australia - it's too late for that now. You need to take small steps to positive action, one piece at a time, rather than do what the rest of the world has done. You are, frankly, to immature as a nation to make the difficult choices about guns as yet. Perhaps in time, with more positive organisations working with law abiding gun owners, you can make a change, but it won't happen overnight.
15
This nation needs to have a brutal fight for it soul, hopefully one that is nonviolent. We can solve the gun issue, but we would need leaders who are passionate and have something our Democratic Party has been sorely missing: a spine.
Golly, I hope we can get "mature" as a nation, especially in the light of the "maturity" of Aussies.
To me one of the most incomprehensible things about Australia is how a mass shooting could lead to an entire nation willing to turn over all guns, from shotguns on down. Did you think that you couldn't be trusted not to commit such crimes yourselves?
The US is different than any other country on this issue. Long may it remain so. Let's look at something besides the "Second Amendment". In 1889, a hundred years after the US Constitution, the people who wrote the constitution of my State, Washington, provided that any citizen could own and bear arms in self-defense. These were a bunch of sober-sided men, bankers, lawyers, railroad men; many of them Civil War veterans. Call them crazy-- but, the fact is, they were anything but.
We aren't Australia, Canada, the UK, or Europe. I am glad of it.
1
I agree completely, and have had a similar history with the NRA. It was once about firearm safety and education, and now is a creature of the gun (sales and manufacturing) lobby.
13
You expressed my thoughts. I'd like to express my sadness. My Dad was once an NRA instructor. He also practiced medicine, and promoted public health. Those are now competing endeavors.
I would add, the messaging from the NRA leadership isn't just about guns for self defense -- it's a whole apocalyptic scenario of fear and violence, verging over into an anti-government vision of armed resistance. At least, that's what they are promoting to some of their people. They want somebody who has twenty guns already, to think he should probably get twenty more. And vote ultra-right. Good thing they're getting old.
17
ManCard....Wow, it would be great to find out which artist or design firm put this beauty out for all to see, and even a few to believe in. Post WW2, Leni Riefenstahl pleaded complete ignorance of what was happening to Jews, Gypsies, Communists and others in Nazi Germany's camps.
While some may believe that her "Triumph of the Will" and other films are creative masterpieces, they often don't mention that they were also
"un-creative" masterworks. This is my word.....un-creative, in the sense that the use of Force was used to take the lives of others, as in let's
"un-create" them. Some of my thinking here is an extension of the writing of Simone Weil from her brilliant essay: The Iliad, Poem of Force.
4
Mr. Kristoff, everybody suffers from our cultural abuse gun sickness.
It is easy for all side to blame specific groups, whether it be the NRA, gun owners, non gun owners, minorities in neighborhoods etc. etc.
We all suffer from it otherwise it would have been cured already.
Only a policy of legality, regulation, responsibility and non promotion of the gun is the answer.
It has worked wonders with cig. smoking and drunk driving.
Not making it a policy on guns is responsible for our national sickness, ie 100k+ people killed/injured with guns a year in this country, an aberration re our peer countries.
4
Get real. There is no basis for "reasonable" gun control since the act of 1968, because every single gun owner knows that that would only be the start.
How about "reasonable gun control" that will stay put and never be changed? That will never happen, therefore there will be no compromise. As the comments here show, there are many, many people that think all gun ownership should be outlawed, that killing animals in hunting should be outlawed, etc. etc. This is "progressive" reality. It never stops.
1
Thank you for your reply. Your post is a prime example of the issue, ie you are right about the extremists on the left but you tend to go too far to the right, ie because of the left wing extremists we will have to put up with 100k+ Americans killed and wounded every yr., an aberration re our peer countries.
That is one definition of a cultural abuse sickness, the exact opposite of what the founding fathers and Madison wanted, ie 100k+ Americans killing/wounding themselves and others each year, instead of a well regulated militia.
That is why a cultural sickness like our gun abuse sickness (not gun ownership sickness) is so hard to cure.
Every other peer country has done it and they have survived without the sky fallen in.
1
Yep. No guns. No hunting of animals. Totally progressive.
And. Guns. Hunting of animals. Totally developmentally halted.
The author says the NRA is an extremist organization. Really? So many reasonable words until that sentence in the last paragraph of this long essay. That's why people don't trust progressive's efforts of gun control. They sound so reasonable and benign until the last paragraph when their true hostility and venom spits out.
6
I don't know how else you would describe an organization that willingly chooses to put dangerous weapons in the hands of people who shouldn't have them.
3
What's "venomous" about: "It has overreached and is vulnerable. If we want to tackle gun violence in America, we can start by discrediting it as an extremist organization that has been a boon to the firearms industry and a catastrophe for the American public."
It is "hostile" ... yep. Most people don't like murder. Most people also don't like angry losers arming themselves and ranting about "2nd amendment remedies." Most people don't like fools and crazies with guns.
1
Mr. Kristof, Like you I grew up with guns. My father was a WWII veteran and gun collector; he taught my brothers and me how to shoot when we hit 7 or 8 years old. He also taught us gun safety, how to hunt and how to clean a rifle after using it. Owning guns was a responsibility.
He was also an NRA life member, but resigned via an outraged letter after Wayne LaPierre’s described ATF agents as “jack-booted thugs.” The statement offended my father to his core. “I fought jack-booted thugs, they were called Nazis.”
I have never been an NRA reason for that reason, and my disgust with them only grew as they went from a shooting-sports organization to a lobbying group for the gun industry, wrapping themselves in the American flag in the process. The fact is, the NRA supports the Second Amendment for one single reason: It’s good for business. And business has been very good indeed.
11
But here's the question, Jim: leave the NRA aside. Do you still own and use guns? Have you taught your kids and grandkids as you have been taught? Should law-abiding people be entitled to buy rifles, shotguns, and handguns?
That's the issue, and the question, ultimately.
If you do, then the question is how to preserve this right. Maybe there's a better vehicle than the NRA, maybe not.
Our British friends disallow any ownership of handguns. Our Australian friends disallow almost all gun ownership. Should that be what we do? But the Scandinavians, for example have very widespread firearms ownership, including not just rifles but handguns. So do Germans. This is little-commented upon. Indeed, I think rifles are more widely owned in the Nordic countries than they are here.
It's been "time to talk" about guns for decades. That's the problem. Saying that "talk" would serve any purpose now is handing the initiative over to the NRA, who do "talk" about guns the way Abbott and Costello did "talk"about baseball. They will be no sincere effort at any accommodation by the NRA's leadership. They'll spend money on Congress and use the pretense of "talk" to; buy time, meaning one thing: more slaughter.
The Times demonstrates, again: 1) laziness in feeble rhetorical questions like "Why do we Americans kill each other, and ourselves, with guns at such rates?"; 2) magical thinking in suggesting dialogue with the lines of Oliver North and Dana Loesch; 3) simplistic paralysis in mistaking "a toxic brew of hate and bigotry, [and] the ubiquity of guns" for anything prescriptive; and 4) its usual high estimation of itself in pointing out that "gun carrying has also become an important part of identity and self-esteem for millions of Americans, in ways that liberal city-dwellers don’t always appreciate." Gosh, you think?
How far must one get from this problem to think that a word of this is new or helpful?
5
"...defanging the N.R.A."
I am the NRA and these are not the days of Trump. They are the days of the Trump voter. We have grown accustomed to political results. However progressives envision "gun safety", it had truly better make everyone safe.
Working towards a political solution that looks like Chicago, won't work. Where legal guns are difficult to obtain and every hood has 2. That's DOA.
Registration won't get off the ground, for all of the reasons everyone lives with today. Will a gun owners data be safe? Sure, as long as one bad actor doesn't sell it on the "dark web". Your name, address and all of your gun info, that's e-bay for crooks. Gun safes? Go to youtube and search "gun safes". If you can't keep track of voters, what about gun owners?
You register your car? Yeah, and when I'm driving in public, it is a privilege and I may be pulled over. If I'm walking, that is "stop and frisk". That's not popular is some locales.
The gun protects the citizen from the government. I don't know how you can stop nut-jobs. Maybe get a gun and learn how to use it. If that makes you mad, sorry. Making me give up my guns, that makes me mad. You don't have to apologize. I'm not really giving up my guns.
Defang? Sure, just call me Snaggletooth.
5
Your comment brings to mind the classic headline from the Onion following yet another mass shooting: 'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.
3
@Mike: "The gun protects the citizen from the government."
I've heard that absurd 18th and 19th century argument so many times... could you give us some examples in post-war America where that has been true, that an armed "Patriot," with his semi-automatic AR-15 or Glock actually protected himself from "the government?"
Or are you wistfully thinking of Cleavon Bundy and his armed gang of camo-wearing thugs in Nevada defending his right to not pay the grazing fees due for which he signed a contract?
There's a bumper sticker that says "you can pry my gun from my cold dead fingers." That's a reasonably common occurrence.
I grew up out west and I am comfortable with the law of the old west: open carry, none of this weasel hidden-gun nonsense. You shoot first, it's murder. You shoot somebody unarmed or in the back, it's murder. None of this stand-your-ground nonsense over a man who throws popcorn in your face ... or even punches you.
Go walk through any of the boot hills: Tombstone and Dodge City have pretty big ones. The motto of the old west was "live by the gun, die by the rope." Count the graves.
1
the only way to defang the NRA and to promote gun control is for liberals and people of color to buy guns and to join and then take over the NRA.
2
Do you actually think "liberals and people of color" do not own guns? Go out and talk to a few.
The NRA owns the people who are in power we elected.
The only thing that is going to stop this support is strong legislation regarding election donations.
It' s dirty money that will contiune to take innocent souls.
2
In the future we should refer to the NRA as a cult, maybe not a religious cult, but a political cult. As such it is one of the more deadly political cults in our history. There have been other such cults in our 200+ year history, such as the KKK and the American Nazi Party. However the latter two have been mostly relegated to the dust bin of history.
4
Be careful Mr. Kristof! The NRA and the individual who occupy the WH don't stop at anything! Hatred, racism and violence is their new vocabulary, rational human language has been replaced by "linguistic terrorism." Excellent article. Take care!
2
We can deal with pesticides and chemical spills, but not with guns. Not so far.
All the data and graphics you show, many so familiar, make no difference to core obstructionists in Congress. Perceived self-interest rules. No matter how many school-children or innocent worshippers are killed, any action on a national level will be blocked.
The best hopes will be at individual state levels and some change is occurring: https://lawcenter.giffords.org/facts/research/ . As those shifts occur, perhaps one day (as current congressional obstructionists disappear) we can begin to move on several fronts.
Seeing more verbiage on what the 2nd amendment "really means" is useless. Pointing out the clear and detrimental effects of firearms on the public's health has not mattered to majorities in Congress.
1
I think the desire to own an assault weapon calls the sanity of the gunner into question.
7
Do those who believe in both hunting, and safety, believe they and all Americans, no matter how angry, hate filled, mentally ill, of which there are endless numbers, need to be able to purchase automatic weapons, assault weapons, with unlimited magazines, etc.? If they do, there is no longer a conscience in this country, or any hope for the safety of anyone in this country.
7
Very sober and thoughtful article about the NRA! And as a side note, it has given me another reason to buy a Budweiser!!!
2
"Every day in America, about 104 people die from guns, while in Japan it takes about a decade for that many to die from gun violence."
nice trick but it is getting tiresome. Here is the math:
(1) 2/3 of 104 people that die from "gun violence" are suicides
(2) Japan has 2x as many suicides as the US, which would be the equivalent of 139 gun deaths
(3) Logical conclusion deriving from this article: Japan is a more violent country than the US!
Were is the flaw in the author's thinking? The flaw is the misleading play of words called "gun violence". As Japan shows you don't need a gun to commit suicide. But folks agitating against the NRA apparently can't resist to use the misleading term "gun violence" and to include suicides to greatly inflate their numbers to make them more shocking. Gun owners know this and can see this kind of dishonest writing from a mile away. No wonder the NRA wins because it is so easy to debunk this kind of argumentation. The losers are suicidal folks who need help and restricting access to guns will do absolutely zero to improve their mental health or prevent them from committing suicides.
5
The 2nd Amendment should be reinterpreted correctly, not in the way the NRA has forced upon the country. The 2nd Amendment states its premise, the needs, or whereas, or consideration clause, which at one time may have had a truth to it, but now it is patently and undeniably false. The truth is, "A well regulated militia is NOT necessary for the security of a free state...".
Ask the greatest minds you can find to prove it is - well, no one can.
The necessity for militias has been a falsehood for over 150 years, it's time for its inherent invalidity to be recognized and respected. With the premise now known to be false, there is no longer this need for citizens to keep and bear arms. Those who live in a world of alternative facts will disagree. But in the USA, the 2nd Amendment no longer supports our way of defending our country, and thus should be deemed null, void, and without meaning.
If this is not yet clear, then consider the folly if the Founders also tried to enshrine Economic Rights in the Constitution:
"Gravel paved roads, being necessary for a well functioning economy, the right of the citizens to own and operate horse drawn wagons shall not be infringed."
Making it possible for people to forever use horse drawn wagons everywhere in our society is ridiculous. It's far more ridiculous to allow anyone anywhere to own as many loaded guns as they wish.
4
Well, anybody in this country is free to use horse-drawn wagons. It is, in fact, quite possible to use them forever. But most people don't want to. But if they do, I have no intention of trying to prohibit it!
I am curious, as Russia has taken an interest in the NRA for obvious reasons. Would the NRA exist in Russia? And does the lax gun controls that the NRA push exist there?
The Onion publishes after each massacre an article titled, "No way to prevent this says only nation this happen in."
1
No. A thousand times no. Never give up your right to own a gun. The first thing Hitler did was take away the guns, it made the German people totally defenseless against the army and the Gestapo. Taking away guns is not the answer. The fact is-there is no answer.
7
The U.S. gov't. has a lot of firearms at its disposal. And other weapons, including big, big bombs and really fast aircraft.
I'd bet they'd be able to take away your little guns without breaking a sweat.
If the Second goes first, the First will go second.
It's time to bury the NRA.
1. Require liability insurance on guns of all types
2. Ban ammunition for assault weapons (including many rifles)
3. Restore the ban on weapons for the mentally ill.
2
A pivotal change in public opinion around the Vietnam war was when the press started showing graphic images of war. I believe Trump/Pence all Congressmen and Senators should have to view mass shooting crime scene pictures. If the family allows, these images should be released to the public.
Congressmen, Senators and Governors from the State/district of a mass shooting, should have to attend with police.
Maybe then there would be some change in the NRA influence and have the single common denominator from all mass shootings regulated- true reform on gun laws.
2
The photo of a man who's just been shot in the head left me with an image that is still troubling my mind after how many decades, now?
That he was my "enemy" is irrelevant.
Years ago, I used to wonder why the NRA never wanted strong gun control legislation. Who better to lobby for gun laws than those who respect and fear the deadly power of guns. Such is not the case, of course. Today's NRA is the lobbying arm of the gun industry. Its primary mission is no longer gun safety, but rather making money, exerting power, and playing king maker for right wing politicians. How I wish that NRA members would insist that their organization--once dedicated to responsible gun handling and ownership-- would return to that mission. Our country is so fraught with fear, cultural division, and hatred we could use the NRA the way it once was: civic minded, non-partisan, and focused on preserving lives.
1
Gun control activists have been “talking” about the NRA, and talking AT it, for years now, and what do you have to show for all that palaver? Bupkis.
The central error you commit is the same one that Democrats have been committing generally from their increasingly permanent and ornate fortresses in the political wilderness: instead of compellingly defining achievable ways forward to objectives that most share, you consume your time in frontally assaulting your adversaries. You don’t invite people to join you in fashioning practical objectives that are salable, you simply attack those who disagree with you. To one extent or another, guys, that’s most Americans. And you set for yourselves unachievable overall goals because you reinforce your adversaries’ contention that you threaten vital and broad-based interests.
WHENEVER you set about seeking to transform society you WILL attract adversaries whose interests are threatened, or who rent-seek on their ARGUMENTS that you threaten broadly-held interests. Stop giving hostages to fortune by focusing excessively on the NRA, which you simply empower by your single-minded attention; and engage in a broader and more open conversation with America. When you attack the NRA so frontally, you telegraph to Americans that you fear your adversary, whom they rally around because the adversary compellingly argues that you’re trying to destroy the only voice that effectively seeks to moderate or stifle your attempted …
4
Obama was a 1-term president, right? Oh, he wasn't, was he?
You repealed Obamacare on "day 1", right? Oh, guess not. In fact most of your congressmen are now claiming it is Democrats who will take away healthcare.
Richard -- I wonder why you continue to live in New Jersey?
The wikipedia often serves up hilarious unintentional commentary in articles written by partisan 6th-graders (or those with equivalent writing skills.) Check out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_New_Jersey
complete with "In 2014, the George Washington Bridge scandal attracted attention. The Democrat-controlled state legislature had been holding investigative hearings on the scandal since January 2014, but never directly link [sic] Christie to the lane closures."
And then read its whiny lament about New jersey gun laws.
Why not move to Florida with all its fine gun laws and gun people?
1
Another hugely informative article. Thank you. While reading it, I was struck by a strange irony: many Republican men are single-issue voters on guns (which contribute to more deaths--by suicide, accidental injuries, crimes of passion, etc.), while many Republican women are single-issue voters against abortion (or as they would call it, "pro-life"). And both generally favor capital punishment.
14
Thank you for pointing this out. It's called HYPOCRISY and it stinks to high heaven.
2
If only this Op-Ed were appearing in the Wall St Journal. It seems there is widespread belief among a large segment of Times readers that it's time not just to talk but to take action regarding the NRA but, as with so many things, we are here again in an echo chamber of our own making. Until the Republicans agree with you, it's unlikely this conversation will make it past these pages. There will be more massacres and more NYTimes Op-Eds, but I wonder if they have any material effect beyond the nodding heads of agreeing Times readers.
7
If you are anti-gun, I disagree with you 100%. However, I agree with words, 100%.
I could use an RPG, maybe a surface to air, or a Trident, bigger dreams, bigger weapons. Auto fire rifles and heavy handguns no, but a 308 with a nite scope or target scope, I could use. One shot, one kill works for me.
Death by bullet is just wrong. I've seen handguns without the safety on pop out of purses, rattle across desks and wave around from hand to hand in ignorance. The National Republican Army (NRA) is for provider profit and the cost of damage from their products is not paid by them. One shot, one kill then it's just the Funeral, works for me.
3
The dumbest gun "accident" I've seen -- In 1975 and '76 I worked summers in Alaska as a pilot. Some of the work consisted of ferrying hunters (most from the lower 48) out to hunting cabins on lakes.
One morning I was loading the airplane with a group of three hunters, one woman who was ... how shall I put it ... clearly not a wife or girlfriend, and their gear. It included two cases of Rebel Yell, duffles of stuff, three rifles. I asked if all the rifles were unloaded - was told they were. One of the rifles was not in a case, just tied across the top of a big duffle. I told the guy we couldn't load it that way -- he started to untie in ... and it fired. Put a bullet in one side and out the other of the fuselage.
1
There is only one way to neutralize this obscenity of an organization (I, too, was a member for a year after qualifying on a 22 in summer camp). We ALL join - at $30 a year and $100 for 5 years ("Best Value" according to their website). Even if the membership figure of 6 million the NRA claims is correct can we not find 6,000,001 people to join and rein in this beast? I am not in favor of destroying the NRA; I merely want to return it to its original purposes and intentions: teach gun safety and stand up for hunters. That is it. Let the fanatics start another group for the crazies and Second Amendment fanatics. We can see about taking that organization over later. And the newly configured "NRA" would support only candidates who were in favor of gun controls, not the extremists currently sucking at the teat of the NRA to the danger and damage of the rest of us. Perhaps we can even get Michael Bloomberg to help underwrite the project!
1
Great piece, but the the title is incomplete. Should be called:
It's Time to Talk About the NRA (Again)
It's Time to Talk About the NRA (Again)
5
Every time a pundit complains about the NRA after one of these mass murders I know, and am reminded, that they are clueless to the problem. More likely their essay is blame shifting to distract people's attention from the hate inspiring agitation of their columns. The NRA had nothing to do with this shooting. It's curious that the author of this column won't admit that none of these mass murderers were members of the NRA. The NRA does not make mass murderers. Liberal media agitation certainly sparks their acts. The killers say so themselves. None of them say the NRA made me do it.
The NRA defends the Constitution, but that means little to the liberal left. The leftists also want to abolish the electoral system and the first amendment, even though they claim 1st amendment rights to spread their agitation, but their 1st amendment is selective, as long as it serves their sedition. They now proclaim that the Constitution was compiled by a bunch of white supremacist slave owners who designed our government to keep the black man on the plantations. You can see this theory proudly proclaimed here in the NYT by NYT columnists, the content of which is owned and propagated by the NYT. They won't admit in their own minds, to the point of personal realization, that Obama actually inspired record levels of gun sales in this country. Gun dealers made fortunes. During Trump they are going bankrupt.
The NRA defends the Constitution, but that means little to the liberal left. The leftists also want to abolish the electoral system and the first amendment, even though they claim 1st amendment rights to spread their agitation, but their 1st amendment is selective, as long as it serves their sedition. They now proclaim that the Constitution was compiled by a bunch of white supremacist slave owners who designed our government to keep the black man on the plantations. You can see this theory proudly proclaimed here in the NYT by NYT columnists, the content of which is owned and propagated by the NYT. They won't admit in their own minds, to the point of personal realization, that Obama actually inspired record levels of gun sales in this country. Gun dealers made fortunes. During Trump they are going bankrupt.
2
"None of them say the NRA made me do it."
No, the NRA didn't make them; it allowed for them to do it.
As for Obama's role in gun sales, the naive and paranoid among us believed he would take their beloved weapons away.
1
How does the NRA defend the Constitution? Has the organization been elected or appointed to office?
You are, if I may pun, shooting off your mouth, Aristotle.
Many of these shooters or those who owned the guns were NRA members.
The saddest was Mary Lanza, mother of Adam Lanza, the disturbed young man who massacred the young school children in CT.
She was a gun-hobby enthusiast, participated in shooting events, had a houseful of unsecured guns. She encouraged and taught her son Adam to shoot. She bought him a semi-auto handgun as a birthday present -- he was underage, this was illegal. She was the first person he killed in his rampage.
1
Nick, thank you for continuing to point out the truth about the NRA and the evolution of gun laws in this country -- from strict control even in the "wild west" to a refusal to consider ANY limitations by the Republican Congress.
One point you didn't make about silencers: without hearing shots ring out, people wouldn't know they were under attack. The carnage could be far worse. If universal background checks and other measures to protect society are important to voters, then they should ONLY VOTE FOR CANDIDATES WHO AGREE! Else things will never change.
2
In the UK, which has very strict gin control laws, silencers are legal and available to anyone who wants to purchase one.
1
Silencers are also customary, sometimes required, on hunting rifles in Scandinavian countries, lest shots disturb non-hunters. And, by the way, very large percentages of Nordic people are hunters and gun owners.
You can own a "silencer" (suppressor) in the USA -- just pay the fee and get the NFA license for it.
If you are so keen to hunt silently why not hunt with a bow?
1
Like many Jews, I am increasingly fearful of the direction this country is heading.
But it's the gun violence that really gets to me. My children's Jewish day school has security measures in place that, in theory, would reduce their risk of a mass shooting. But if practically anyone can legally obtain an entire arsenal, what can they really do? Meanwhile, the political climate continues to deteriorate.
This is the fear that has me looking for the exit. Canada? Scotland? Ireland? We've talked about it for a long time, but this year our discussions are more serious.
I want to stay and fight. But I lost my father on Sept. 11. I can't lose someone like that again.
4
Two things:
First, the topic of the Second Amendment is the first four words: "A well regulated militia, …" so it simply doesn't apply to the vast majority of gun owners.
Second, it's clear to me that the NRA isn't just motivated by profitable gun sales; they are the terrorist wing of the Republican Party / GOP. The radical right profits from the murder and mayhem of so many guns, and so does Tsar Putin.
6
"In fairness, let’s also note that progressives have periodically driven moderate gun-owners into the arms of the N.R.A. with muddled commentary indicating that they didn’t know anything about the guns they wanted to regulate. In 2013, for example, New York State banned loading magazines with more than seven rounds, with many lawmakers apparently not realizing that for many guns there are no magazines holding seven or fewer rounds."
I love ya, Nicholas, but that does not say that NY State didn't know anything about the guns they regulate. That says they were mandating smaller magazines than presently exist. You may as well argue the EPA knows nothing about pollution if they mandate pollution controls more stringent than presently exist, but will if industry gets off its butt.
I love ya, Nicholas, but that does not say that NY State didn't know anything about the guns they regulate. That says they were mandating smaller magazines than presently exist. You may as well argue the EPA knows nothing about pollution if they mandate pollution controls more stringent than presently exist, but will if industry gets off its butt.
5
When I was in law school, before the Heller decision, one of the national moot court competitions focused on these Second Amendment issues. I spent roughly two months intensively researching anything that had anything to do with that amendment and can agree with what Chief Justice Burger said. That decision was also the peak of the conservatives' "fake" originalism and the greatest example of judicial activism ever. A tribute not just to the NRA but to its conservative judicial enablers, like Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and (now) Brett Kavanaugh.
5
Mr. Kristof, you have once again written a great column that is respectful of gun owners and at the same time reflects the urgent need for good laws to reduce these horrible killings.
I am an NRA Life Member. The NRA does advocate for me in that it does thwart what I consider extreme gun control and it provides great safety training. Where I diverge from the NRA is the complete opposition to any regulation. Background checks protect me and my family, red flag laws protect families that have abusive and/or mentally unstable family members, waiting periods for completed background checks can prevent tragedies like Charleston, SC.
I suggest that regulations around ownership, not necessarily about weapons types, rather on owner suitability, protect current and future gun ownership as well as the general public.
2
R. Buckminster Fuller decided after a long life of trying to seek basic patterns in our evolution, that it all pointed to an end of our species unless we somehow experienced a major shift in our consciousness. That would be from approaching things from a combat/conquest perspective, to a communicate/cooperate one.
Think about it.
11
A child accidentally shoots another child in the back--leaving him paralyzed and in need of life long institutionalization. The family did not keep guns in the home because they wanted a "well-armed militia". I took care of the gunshot victim years ago and have never forgotten what this gun did to this family. That the NRA would cynically use dollars to control politicians so that they can support more gun sales is sickening. Even if a politician is wonderful in every other way, if he takes money from the NRA I can't vote for him. Ask the ER doctors in Las Vegas or Orlando or Parkland or Connecticut or now, sadly, Pittsburgh if they feel safer with more guns on the street. Ask them.
37
This is an opinion piece, sure, but it's also the most informative thing I've read on this topic in years.
22
Until technocrats figure out how to create a perfect world, many people are not going to put their trust in good-luck charms for their family’s well-being.
1
No, most people put their trust in locked doors-- sometimes with burglar alarms-- smoke detectors, and public fire and police protection, not to mention public safety laws like health inspectors for restaurants, etc., etc.
When the gun rights argument has deteriorated to AK47s versus rabbits' feet, it's time to take a long step back and get some perspective.
5
NRA says it's "freedom's safest place." Yet I've heard they don't allow people to bring guns into their meetings. There's some kind of disconnect here.
46
The venue controls (and the secret service when the Pres/VP attends) whether guns are allowed not the NRA....but don't let the facts get in your way.
The fact is that they're afraid to have guns in their meetings - but just go ahead and blame the venue or whatever. There's the spin and then there's the cold hard fact.
When I was young, the NRA was basically an organization for hunters. Now, they undermine our society and use Russian rubles to help them.
6
I suppose I learned about “silencers” as a teenager when watching gangsters, James Bond villains and other assorted murderers using them in televion crime thrillers and at the movies. Just part of the standard professional “hitman’s kit.” To see Donald Trump Jr. advocating for their general use as “a health issue” in order to get “little kids into the game” should be the stuff of parody, except that he is perfectly serious. Only in America!
15
Susan, they are used rather extensively in Europe for hunting. The rifles are controlled so their use in crime is nearly non-existent.
3
Unless subsonic ammunition is used, silencers are still quite loud. In fact, they are as loud as jack hammers according to Bruel & Kjaer sound impulse meters. When silencers are used with a standard deer hunting rifle the rapport is often just below hearing safe levels for impulse noises which is 140dB. Ask 100 hunters if they hunt with hearing protection and 99 will tell you they do not and one will say "what?" Hunters shooting unsuppressed rifles are subjected to impulse noise of over 160dB which will cause permanent and cumulative hearing damage. Given the millions of hunters in this country there is no question this is a public health issue for both young and old hunters alike. Even the CDC determined that the only truly effective hearing protection is to affix one's firearm with a silencer. My recommendation, before forming an opinion on the validity of silencer ownership, is to actually hear one being used in real life, not one being used by James Bond on the silver screen. While the vast majority of you in this echo chamber will dismiss it outright, I'd like to think the reasonable folks here will give the benefits of silencer use at least some consideration - even if you've never had desire to use a firearm.
3
In the section showing NRA members majority opinions favouring restrictions, one mentioned was:
"to Requiring gun owners to alert police if their guns are lost or stolen"
Excuse me...does that mean currently in the U.S Gun Owners are under no requirement to alert police if their guns are Stolen??!!
We are talking about a weapon used soley for KILLING!
i.e If I leave my AR-15's in the back seat of my parked car and find them stolen upon my return, I don't have to report the theft? (as well as acknowlege my stupidity for leaving weaopns in plain sight in my car!)
Stolen guns are used to commit crime, murders and mayhem...SURELY they must be reported to Police for all logical reasons and to help authorities either return them or take them off the street before they do real harm...surely?
Somebody...please tell me it ain't true.
6
Lets call it what it is. If an organization instills fear in the minds of many, by truth it is a Terrorist Organization. At first the NRA just terrified Republican politicians, now they terrify the whole country. The Second Amendment has been distorted by La Pierre and his cronies and we all know they won't be satisfied until you can buy guns and ammo in a vending machine on the corner.
3
SHS says "90% of what comes of their mouths(Media) is negative." Really. And where is it mandated Media is to be Presidential "cheerleader". Can't stand the heat?-get out of the kitchen....
2
@That's what she said USA
Sarah Huckabee Sanders works for a compulsive liar with a bully pulpit. Her job is to try to make him look good. Unfortunately, she has to lie or obfuscate the truth on an almost daily basis in order to come anywhere close to fulfilling her job description.
Of course journalists NOT in the employ of what has become our Official State Organ (Fox News), journalists not trapped in a world of "alternative facts", see things negatively because #45 is almost constantly saying and doing things that provoke criticism. That is the reason we need a free press!
When Emmett Tills body was taken back home, his mother insisted on an open casket to show the people what was done to her son. When Jacqueline Kennedy was advised to change out of her blood stained outfit, she said no, because she wanted to show the country what they had done. Unfortunately it is going to take a picture of one of the school victims to show the country what assault weapons do. We all think of small bullet holes but in most cases, these weapons fire bullets that blow out large chunks of flesh. It will take a courageous parent to allow that photo of their son or daughter to speak volumes to the masses.
194
I could not agree more - I have seen these gunshot wounds with my own eyes - 18 months later the images still haunt me. And the victims were not even my relatives!
1
Totally agree-the damage that an AR 15 type does is a complete range of magnitude higher than most think. I know after being essentially disembowed from the inside after a point blank AR 15 shot hit me in the stomach.
1
Those of us who know these types of weapons know just how powerful they are.
I sincerely hope that none of my neighbors have an assault rifle. They could think they hear a noise in their home some night, jump out of bed, grab their AR 15 and click off a couple of rounds at a shadow. Those bullets could easily go through their walls, through mine and then through one of my family member's skulls.
Plywood, dry wall and even brick is no defense against a .223 round.
1
It's not the NRA that speaks for me, a gun owner (or many others I know), but few seem to understand the core issue with the phrase "gun control," and why gun owners fight the concept so vigorously.
I hear and read opinions of people who desire gun control, and they say use terms like "reasonable" or "common sense" in relation to gun laws, but nobody can agree on what those terms actually mean. THAT is the worry. One person's reasonable is another's ridiculous.
Depending on the source, reasonable gun laws range can range between these two current extremes:
A) universal background checks and mandatory significant training for gun ownership (which I support), OR...
B) proposals for nationwide confiscation of all semi-automatic firearms, or a UK-style almost-but-not-quite outright ban on private firearm ownership
These are the end-posts. When you don't know the attitude of the person(s) proposing "common sense" gun control, you have to assume it's the B option. I certainly see enough comments here that lean that way.
6
What is wrong with banning semi-automatic firearms? They are really war weapons with no place in normal society. Yes, it might also be fun to set off bombs or drive tanks through your town, but it's not allowed because it's "common sense."
1
Who thinks setting off bombs or driving tanks thru a town is fun? I don’t understand your rationale here. Semi-automatic firearms are not worthwhile due to “fun,” they are a 100+ year old technological development with advantages for hunting (mostly for recoil). Your grandfather possibly hunted with one and nobody worried about mass murders in his time.
I have read/heard repeatably former NRA members talking about why they have resigned. My questions is: why do you start a new organization? A gun association for reasonable people. There is a need for an organization for gun safety, to organize gun clubs such as skeet shooting, and to support/educate hunters. Why not start a group?
5
It is a shame lying is not a crime; if it were, everyone in the videos would be behind bars.
2
Unfortunately, its NEVER time to talk about the NRA, and that's the whole problem.
Every effort to even consider that its part of the problem is always shut down.
Every effort to even consider that its part of the problem is always shut down.
3
It is time to talk with the NRA.
We talked enough about the NRA.
2
A few statistics Mr. Kristof neglects to mention. The first is the difference between the black homicide rate and the white homicide rate. Whites kill each other (only a small proportion of homicides are interracial) at a rate of 2.5 per 100,000. The black rate is 19.4. (Data from fivethirtyeight.com.) Blacks are 7 times more likely to kill than whites. So would Mr. Kristof agree that the problem is not guns, but blacks?
Second, he notes that gun violence is much lower in Japan. But he neglects to mention that the suicide rate per 100,000 people in Japan (23.1) is much higher than the US suicide rate (12.4). The presence or absence of guns doesn't seem to correlate to the suicide rate.
Similarly, his data for child homicides and suicides are skewed by two factors. The first is that a "child" is anyone under 18 years old. Many of the child homicides in the US are related to gang violence. And for child suicides, again Mr. Kristof's data is selective and misleading. The overall suicide rate in the US for 5-14 year olds is 1.5 times that of other developed countries, much less than one would be led to believe from the charts. For all ages, the US suicide rate is only 80% of the developed country average. (Data from the American Journal of Medicine https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(15)01030-X/fulltext)
Where I agree with Mr. Kristof is that the NRA represents gun manufacturers more than gun owners. But the NRA doesn't have any votes.
3
Suicide rate in Japan has decreased from 25.7% in 2009 to its 30 year low last year at 16.8%, about 21,000 people committed suicide in 2017 in Japan. About 450 people per 100,000 attempt suicide. https://www.statista.com/statistics/622249/japan-suicide-number-per-100-000-inhabitants/
In the US, the suicide rate has increased from 11.75 to 13.42 in 2016 and its possible it tops 14 in 2017. About 346 people per 100,000 attempt suicide. So the Japanese attempt suicide 30% more than Americans, which results in a suicide rate of 20% higher.
Meanwhile, Japan's murder rate is .28 per 100/000. US murder rate is 5.25. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
By the way, if you do just limit the murder rate to the white murder rate of 2.5 that you suggest, that still ranks us as the 93rd for least murders. This is in line with the homicide rates in Iran, Bangladesh, Egypt, Libya, Rwanda. Actually, there are 10 African countries that would still have lower homicide rates.
Since 2001, per 2017 FBI stats, murders are up 7.6%, with the increase almost completely resulting from the use of firearms, and almost completely from "other guns" and "Firearms not stated" category. Total firearm murders increased 24%. Handguns and rifles increased 1% and 4%. Shotguns decreased 48%. But Other guns increased 317% from 59 to 187 and" Firearms type not stated" increased 309% from 1003 to 3096. Coincidentally, perhaps, the Firearms type not stated category started to increase in 2005.
What about other weapons? Stabbings down 13%, Blunt objects down 31%, personal weapons (fists/feet) down 28%, drowning down 65%, strangulation down 42% and asphyxiation down 9%. Only narcotics increased and by 162% (37 to 97)
What else has happened over this time? The number of guns in the public increased, which I keep getting told, by the NRA, should make us safer. So how is that working out?
1
Actions speak louder than words. If Trump actually believed he would be safer with more guns, he would encourage everyone who attends his events or rallies to bring a gun -- or two.
5
The NRA in it's present form is a big problem and if it cannot be reformed should probably be considered an advocate for the misuse of firearms.
There are a lot of people who can be identified as likely to misuse guns and so should not have them. Some are because they are children, some because they have very poor judgment, some because they are ignorant of how to safely keep and use guns. some because they have a mental state which makes them likely to harm themselves or others, and some because they would use guns to commit crimes. There is no rational reason to consider owning or using guns an inherent right. The Second Amendment stipulates that the right to keep and to bear arms is related to a social interest not one inherent to being a person. The huge number of people and people who own guns and guns owned has made it almost impossible for society to make sure that all who have guns can be trusted with them. That is a problem that cannot be ignored any longer.
To control guns requires the cooperation, free cooperation of gun owners, and trusting that absent evidence to the contrary that they are to be trusted by those who really have no use for nor wish to keep nor to use them. This is because rational control means registering all guns and licensing all gun users. It means removing guns temporarily or permanently from people who are likely to misuse them. It means everyone agreeing to cooperate to reduce gun violence using reasonable means.
There are a lot of people who can be identified as likely to misuse guns and so should not have them. Some are because they are children, some because they have very poor judgment, some because they are ignorant of how to safely keep and use guns. some because they have a mental state which makes them likely to harm themselves or others, and some because they would use guns to commit crimes. There is no rational reason to consider owning or using guns an inherent right. The Second Amendment stipulates that the right to keep and to bear arms is related to a social interest not one inherent to being a person. The huge number of people and people who own guns and guns owned has made it almost impossible for society to make sure that all who have guns can be trusted with them. That is a problem that cannot be ignored any longer.
To control guns requires the cooperation, free cooperation of gun owners, and trusting that absent evidence to the contrary that they are to be trusted by those who really have no use for nor wish to keep nor to use them. This is because rational control means registering all guns and licensing all gun users. It means removing guns temporarily or permanently from people who are likely to misuse them. It means everyone agreeing to cooperate to reduce gun violence using reasonable means.
3
The second amendment has an explanation that there was a need for a well regulated militia and then states that the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms shall not be prevented. The second assertion was related to the first but it remained unclear as to what that meant. The reasons for this amendment are not otherwise stated in the Constitution. This amendment was not claimed to assert an inherent right for people to possess and use firearms until the middle twentieth century.
The framer's intentions were related to the tentative relations between the states and the federal government. There was an ancient British fear that the central government with an exclusive dominance of military force was likely to lead to tyranny, so the country would rely upon militias and locally controlled military units rather than have a central standing military. The Americans felt that militias should be the foundation of an national defense and also a deterrent from the central government imposing it's will upon the individual states. This tension was resolved after the Civil War. By the twentieth century this country was comfortable with a centrally controlled military and the need for militias was no longer crucial.
You still didn't take civics class in school. You recite a limited and distorted 'history' of the second amendment. The roots of the second amendment go back a thousand years. It's history of precedents is older than any other amendment in the constitution. The author persists in repeating the myth that the 2nd amendment has been recently 'reinterpreted' to allow private ownership of guns by citizens. It has always stipulated private ownership of guns. That was its specific intent. The authors and delegates of the Continental Convention said as much in their own words. Its history is one of addressing a citizen's right to bear arms outside of a controlling authority of the government or a militia. You'll have to look that up. There isn't enough space here. Amazon.com has lots of books on the subject, even distorted liberal propaganda books.
1
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
The point of the Second Amendment is to secure a free state via a well-regulated state-run militia. Thus, people have the right to keep and bear arms, which made sense to the Founders in the absence -- and fear of -- a large standing army controlled by a central government.
This truism from Amendment II can be proved a number of ways and is further supported by Amendment V, Article I Section 8 Clause 15, and Article II Section 2 Clause 1.
Other arguments re: the purpose of Amendment II may be connected to the 3/5 Compromise as well, though they aren't the main story. Slave states used the Militias as their Slave Patrols.
And, Gluteus, passionate though you may be about gun ownership, all this is a very very long way from the idea that the Founders were writing a license for every man, woman and child in the 21st C to own and use at will any kind of weapon, from a musket to a semi-automatic rifle. And if all that, then why not automatic rifles, or shoulder rockets, or anything yet to be devised for the sole purpose of killing, and killing many victims rapidly?
The Constitution has been re-interpreted and amended many times. It isn't set in stone. Today"s view of the Second is the result of fairly recent SCOTUS interpretations.
If Justice Scalia had lived long enough, his Heller decision might be on the verge of becoming old hat, and those now packing the biggest, scariest semi-automatics might very soon be sporting shoulder rockets . . . or not.
We could talk about the NRA but at this time they own many of our elected officials including the president.
No one is listening to the American people, who cry out in grief and anger over these mass killings.
No other civilized country & democracy on earth has this problem of tens of thousands of violent gun deaths every year - and mass slaughter for political reasons and expressions of private grudges.
It appears that literally any determined person can acquire an assault weapon if they try hard enough.
We alone have a culture that values gun ownership over human life and our safety in our offices, schools, churches, synagogues, restaurants, theaters, literally everywhere.
I'm weirded out by how often I think about gun violence as I go about my daily life. In 1968 I worked for Senator Robert Kennedy when he ran for president and was gunned down. I believed at that time gun violence would be addressed but literally nothing happened. In 2007, my young half-brother was a student living on campus at Virginia Tech on the day a gunman murdered 33 students on the campus. We waited hours to learn he was unharmed.
When will this end?
When will America ever face reality? We are talking about cold-blooded mass murder on an almost daily basis.
This is madness.
Madness.
No one is listening to the American people, who cry out in grief and anger over these mass killings.
No other civilized country & democracy on earth has this problem of tens of thousands of violent gun deaths every year - and mass slaughter for political reasons and expressions of private grudges.
It appears that literally any determined person can acquire an assault weapon if they try hard enough.
We alone have a culture that values gun ownership over human life and our safety in our offices, schools, churches, synagogues, restaurants, theaters, literally everywhere.
I'm weirded out by how often I think about gun violence as I go about my daily life. In 1968 I worked for Senator Robert Kennedy when he ran for president and was gunned down. I believed at that time gun violence would be addressed but literally nothing happened. In 2007, my young half-brother was a student living on campus at Virginia Tech on the day a gunman murdered 33 students on the campus. We waited hours to learn he was unharmed.
When will this end?
When will America ever face reality? We are talking about cold-blooded mass murder on an almost daily basis.
This is madness.
Madness.
4
Most Canadians back outright ban on guns in cities, according to the poll, conducted by Ekos Research Associates for The Canadian Press, 69% of those surveyed agreed there 'should be a strict ban on guns in urban areas'
Bill Blair, the minister for border security and organized-crime reduction, is leading a public consultation on banning handguns. Note, assault rifles are already banned in Canada
On hate speech Sections 318 and 319 of the Canadian Criminal Code make it a criminal offense to advocate genocide, publicly incite hatred, and willfully promote hatred against an “identifiable group.”
An identifiable group is any section of the public distinguished by color, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation or mental or physical disability.
The Code provisions are intended to prohibit the public distribution of hate propaganda.
Bill Blair, the minister for border security and organized-crime reduction, is leading a public consultation on banning handguns. Note, assault rifles are already banned in Canada
On hate speech Sections 318 and 319 of the Canadian Criminal Code make it a criminal offense to advocate genocide, publicly incite hatred, and willfully promote hatred against an “identifiable group.”
An identifiable group is any section of the public distinguished by color, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation or mental or physical disability.
The Code provisions are intended to prohibit the public distribution of hate propaganda.
3
@JH Mintz Canada
Yes, well, but -- that's Canada.
Here in the USA, our President is only the most senior person in the Federal Government who is owned by the NRA, and he regularly -- and publicly -- incites hatred against identifiable groups, including, but not restricted to, people of color, Muslims, women, liberals, immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, people with disabilities -- groups too numerous to mention here.
Do you have any advice for beleaguered Americans who want to create a society that actually seeks "liberty and justice for all"?
For someone with a gun every problem is a potential target. And for the NRA and gun manufacturers and retailers, any reasonable restriction on gun sales and access is a problem. The 30,000 homicides per year are acceptable collateral damage for the NRA. We are acceptable collateral damage.
Guns beget violence and death. More guns beget more violence and death.
There is ample international and domestic statistical evidence--correlation and causality. People without guns do not kill others or themselves with guns.
The US will never be able to identify shooters in time to prevent their violence. The Constitution does not allow us to take away a right others enjoy because of a suspected psychological propensity to violence. Still we might prevent those convicted of violence from having guns. We might restrict 'mentally unbalanced' individuals from obtaining guns. We might run universal background checks. We might restrict or ban semi automatic weapons. We might demand gun safes in homes. But the NRA and its congressional minions won't allow any of this despite overwhelming support of NRA membership and in the US at large. We cant even ban bump-stocks.
Actually, we CAN do these things. We need a Democratic, pro gun control, anti-NRA Congress. We need to take control of our senses and our destiny. Become the America we were only 60 years ago. Follow the lead of enlightened countries. Make NRA about gun safety again. Make Americans safe again!...
Guns beget violence and death. More guns beget more violence and death.
There is ample international and domestic statistical evidence--correlation and causality. People without guns do not kill others or themselves with guns.
The US will never be able to identify shooters in time to prevent their violence. The Constitution does not allow us to take away a right others enjoy because of a suspected psychological propensity to violence. Still we might prevent those convicted of violence from having guns. We might restrict 'mentally unbalanced' individuals from obtaining guns. We might run universal background checks. We might restrict or ban semi automatic weapons. We might demand gun safes in homes. But the NRA and its congressional minions won't allow any of this despite overwhelming support of NRA membership and in the US at large. We cant even ban bump-stocks.
Actually, we CAN do these things. We need a Democratic, pro gun control, anti-NRA Congress. We need to take control of our senses and our destiny. Become the America we were only 60 years ago. Follow the lead of enlightened countries. Make NRA about gun safety again. Make Americans safe again!...
1
Kristof usually writes about the NRA after massacres, and he's always very very good. But at this point there is no need to read long articles about the problem. The answer is simple: vote for every Democrat you can find, until the NRA agrees to protect the people rather than gun manufacturers.
3
How much financing does the NRA get from the Russians? If the NRA is allowed to make political contributions, should they not have to declare how much of their revenues come from foreign governments and foreign entities?
2
Don't see where the problem is. Guns are everywhere. They are not toys. What do you expect? Nothing to see here.
Mass shootings are business as usual, nothing more, nothing less.
Mass shootings are business as usual, nothing more, nothing less.
2
This is an excellent article, but the NRA is not so much the problem as it is a symptom for a much larger problem we have in our form of Democracy - it has become corrupted by money wielded by rich individuals and big lobbying interests like the NRA.
Representative democracy made sense in an era in which communication was no faster than a horse could run between cities. But we are now suffering the downside, which is those representatives can only get elected and remain in office if they pass muster with the real power brokers of Washington, lobbyists. It is time this country shifted more power back directly to the people, and away from powerful lobbies, by instituting a national referendum and initiative process as many states have. It is really the only way to check organizations like the NRA.
Representative democracy made sense in an era in which communication was no faster than a horse could run between cities. But we are now suffering the downside, which is those representatives can only get elected and remain in office if they pass muster with the real power brokers of Washington, lobbyists. It is time this country shifted more power back directly to the people, and away from powerful lobbies, by instituting a national referendum and initiative process as many states have. It is really the only way to check organizations like the NRA.
1
My conclusion is that representative government is a good thing IF it is free of the taint of money, and as Jefferson said, "Democracy depends on a well informed electorate.".
Unfortunately, most Americans vote on the basis of what they see on TV or hear on unregulated radio channels, rather than a candidate speaking in a town square or school hall. That costs $$$$$$$.
Publicly financed elections only.
Entera -- I thought that. But see Brazil. They have publicly funded elections, and the current right wing winner as a low% party candidate got considerably less air time allotted to him than the other candidates. The right wing still won, making arguments marinated in misinformation as awful as here.
This may not solve as much as I'd thought it would. It did not help there.
2
More gun laws or "safety regulations" will not reduce the level of mass or criminal US shootings, because criminals, the insane, terrorists by definition will circumvent laws®ulations. All the increase in gun control regulations have done thus far in states like California is to make it difficult and often impossible for law-abiding citizens to legally own guns. Gun related deaths in the UK actually increased after their knee jerk virtual banning of gun ownership after a mass shooting a few decades ago.UK gun ownership had been low/moderate for decades but what caused gun violence and the use of guns by criminals there to rise were changing 'anything goes' social mores and infiltration of the UK by foreign criminals and mafias. What would reduce gun violence in the US would be a return to locking up the approximately 1% of humans that are statistically known to be insane, like we used to, before it was decided to let them loose and trust them to 'stay on their medication'. Almost all of the recent identified mass shooters were known to be insane, but our society allowed them to run free like rabid dogs because our 1% feel they are safe from the threats that the 99% live with. A friend of mine and 2 others were killed with a hammer by a known to be insane (because of a brain tumor) man that the police released after he stole a plane and flew it around an international airport! Also, obviously anyone can commit a mass killing by using a car, poison or home made explosives.
1
THANK you, Mr. Kristof, for your wonderfully-done analysis.
I wish I had a compelling way to convey my fear of the so-common desire to be master of a lethal weapon for leisure. I would hunt with a camera.
The notion of killing for recreation feels abhorrent.
But that feeling of abhorrence is alien to millions upon millions of persons who feel at home desiring (or having) mastery of a killing machine for leisure.
Power to destroy (e.g., lethal target shooting)—let alone killing—for pleasure is bizarre to me.
I love my desire to enjoy freedom without fantasies of lethal power.
There is so much to harmlessly love to do .
This is 2018. Not 1818 or even 1918. We live with technology all around us. Even those who don't trust and disparage science depend on it for everything from the food they eat to the smart phones they tweet upon.
Science and technology could be used to address many issues we have with guns, but of course the NRA fought any attempts to modernize guns - except in their killing effectiveness. And have gone so far as to blacklist gun dealers who even tried to sell "smart guns" for those who wanted them. Shutting off any sort of "free market" solution.
If we cared about all those who are killed as we cared in the 1940 we could institute a "Manhattan Project" for guns. We could even secretly render most guns inoperable in a short amount of time without violating the constitution. We could then issue new guns with technologies built into them.
The replies that we can't, it's impossible, all are really saying we don't care enough that you or others may die.
1
"But it has been hijacked by extremist leaders committed not to their members’ (much more reasonable) views, but to hard-line resistance of safety regulations."
I would like to believe that the members have more reasonable views than their "extremist leaders," but where is the evidence? Does the NRA ever ask its membership to vote on what Wayne LaPierre says? If they do, does the NRA publish the unvarnished results? I understand the statistics for the rest of the population, and I am in total sympathy with much stricter gun regulation. Often, I have heard it said that NRA members are moderate, but let's see the facts.
Also, a correction: An AR-15 with a bump stock does not simulate a machine gun, it IS a machine gun by virtually every definition. Yes, I know exactly how it and every other automatic trigger-puller works, and, yes, I know that the mechanism of a military machine gun is entirely different. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, perhaps it's a duck. Make no mistake: a bump stock turns a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun.
The records about the Viet Nam war show 58,220 U.S. total casualties. With 104 persons dying from gunfire everyday, in just 19 months we have the same number of deaths.
110 deaths per day are 37,960 funerals per year.
In Colombia they had a 50 years war with about 220,000 deaths. Let`s make a comparison: 50 years X 37,960 deaths per year = 1,898,000 funerals in the U.S.
Very hard to understand why the current U.S. Congress does not act about assault rifles. Just for starters.
1
"And as for Dodge City, a symbol of the Wild West, a photo shows a sign on main street in 1879 warning: “The Carrying of Fire Arms Strictly Prohibited.”
This always struck as one of the more peculiar contradictions of the NRA's tails of some bygone pioneering era where people carried their guns anywhere and everywhere; living or dying by their proficiency with a pistol/rifle. Even in a lot of our nation's pop-culture, a "good guy with a gun" was typically deputized or otherwise sworn to public service before people would accept them brandishing brandishing weapons out on the streets. You want to be part of civilization? Well, the so-called "Wild" West said that meant surrendering your guns to the local authorities before wandering around town. Don't worry, they'd let you know if there was a posse to be formed or they needed another deputy. Otherwise, you can enjoy the protection of the Sheriff and/or Marshals like all other law-abiding citizens. Maybe you're one of the responsible gun owners, but the fact of the matter is that you're not on your land and the town doesn't really know you from Adam.
If someone was worried about tyranny that much they could have their guns back when they left town to go fortify their ranch against whatever threats they believe they are facing. But people riding into town armed to the teeth were rightly viewed as a public menace, not celebrated.
1
Kristof preaches, admirably enough, to his choir.
The only way to change gun rights is to change the 2cd Amendment, and I have never seen a Neoliberal with the courage to peruse that, even in the private sector. They want to ignore the clear language, or demand that their interpretation should be adopted by people who do not see it that way. That is, to my fellow Lefties, many Americans should just be ignored.
Where is the campaign to add one word to the 2cd?
1789: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
2018: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be UNREASONABLY infringed.”
"Unreasonably" works for search & seizure, it would work in this case.
The only way to change gun rights is to change the 2cd Amendment, and I have never seen a Neoliberal with the courage to peruse that, even in the private sector. They want to ignore the clear language, or demand that their interpretation should be adopted by people who do not see it that way. That is, to my fellow Lefties, many Americans should just be ignored.
Where is the campaign to add one word to the 2cd?
1789: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
2018: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be UNREASONABLY infringed.”
"Unreasonably" works for search & seizure, it would work in this case.
2
This is an incredibly important battle to fight. However, Congress as currently constituted won't do it. The NRA owns too much of Congress. Furthermore, Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell do the NRA's bidding by protecting their party's members.
After every massacre, the cry rings out across America for congressional action. But no NRA-owned congressperson wants to vote. Why? They'll look like murderers if they vote against gun rules, and they'll lose NRA support if they vote for them. The solution? Don't have such a vote. Leadership refuses to hold the votes. Your congressperson's job is saved. Problem solved.
What we need is A) different people in Congress and B) a set of rules that allow a minority of either house to force votes to be taken. A rule that allows. say, 33% of the members to force a vote would work. Even if the majority votes them all down, at least all congresspersons are on record with a vote, and that allows voters to hold them accountable, pro and con.
The Problem Solvers Caucus in the House has released a Break The Gridlock package of rules that they will insist on in January. It doesn't quite fix everything, but it's a start. And a critical mass of likely-to-return house members have signed on to withhold votes for speaker until the rules are changed. One small step in the right direction.
1
Proud and multiple firearm owner here. I agree that the NRA is past beyond the pale. They make me cringe. I refuse to join.
We live in a country with different populations, with different needs. A vacation home owner of farmer in Vermont or Montana may not have any 911 response for hours, and is responsible for their own protection. They need the right mto own. A city dweller articulates the stupidity of firearms in a heavily populated area. BOTH are correct. So now some states have ,lenient gun laws, others (NYC) have draconian laws for its inhabitants. Its almost impossible to pass a law that would fill the needs of both.
I have given up with this one.
2
Combining hateful rhetoric with easy availability of AR-15 style assault rifles is a dangerous situation that will continue becoming a national tragedy more and more as time goes by. The NRA funds the GOP/Trump government regime and they now own them and no matter what happens as Trump said after a latest mass shooting only more guns would help. If every person had a gun in America and shoot outs became like the Wild West with law enforcement most at risk. If only a good guy with a gun is our salvation how would law enforcement know who the good guy is in a shoot out ,how he is dressed or race play a factor ?
1
Thank you, Mr. Kristof. Just as it must be traditional Republicans who call out and disavow the alt-Right takeover of the GOP, it must be rank-and-file NRA members like you who repudiate the organization's transformation from a promoter of gun safety to a defender of domestic terrorism. Please continue to raise your voice in opposition to this madness.
1
the fact that the NRA gets to write off its expenses as a tax-free organization that then launders money for Republican Super-PACs is disgusting and complicit in murder; if we can't ban the NRA, let's at least tax them into atoms like we should any and all PAC's, charities and religions.
All possible change in America comes back to our disgusting and corrupt campaign finance system: Until we change that, we won't have real change -- and Republican and Democrat politicians alike don't want campaign finance reform.
All possible change in America comes back to our disgusting and corrupt campaign finance system: Until we change that, we won't have real change -- and Republican and Democrat politicians alike don't want campaign finance reform.
2
Until money is removed from politics, nothing will change. The NRA and every other industry lobby will continue to hold on to power as long as they are able to buy politicians. In other words, the NRA is simply a mechanism for how the arms industry delivers its cash to our elected officials.
3
I feel powerless against the corporate gun interests and the "patriotic" citizens who have taken on gun rights as a civil liberty. I was sure that when a room full of kindergartners was killed with an automatic weapon there would be a political will to restrict, at the very least, automatic weapons. Nothing happened. Now mass murders with automatic weapons are a common occurrence and fact of life for Americans. I live in Utah and talk of gun regulation is equal to talk of space aliens listening in on our conversations. Gun restriction is crazy talk. Gun restrictions are anti-American. No politician here would consider the topic. Citizens are powerless unless we can get NRA money out of our elections. Then maybe our leaders, who I think know in their non-political hearts and minds that our gun laws are broken, will be willing to take some action.
2
A major problem with the message that those "who aspire to gun 'safety' ... do not want to remove the Second Amendment from the Constitution" is that gun owners do not believe them. And perhaps with some reason. As one example, many of those who are active in the gun control movement were also committed to the elimination of cigarette smoking. Gun owners remember the history of that movement. It got under way with pleas for small areas to be set aside for the comfort of non-smokers. With success came boldness, and it moved on past "equal rights" for smokers and non-smokers and eventually to the present situation where smokers are hounded, harassed, and excluded from mainstream society. So it is not surprising that each flurry of anti-gun activism sets off a period of furious gun purchasing.
The anti-gun forces are probably sincere in claiming that they do not wish to eliminate guns, but their opponents are convinced that if they were ever to achieve any substantial successes, there would be no limit to their aspirations.
The anti-gun forces are probably sincere in claiming that they do not wish to eliminate guns, but their opponents are convinced that if they were ever to achieve any substantial successes, there would be no limit to their aspirations.
2
Hounded and harassed? Aren't you being just a bit melodramatic?
Your rights end where mine begin. No one has a right to pollute the air I breathe and no one has a right to jeopardize my safety by being irresponsible with a deadly weapon.
Your rights end where mine begin. No one has a right to pollute the air I breathe and no one has a right to jeopardize my safety by being irresponsible with a deadly weapon.
4
I regard myself as a democrat-socialist. I lean really hard to the left. And I own several firearms and take great joy in using them in in competition. I, however have to endure the fear-based rhetoric I hear from my fellow shooters that encompass racist, misogynistic and far-right dogma. But this is what to expect from most, but not all, NRA supporters. I have been involved in shooting sports for over 25 years and have been a gun owner since 1972.
I find your point that there is no equivalency to the NRA on the left. The grassroots development of such an organization is now necessary and I think this would be an excellent counterpoint to the NRA and their agenda. Banning all guns and attacking the 2nd amendment is a trap that the NRA is primed to fight. Reasonable restriction and the development of a robust database that can identify/screen all applicants effectively is necessary. Ultimately, the ban on all assault-style weapons should be a major goal. At the moment, there is no cohesive voice that can put forth a coherent agenda. Michael Bloomberg, are you listening?
I find your point that there is no equivalency to the NRA on the left. The grassroots development of such an organization is now necessary and I think this would be an excellent counterpoint to the NRA and their agenda. Banning all guns and attacking the 2nd amendment is a trap that the NRA is primed to fight. Reasonable restriction and the development of a robust database that can identify/screen all applicants effectively is necessary. Ultimately, the ban on all assault-style weapons should be a major goal. At the moment, there is no cohesive voice that can put forth a coherent agenda. Michael Bloomberg, are you listening?
7
I don't believe anyone who claims to be a gun owner while saying he supports a ban on "assault-style" weapons.
Believe it. I shoot a bolt action competition rifle. There is a big difference between assault weapons and competition rifles. This is the problem with uneducated individuals approaching a politically charged issue like this.
2
I still do not think the NRA is so overwhelmingly powerful that we need to make special laws in regard to this one organization. We need to reduce the importance of money to getting elected to office by every way possible. Money is not speech. Preventing reduction of the importance of money in elections based on free speech arguments is just false. Money has no intelligence or opinions. It can be a really big magaphone, but there is nothing in the Constitution about megaphone size. Reinstate McCain-Feingold and we will not need special laws regarding the NRA.
3
390 million guns/326 million people = Average of 1.2 guns per person...
However, Median number of guns per person = 0. This means that half of us (probably much more) don't own guns and would be totally fine with many sensible restrictions on their ownership. This includes mandatory training, storage safety, and insurance for gun owners, limiting magazine capacity, banning assault rifles, banning bump stocks, etc.
Why not frame it that way?
5
A few more NRA facts culled from various sources, including Patrick Charles scholarly book "Armed in America." Until the 1950's the NRA was a somewhat benign and effectual lobbying organization for gun owners. The 60's and early 70's however were periods of reactionary transformation. Public outcry to regulate firearms reached fever pitches with the assassinations of President Kennedy, his brother Robert, and Martin Luther King. At the same time, passage of the Civil Rights Act, widespread urban rioting by Africian Americans, the rise in crime, and the Vietnam war and its opposition by college students split America along racial and political lines, and by 1977 the NRA had become a reactionary political organization with a radical view of gun rights that would have been unrecognizable to its founders. The radicalized NRA began contributing heavily to political campaigns and targeting anyone who failed to support the NRA agenda. It hired historians and legal scholars, willing to sell their integrity, who promulgated the nonsensical historical and legal arguments that Justice Scalia and the majority of the Robert's Court used to reinterpret the Second Amendment in DC v Heller, and which Justices Stevens and Breyer entirely dismantled in their dissents. Today's NRA remains a lobbying organization for gun owners that is also an arm of the Republican Party, as well as the principal lobbyist for the US gun industry - lucrum aliud potissimum.
6
How the N.R.A. has changed. My father was a WWII Army rifle instructor and left the service with his N.R.A. membership in hand. Being skilled with the care and use of most the Army's light weapons, the N.R.A. highly regarded his skills. But the stories my father told me depicted a very different organization than the one we see as described by Mr. Kristof.
What was a useful and ethical organization for the public good is now an immoral monster, though those benefiting from it see little of that.
7
One gap in this piece - the NRA has made the USA a terrible neighbor, because the guns it campaigns to continue to be sold legally in the USA stream south into Mexico and Central America, fueling the violent crime and gangs that so many from those countries are fleeing, and north into Canada, arming criminals there. This the USA is, at the behest of the NRA, exporting murder.
60
@Jon W. Let me get this right. The minority are the minority because they are gun owners. They therefore need their guns to protect themselves from the majority who don't have guns. Before owing guns, this minority was part of the majority and therefore in no need of protection. They become part of a minority by virtue of buying a gun, a gun whose purpose is to protect them from the masses of people who have no guns. Protect them from what, exactly?
As the latest news makes abundantly clear, the majority DOES need protection--from the minority who own guns. NO self-respecting republic would tolerate such nonsense.
106
No. Minorities need protection from the majority voting away their rights. Isn't that what you leftists say when majorities in nearly EVERY state that voted on it banned gay marriage?
"Gun carrying has also become an important part of identity and self-esteem for millions of Americans...fulfilling a traditional manly role of protecting their families and their communities."
As a liberal I can understand this, but I don't have to condone or acquiesce to it. Violence, domestics or otherwise, makes some men feel like men, but we shouldn't excuse their acts because of their need to feel manly.
By itself carrying a gun isn't violence. Openly carrying around an almost-assault rifle is certainly a form of bullying (Are YOU gonna argue with THAT guy; tell him to get off your lawn; pick up his litter, etc?) and borders on a type of assault, if not physical violence.
If open or concealed carry were not so readily available people might find better ways to enhance their self worth. Most of those are likely to be less harmful to the individual and to the public.
7
Nicholas, if "It's Time To Talk About The N.R.A." then it must also be time to "Talk About the Merchants of Death" --- because the NRA and the Global Weapons Makers (aka the MoD) use the exact same 'marketing message' --- "The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a (bigger) gun".
But the value of that dual 'marketing message' is thousands of times more valuable to the latter.
Unfortunately, the products with the highest content of "Negative Externality Cost" dumping, is the global weapons industry.
Higher Negative Externality Costs than Fossil Fuels, Chemicals, Drugs, Strip Mining, etc.
11
We are not the United States of America. We have become the Balkanized States of America.
Politicians benefit from capitalizing on fear. Arms sales increase with fear. Hate and fear are rocket fuel for individualized media consumption.
Where do we go from here? There is so much money and power at stake; it is hard to see a productive path forward. Liberals and conservatives also tend to have different moral intuitions and different sources that they trust, and so even when attempting to communicate, often talk past each other.
What can bring us together? I think we each need to make strong effort to engage with each other in good faith. When we see each other as enemies, then all bets are off.
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
- Frederick Douglass
That power begins with each of us to see each other's humanity. I refuse to succumb to fear and hate. These are our neighbors, our co-workers, our family.
3
The people who feel they need handguns or automatic weapons for “self-defense”? Perhaps it would be helpful if we called them what they are: cowards.
17
No this is not the time because it will just stir up trump & his supporters. America needs time to get trump out before embarking on another crusade against NRA that doesn't work. The time was after the school shootings & church shootings. Are you using the shooting at a synagogue as a reason when other shootings aren't? NRA & Russia has trump in its back pocket & Russia has the NRA firmly on its major donations list. Supreme Court under trump's first nominee has seen that the donor records remain anonymous. Foreign money pouring into trump & gop coffers is what needs to be talked about. You can't defeat the NRA as long as you have leaders spewing hatred & violence & using the second amendment as if it is the only amendment that matters. The NRA sees itself as the armed militia of the trump administration. They will rally if you try to discuss them again.
5
Thank you, Mr. Kristof. How many other well-supported organizations, willing to speak their minds to further their ends, would you like to remove from public life?
And while we're talking about extremists, let's remember those wonderful progressives of the 1990's who publicly announced that, by hook or by crook, they were going to ban guns by making ammunition impossible to purchase under any circumstances.
1
@Daedalus --
Sorry, my 1st comment was cut off.
The missing conclusion was that if you don't recognize extremism, or certainly a very loud dog whistle of friendship to extremists in Trump's blithe self-labeling of himself as a proud "Nationalist", and his inane, shocking comment after Charlottesville White Supremacist marched shouting "Blood and Soil" and "Jews will not replace us" that " . . . there are good people on both sides," then you are deaf or blind to the rising tides of extremism. The handholding between Trump, the GOP, and the NRA is a repulsive alliance, a bit of bread and circus to those who own so many weapons of war (not sport, unless you think killing school kids and worshippers is sport) whose ears are keenly attuned to the many subtle varieties of calls to action.
If you like unfettered gun ownership ( not what the Founders intended), then you should love unfettered free expression as well, and let the chips fall where they may.
The irony on the right is that blocking access to the ballot box is a favorite form of limiting 1st Amendment Rights, and that false equivalencies of "extremism" on the left facilitate that and every other dirty trick in the book.
When POTUS whips up a crowd in chants of "Lock Her Up" or expressions of pleasure when a GOP congressman body slams a reporter, you are looking at the cheerleader of extremists . . . just a coarse version of Henry II blithely wondering out load, "Can no man rid me of this troublesome priest?"
Sorry, my 1st comment was cut off.
The missing conclusion was that if you don't recognize extremism, or certainly a very loud dog whistle of friendship to extremists in Trump's blithe self-labeling of himself as a proud "Nationalist", and his inane, shocking comment after Charlottesville White Supremacist marched shouting "Blood and Soil" and "Jews will not replace us" that " . . . there are good people on both sides," then you are deaf or blind to the rising tides of extremism. The handholding between Trump, the GOP, and the NRA is a repulsive alliance, a bit of bread and circus to those who own so many weapons of war (not sport, unless you think killing school kids and worshippers is sport) whose ears are keenly attuned to the many subtle varieties of calls to action.
If you like unfettered gun ownership ( not what the Founders intended), then you should love unfettered free expression as well, and let the chips fall where they may.
The irony on the right is that blocking access to the ballot box is a favorite form of limiting 1st Amendment Rights, and that false equivalencies of "extremism" on the left facilitate that and every other dirty trick in the book.
When POTUS whips up a crowd in chants of "Lock Her Up" or expressions of pleasure when a GOP congressman body slams a reporter, you are looking at the cheerleader of extremists . . . just a coarse version of Henry II blithely wondering out load, "Can no man rid me of this troublesome priest?"
1
In my experience organizational policy is mostly an individual leadership thing. Wayne LePierre gets a very large part of the "credit" for the path the NRA has taken.
1
Great work by Nicholas Kristof. But facts and truth have never driven the debate on firearms in this country and they won't now. It's up to individual states to enact tougher gun laws, one at a time. We can never fully insulate ourselves from our national gun insanity but we can mitigate its effects with strong, sensible laws. That's one reason that the Northeast as a region has the lowest rate of gun violence in America. And some states on the West Coast (California in particular but also my home state of Washington) are trying to bring rationality to their gun laws.
We can't look to our federal government for sanity on firearms. The answer lies much closer to home.
12
The Northwest has lower violence because of its wealth and demographics. Not because of its gun laws.
2
It's the Northeast not the Northwest. And there seems little doubt that tougher gun laws have helped to tamp down gun violence. Check Vox.com for more information. It's clear that states with stronger gun restrictions have less gun violence than regions such as the South and Mid-West that have weaker laws.
2
I'm not sure I understand the line "President Trump and members of Congress denounced the violence but show no signs of actually doing anything to stop it".
We elect these people who do nothing about gun violence. These politicians that have been bought by the gun lobby. Who offer thoughts and prayers and nothing else after every mass murder.
Progress in reducing American gun violence will be made when the people of this country are ready to vote for it to happen. Until then, saying it is the responsibility of this President and this Congress when you know they have no interest in doing so only creates a feeling of victimization.
Power has always resided in the voting population of this country. All we have to do is use it. Until then, this is what we get.
126
The system is rigged against the voting population getting what they want. Just as trump got elected by an electoral college when he didn't get a majority of the votes, our antiquated system gives 2 senators to states with populations as small as 500,000 when states with 20-40 million only get 2. Those Wyoming and other small state Senators have a disproportionate vote and can stymie the will of the people. If we had a referendum without regard to state lines, I suspect the country would easily vote for stronger gun safety measures. It's all politics.
4
Sure, when voting is accessible to all, without gerrymandering and voter suppression. And when Citizens United and McCutcheon are repealed.
7
"Consider your man card reissued"??
As a conservative and supporter of individual gun rights (though never a NRA member), I can only say:
Really? Wow. OMG. Yikes.
16
Yep. As a woman I find the idea of a man who needs a deadly hunk of metal to prove his masculinity an incredible turn off.
Give me a man with intellect, compassion, humor and a secure sense of self any day.
Give me a man with intellect, compassion, humor and a secure sense of self any day.
1
Well Mr. Kristof, I have for years tried to say, in these pages, that the NRA should be treated as a terrorist organization because, based on its actions, it acts one. Or at the least, it aids and abets terrorists, makes their actions possible. Yet, the NY Times has always censored (i.e. refused to publish) or published then removed those comments. Why? Why is it considered unacceptable or incendiary to call the NRA what it is? Particularly, now as Trump and the Republicans spew their hate and domestic terrorists commit mass murders with a predictable regularity. Call it what it is. Or stop complaining because you and the NYT are part of the problem covering for the NRA.
55
The NRA represents the gun industry and not individuals, except to the extent that they unrelentingly oppose any limits whatsoever on gun ownership that might cut into profits. They employ classic right-wing tactics of never conceding anything no matter how reasonable, and smearing and going as negative as possible against any perceived enemies.
Remember also that Mueller is investigating some $30 million of suspected Russian money funneled through the NRA to support Trump. If true, that is an illegal use of foreign money in an election campaign and treasonous as well.
231
The left focuses its rage on the NRA because it does not want to admit that the gun lobby is 100 million gun-owning citizens. It is far easier to demonize an unlikeable organization than one third of the pubic, but those are the ones casting votes.
5
As the piece correctly states the NRA does not represent the "100 million gun-owning citizens" it primarily represents the gun and ammunition industry which really only cares about one thing: profit. It most especially doesn't represent the vast majority of those gun-owning citizens, but rather the small percentage that owns most of the guns if it represents owners at all. The "gun-owning citizens" are a merely a means to an end for the NRA.
5
This is a lie. Repeating the same tired talking points from the ACLU, Soros, and NBC doesn't make them true.
1
It's easier to buy a 30-round clip than it is to buy 30 Prozacs. Where should you put your effort?
5
There are 2 Americas: The Confederate States, and the Educated States. Its time to cut the Confederacy loose, let them survive on their own with their third world education and economy.
65
This is one of the most thorough analyses of the NRA to date, and it is due. So many good points have been brought up which I support. I think that one important message that needs to be told to gun owners is that we who aspire to gun "safety" - as Mr. Kristof redefines - do not want to remove the Second Amendment from the Constitution. Far from it. But as we have just read, gun ownership has increased exponentially as well as murders and even suicides from these weapons. Why? Fear-mongering from politicians who have self-serving purposes as well as propaganda and lies from them and the NRA.
What I find totally objectionable and wrong is that for profit, also known as greed, a powerful entity abetted by an administration and its GOP Congress preys on the most vulnerable, unstable, insecure, and bigoted of our society. These four traits are the perfect fodder for those consumed enough by hate to kill innocent children and teens, Jews, African-Americans, the gay and transgender, even by-standing Whites just living their everyday lives. These sad, senseless, devastating massacres have got to end for the sake of a democracy and its people.
111
You are incorrect. Homicide rates have continually declined since the early 1990's despite the huge increase in the number of guns in the US during that same time frame.
I'm all for having armed guards at every school, church, concert, sporting event, park, and playground. And I'm all in favor of having the NRA and gun owners pay for them.
5
Once you realize that the NRA is a gun SALES organization and not a gun RIGHTS organization, it all makes sense. Did you know that like 90% of the guns in this country are owned by about 6% of the population? That's like 300,000,000 guns owned by a fraction of the American public. It's long past time to stop letting this ultra-extremist group from dictating gun control policy in this country. These people are political extremists.
66
The demonization of the NRA is really getting old. If the NRA goes away, those of us who support the Constitution will turn our support to another organization. The fact is, if you think Heller is a "fraud," it means you think gun ownership should be a privilege rather than a right. Given that many liberals call time and time again to ban all privately owned firearms (which incidentally, is the only step that may have stopped this latest atrocity, given that Bowers had a clean record), we know where treating gun ownership as a privilege would lead.
I'm tired of empty platitudes about "gun safety." Please propose concrete steps that may stop our mass shootings. And if you say "Ban the AR-15," you're outing yourself as an ignoramus, as an AR-15 is a standard semi-automatic rifle. If you say "Restrict magazine capacity," please propose your plan to collect the hundreds of millions already in circulation. If you say "Better background checks," please describe what you mean in specificity.
NOBODY likes seeing mass shootings happen. But if the choice is between a complete ban on all privately owned firearms and the occasional mass shooting, I will take the latter, much like I'll take the occasional car accident over a complete ban on cars.
3
A waiting period of a month after filing the paper work & 3 mental health evaluations might help a little. A good guy with a gun is the only thing that will stop a good guy with a gun & an attitude??? I don't think the reasoning is working. This shooting too will pass from Mr. Kristof's mind as well as every other American not involved in a school, store, church, parking lot shooting. Our attitude of well it was horrible but it wasn't me is the reason for the continuing shootings of innocents.
2
Waiting periods have been tried in many states and have been proven to have no impact on crime. There's not a mass shooter in recent history who hadn't bought his gun many months or years before the attack in question.
As for the mental health evaluation, I don't necessarily disagree in theory, but given that most psychologists are liberals, I could see every one denying their approval for ideological reasons.
The fact that you would rather have an "occasional" mass shooting over giving up your firearms is unfortunately a common viewpoint in this country. It scares me that you value your perceived "right" at the expense of innocent lives. When you say "NOBODY likes seeing mass shootings happen" I would argue that you do as you are unwilling to see a complete ban on firearms. The car accident theory is tired and played out. If you want to use it fine. Then lets have all gun owners insure their weapons, use keys to start their guns, only use them in controlled areas and have every gun owner take a class in HS and get a license that needs to be renewed. Oh and well you are at it, take an eye exam.
4
Now talk about how the NRA is legally allowed to impose its views on our nation though most gun owners & many NRA members want stronger gun laws. It's influence is contrary to democracy.
More than other countries, the US turns over its elections to corporate mega donors & let’s them pay for the biggest expense---campaign advertising that floods our media.
The media hardly discusses how other democracies are able to have strict gun laws, so their populations are not as at risk as Americans of being massacred in public places.
Other democracies don’t let corporate profit makers to take over election funding, making politicians dependent on them to run.
Other democracies guard against this by using more public funding, and actually banning US style privately paid ads on TV, to prevent special interests from dominating political discussion---(per Wikipedia.)
This is the underlying cause/effect connection that NYT columnists and TV pundits must stop avoiding. Is even discussing public funding of elections 'too left wing'? Is our media letting FOX News set the standard?
So, what time is the next massacre?
Location? School, church, synogogue, store, night club?
New body count?
How many days will the media obsess on it?
The reporters and columnists have their script all written out. Just plug in the new location, body count, and name of deranged shooter.
He's out there now, fantasizing and stockpiling, What will be the cue to set him off?
10
Spot on...
Very good journalism - kudos...
2
Every thinking caring person knows the truth of this - but those are not the people enslaved by the NRA. Those people work in our “representative” government.
1
The NRA is going nowhere. I am an NRA member, and vote Democrat or Republican depending on who I think is the lesser evil.
The NRA's propaganda is the same. They're 'always coming' after your guns, the 'fight is never like before' on every single piece of mail. It's sensationalist, sure, my dad falls for it and I keep telling him his gun rights are going nowhere with Trump and a 5-4 on the Supreme Court, but the NRA feeds the propaganda and fear every election. I just toss the stuff in the trash.
Kasich signed an executive order in Ohio for expanding background checks, I can tell you a lot of possible D votes that went immediately R after that.
Kyrsten Sinema here in Arizona doesn't even have a platform on the NRA or gun control because it is a non-starter in states that Democrats need to win. Babbling about 'Abolish ICE', "No guns", "More immigration" from states next to the Canadian border feel good, but politics that pass the liberal purity test don't win in middle America,
But here we are, same discussion, same op-ed writers, same tired top-rated NYT comments from the exact same people.
2
Just ran across this from NYT 1967 archive in an unrelated search:
August 26, 1967 ” GUN CURBS BACKED BY A RIFLE EXPERT"
"Rep. Scheuer, Medal Winner, Tells City Hall That Protection Is Urgent."
"A Bronx member of Congress who has won four national championship medals from the NRA offered support yesterday for legislation to control the sale of rifles and shotguns.”
By 2018 it's obvious there's a serious blockage arising from America's history/political culture that blocks gun sanity. As it blocks health care for all.
W. Post “Mass shootings: How U.S. gun culture compares with the rest of the world." Feb. 15, 2018.
"The U.S. is one of only three countries where the right to own guns for self-defense is protected in the constitution. As of 2015, there are more guns than people in the U.S. This rate is far higher than other developed nations, according to the Australian site gunpolicy.org."
This won't change until we get rid of private profit makers legally financing elections.
In countries with sane gun laws they don't turn their elections over to rich donors, but use more public financing and limit private money. They ban privately paid TV campaign ads that flood our voters and bring profit to our media. We waste money, weaken democracy, and let guns imperil citizen safety.
Why the media blackout on even discussing reforming campaign finance that most favor? Our lives and democracy are in danger. What is the media afraid of?
1
yes, let's start with making NRA a for profit organization.
Then mark it as a terrorist or non-social organization.
1
What a sad state of the American Male. That they feel the need for an inanimate object, that is designed to kill, to give themselves a feeling of worth and security.
Fetish anyone?!
25
there is a mental health diagnosis for just this need for a gun to prove worth.
5
I think it’s crazy to let the NRA set our country’s gun policy. It’s crazy that innocent people are killed or wounded by assault weapons or other types of weapons.
Equally crazy is that the leader of our country calling for more guns in the aftermath of horrible tragedies.
3
The NRA, its policies and the out-sized influence it has on our lives and national identity is one of the most egregious examples of a minority lording its influence over the majority of us who want sensible gun control.
Decades of thoughts, prayers and obeisance to the NRA have not made an iota of difference in saving the lives of thousands of everyday people gunned down because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Get informed, get engaged and vote!
169
We already have sensible gun control. What you want is a complete ban.
2
Basil, the problem is the definition of sensible. I agree with regulation to a great extent. I do not agree with bans. I am sure that this could be figured out but not by the usual suspects for the NRA and the pure anti-gunners.
1
Malcolm, well put.
1
" one step would be to avoid demonizing gun owners"
No, you shouldn't demonize gun owners, or criticize them or look at them askance. These delicate flowers could not abide any of that. We must leave them alone so that they can feel like men! Anything else would be too traumatizing.
About 75% of Americans own no guns. All of the guns are owned by about 25% of the population and half of all the guns are owned by about 3% of the population. Yet, the government chooses to serve the interests of the minority. This is just another symptom of a deep structural problem in the way the government operates.
276
The goal of a republic is to protect the rights of the minority. The majority doesn't need protecting.
1
@Alan White: “Those delicate flowers couldn’t abide any of that.”
I own firearms, and I agree with everything Kristoff said. Given some of the videos the NRA has released recently, I view them as a borderline domestic terror organization. They openly threaten anyone who disagrees with them with violence.
I view firearms as a hobby. I have not shot at anything but paper targets, and never will. I don’t hunt, and I see using them in “self defense” as unlikely short of the zombie apocalypse.
Maybe you shouldn’t paint with so broad a brush, eh? Not all firearm owners fit your stereotypes.
5
Sure, my granddad was a demon for taking me hunting pheasants and ducks during my boyhood, and my dad likewise. So am I, having done so with my own kids and grandkids.
The NRA and its members know what it's about-- and they know that the attitudes of Alan White and his ilk would ultimately lead to the end of private gun ownership. The whole progressive mindset is to take away one freedom after another, to enact one restriction, prohibition, or control after another.
1
There's evidence, too, since foreign nationals can't contribute to American campaigns, that Russia (or Russians) donated millions to the NRA who turned around and donated it to Trump and other Republicans. Is this not money laundering for a foreign country or citizen to donate to an organization knowing the money ends up in politicians' coffers?
245
@Linda
I was about to make this same comment until I saw yours: NRA as a conduit for campaign contributions by rich foreigners (Russians, others?) to GOP politicians.
At this point, I'm beginning to believe that the GOP politicians don't really care about the outrageous gun culture in the US, they are only concerned with shutting off an endless and boundless source of money.
Excellent research, analysis and writing, Nicholas. Thanks very much.
Senator Murphy introduced or cosponsored legislation to close loopholes in our background check system; to make it illegal for those on the FBI terror watch list to buy a gun; to end the ban on gun violence research at the Center for Disease Control; to encourage licensing requirements for handgun purchases; and to help keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers.
We also need legislation that takes machine guns off the market.
What have Trump and the Republican-led Congress done to put in place these reasonable, necessary requirements? Absolutely Nothing.
39
It's difficult to not return to campaign financing whenever this issue arises, because it is, at the end of each horrible day like the one we just suffered here in Pittsburgh, the sole factor determining factor in why third parties and corporations can buy their candidates. And make no mistake, that's not an overreach. They are bought and paid for. For candidates to get elected, they must spend millions on TV ads. It's a simple equation; if you want to win, you'll play ball with us. Period.
Until that money is severely curtailed, nothing is ever going to change.
4
Let's allow the survivors of gun violence and their family members who have been directly affected by the gun death of their loved one to sue gun and ammunition manufacturers. If tobacco, airplane and auto manufacturers can be sued, then let's open it up the the gun industry.
Let's require liability insurance for all gun owners on a per gun basis to help pay for the medical costs for the wounded and the burial costs for the dead.
Let's ban assault and semi-assault weapons and high capacity ammunition clips.
Let's get rational about gun control.
None of the above violates the Second Amendment to our US Constitution.
384
Simply stating something doesn't make it true. Everything yo listed violates the 2nd Amendment. Every single one of your "proposals." Not to mention that they're totalitarian and unworkable. Now you know exactly why we don't want to have a "discussion" with you.
1
" .. Every day in America, about 104 people die from guns, while in Japan it takes about a decade for that many to die from gun violence .."
Japan is 99% Japanese. It does not have a 1st Amendment. It immediately deports unlawful immigrants, period. If that's why you want, be my guest.
Nick, most in high-crime areas would like to work in an office that has security guards. We can't afford them. So, we arm ourselves, the best we can.
We don't give a rip about NRA, or NYT, or HRC, or DJT. We care about ourselves.
Thank George W. Bush for the fact that gun manufacturers cannot be sued.
Thank you for the thought and research that went into this.
It's true that many on the Left don't know what they're talking about when they talk about guns. But it's equally true that people on the Right are often misinformed (actual gun owners possibly less so) about both the dishonesty of the NRA and the practical dangers of gun ownership. Any big public issue attracts power and money and those who seek them--and therefore ignorance becomes useful to both sides. That is just implicit in our corrupt form of politics. So the excesses of the Left sometimes lead to poorly written laws. But the rhetorical excesses of the Right create a culture of paranoia in which people despise their own democracy and see their safety and freedom in arms & violence. We see the result, week after week.
I would like to think that we could solve this problem if people concerned for public safety--both gun owners and the rest of us--could sit down and craft an approach. But that's not the sort of conversation that the political money wants to have. It's the same as with climate change and health care and a dozen other big issues where majorities of the people largely agree, but people who profit from political paralysis and the shouting match aren't going to let it happen.
25
I reject the premise that people who do not know much about guns do not have the moral authority to regulate them. I don't need the knowledge of a gun fetishist to know that a military-style weapon gunned downed my neighbors' children in Parkland, or to know that the same gunned down six-year-olds in Connecticut. I don't care that 20 bullets-per-second is not, technically, "automatic." I don't care. Those kids are just as dead no matter what you want terminology you use. I don't care, and neither does anyone else who doesn't need to make their home into an armory to feel "manly."
I've become a single-issue voter. My kids are scared of being gunned down in school and have anxiety over the active shooter drills. I'm sick of worrying in crowds and movie theaters. I'm sick of wondering which pew is the safest to sit in at church - in the back where I can see people approaching through the glass doors, or near the front where there are more structures to duck behind?
I don't care about gun owners. I don't care about your sense of manliness. (BTW, hiding behind a phallic device that can kill someone merely by wiggling your finger at a safe distance is for cowards). I don't care about "culture" or "tradition" or any of those appropriated words used as excuses. My empathy is entirely taken up for the parents who have to bury their precious children because our government lets nearly everyone have a military-type weapon.
9
LL: All true, and well put. However, as far as laws go, it isn't a question of moral authority, but of practical effectiveness. And my larger point is that political decisions are not made by rational or moral persuasion; they're made, or prevented, by manipulation and power. You'd rather have a fight than progress; so would the NRA.
NO! It's the politicians, not the NRA. The representatives and senators value NRA financial support more than they respect the wishes of the majority of the people. They show the same lack of moral character as they do to the outrages of the Twitter-in-Chief.
The focus and pressure must be applied where it will be effective -- VOTE!
94
It's never ever about guns
The victims were the unarmed ones
Makes churches and schools
Like the OK Corral
Which is the suggestion of
Trump our dear pal.
The NRA makes sure
Gun profits stay high
While deaths by assault weapons
Stay very high.
48
It appears they set about in THIS content management system merely to eliminate display of "green checks" … and they managed to eliminate as well carriage returns. My sympathies, Larry.
The NRA stance on guns is incompatible with a reasonable discussion. Therefore so is discussion with the legislators and supporters of their stance. No matter how anyone frames it all the NRA and its supporters hear is control which they equate with being deprived of the right to own as many of whatever type of firearm they want to own. I've seen comments on other sites where people say that they have to own guns (in suburban areas or metropolitan areas) because the cops aren't fast enough or just because they can. And they all fancy themselves expert marksmen, better than the cops who have to practice on a regular basis and miss more often than they hit a person that's moving.
I understand why people are frightened in America. There has been plenty of publicity about massacres, about criminals with guns, and about the odd hero here and there who somehow manages to save the day with, you guessed it, a gun. When it comes to the Second Amendment common sense goes out the window. I can say I don't mind someone owning a gun provided that it isn't one designed to shoot multiple times in a minute, that no one needs a gun designed to shred human flesh and I'm called various interesting names.
I don't see why the NRA cannot support gun safety and restrictions on who can own firearms and what firearms civilians can own and use. We can't undo the Second Amendment but we can make it safer to live in a society where people want to own guns. But the NRA isn't interested.
35
For this Canadian, it seems hard to tease apart the business interests from the so-called constitutional interests to defend the use of weapons that could not have been conceived of at the time of developing the constitution. To me, it is no longer a surprise to hear your President say the usual glib condolences and in the next breath sound like he is selling more guns for the NRA. In this case, the places of worship, like the places of learning, seem promoted as new sales frontiers, or at least new places where gun culture is advanced.
80
I'm glad Mr. Kristof has admitted that some of the excesses of the Left have driven people into the NRA's more strident camp. When the left attacks gun owners as though we are all dangerous, of course we have to rely on the only nationally powerful gun lobbying organization to defend our interests. Tough marriage.
Kristof also says "The reinterpretation of the Second Amendment is a tribute to the undeniable effectiveness of the N.R.A.". Why of course, but the NRA didn't do so on its own and indeed, would Nick say "The reinterpretation of the First Amendment is a tribute to the undeniable effectiveness of the ACLU" when in fact the 1A has been broadly redefined in the 20th Century?
Interestingly, Kristof attacks "silencers", actually called suppressors since they lower the decibel level of a gunshot but hardly silence it. Supressors are not illegal in other countries but the guns the suppressors are mounted on are strictly controlled. Nick puts the cart before the horse.
In that often quoted Kellerman study that showed women were in more danger in gun owning homes, the biggest risk factor wasn't guns but illicit drugs.
https://gunculture2point0.wordpress.com/2013/02/19/understanding-case-co...
Gun control should be on the table. I recommend Adam Winkler's book "Gunfight" to anyone who wants to look at the long history of gun control in the U.S. Its very readable and well balanced. But enough of the culture war aspects of guns.
6
Mr. Kristof writes, "It would be good to see progressive organizations teaching gun safety as well, rather than simply ceding the turf to the N.R.A." What I often wonder is: Couldn't responsible hunters and gun owners begin a separate organization that is not wedded to the excesses to the gun industry? I'm interest ed in target-shooting, but I won't go near a gun range because I morally want nothing to do with this organization.
17
The unfortunate state of affairs is that most progressive organizations would ban guns rather than teach gun ethics (I suspect most shooters know what they are doing--its not a matter of safety but of irresponsible use). Hence we end up in these unfortunate all-or-nothing debates.
I sent this to Mike Weisser, aka Mike the Gun Guy.
http://northmesamutts.blogspot.com/2018/10/do-we-need-human-reliability-...
1
Chris - don't let fear of the NRA keep you from visiting a range and learning about the shooting supports. They are huge fun, deeply meditative/mindful, and you won't find a more welcoming and supportive group of people than shooters eager to teach beginners.
1