In William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Gaius Cassius–who has just murdered Caesar–tries to console Mark Antony over the death of his longtime friend.
“Why,” says Cassius, “he that cuts off 20 years of life cuts off so many years of fearing death.”
Cassius’ words might well serve as the motto of the National Rifle Association.
On January 21, Barack Obama delivered his Second Augural Address after once again taking the oath as President of the United States.
The next day, Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA, offered his own commentary on that address.
Wayne LaPierre
“President Barack Obama quoted the Declaration of Independence and he talked about ‘unalienable rights.’ I would argue that his words make a mockery of both,” LaPierre said at the annual black-tie Weatherby International Hunting and Conservation Awards in Reno, Nevada.
It could be argued that, shortly before La Pierre’s speech, members of his own constituency made a mockery of the NRA’s efforts to arm every American with a gun–and install armed guards at every school.
On January 20, the 15-year-old son of a New Mexico pastor used an assault rifle to murder his mother, father, two younger sisters and a brother. He then intended to shoot up a Walmart and cause “mass destruction.”
All that saved those Walmart shoppers from death was his impulsive decision to spend the rest of the day with his 12-year-old girlfriend.
The shooting spree began shortly around 1 a.m. on the day before Obama’s inauguration. Nehemiah Griego sneaked into his parents’ bedroom while his mother, Sara, was asleep. There he raided the closet where the family kept their guns, and immediately used a .22 rifle to kill her.
His nine-year-old brother was sleeping next to his mother at the time. When Nehemiah told the boy his mother was dead, the sibling refused to believe it.
So Nehemiah picked up his mother’s head to show the boy the woman’s blood-covered face. When his brother started crying, Nehemiah shot him, too.
Moving on to the bedroom of his two sisters–ages 2 and 5–Nehemiah found them crying. So he shot each of them in the head.
Nehemiah waited for his father, Greg, to return home from his overnight shift working at a nearby rescue mission. When this happened around 5 a.m., Nehemiah shot him multiple times with the AR-15 rifle.
Greg Griego was a former church pastor at Calvary Church in Albuquerque, and worked as a chaplain at a local jail where he counseled convicts.
Nehemiah Griego then packed up the .22 and AR-15 rifles and two shotguns, as well as ammunition, and planned to drive to a Walmart to shoot additional people.
But then he called his 12-year-old girlfriend and spent the entire day with her rather than going to the Walmart.
Around 8 p.m. they drove to Calvary Church, and Griego said his family had died in a car crash. Someone on the church’s staff then called 911.
The truth came out soon after during the police interrogation.
During his inaugural address, President Obama said: “We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.”
Taking issue with this, La Pierre said: “When absolutes are abandoned for principles, the U.S. Constitution becomes a blank slate for anyone’s graffiti.”
La Pierre’s speech came on the same day that yet another school shooting captured national headlines.
Four people were wounded and hospitalized when a shooting erupted at the North Harris campus of Lone Star College in Houston, Texas.
At first, faculty and students feared that the campus was the target of another armed intruder. Instead, the rampage was triggered by an argument between two men–at least one of whom was armed.
One of the students, a 23-year-old woman, collapsed in a classroom. A teacher and a student gave the woman CPR inside the classroom and called 911.
When she regained consciousness, the woman said that fear had overwhelmed her: “I went through this already at Virginia Tech, and I just don’t like this feeling.”
The NRA is a fervent champion of assault weapons–and concealed handgun permits–for everyone who wants them.
During the previous week, President Obama had proposed a series of measures to reduce gun violence in the wake of the Sandy Hook school massacre on December 14. These included:
- Close background check loopholes for all gun buyers–including those at gun shows.
- Ban the ownership of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
- Arm law enforcement with additional tools to prevent and prosecute gun crimes–such as imposing tough penalties on gun-traffickers.
- End the Congressional freeze on gun violence research.
- Extend mental health services to everyone who needs them.
The Sandy Hook massacre was one of seven mass shootings in the United States in 2012.
Gun violence in the U.S. claimed about 10,987 homicides victims per year from 2007 to 2009, according to the United Nations’ Office on Drugs and Crime.
In 2010, according to the NRA, Americans owned about 270 million firearms. For a population of about 314 million, that’s more than 85 guns per 100 residents–by far the highest rate of any country in the world.
The only “solution” the NRA offers to reduce gun violence in the United States is to turn the country into a nation of gunslingers.
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AN NRA SOLUTION TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD’S TERRORISM PROBLEM
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 30, 2022 at 12:12 amGuns and abortion—Republicans’ two most inflammatory issues.
Who would have thought that the first might lead to a solution for the second?
On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and six adult staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
As it usually does after a mass shooting, the National Rifle Association (NRA) remained silent for a few days.
Then on December 18, its executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, broke that silence. In doing so, he offered his suggestion for preventing further tragedies perpetrated by heavily armed criminals.
Speaking at an NRA press conference, LaPierre said: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
“Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away or a minute away?”
Wayne La Pierre
And LaPierre demanded that armed guards be placed in every school in the United States:
“Politicians pass laws for gun-free school zones. They issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them, and in doing so, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.
“We care about our president, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by Capitol Police officers.
“Yet, when it comes to our most beloved, innocent and vulnerable members of the American family–our children–we as a society leave them everyday utterly defenseless.
“And the monsters and the predators of the world know it and exploit it.
Without knowing it, Wayne LaPierre produced a way to end attacks on Planned Parenthood clinics.
Between 1973, when the Supreme Court made abortion legal throughout the United States via Roe v. Wade, and 2003, abortion providers were targeted for more than 300 acts of extreme violence, including arson, bombings, murders and butyric acid attacks.
The National Abortion Federation documents more than 176,000 instances of picketing at clinics (and nearly 34,000 arrests) since 1977. More than 16,000 hate mail or harassing phone calls, over 1,500 acts of vandalism and 400 death threats have been aimed at clinics.
On November 27, 2015, an anti-abortionist shot and killed a police officer and two civilians at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. An additional five police officers and four civilians were injured.
The arrested suspect, Robert Lewis Dear, mentioned “baby parts” as his reason for the attack. During questioning by police, Dear expressed anti-abortion and anti-government views, a police source told CNN.
Robert Lewis Dear, Jr.
Those on the Left were outraged at this latest attack on the reproductive rights of women. But those on the Right offered no sympathy for the victims—or women who sought out medical care at Planned Parenthood clinics.
Colorado state Rep. JoAnn Windholz issued a statement blaming Planned Parenthood for the attack:
“Violence is never the answer, but we must start pointing out who is the real culprit. The true instigator of this violence and all violence at any Planned Parenthood facility is Planned Parenthood themselves. Violence begets violence. So Planned Parenthood: YOU STOP THE VIOLENCE INSIDE YOUR WALLS.” [Italics added]
Rep. JoAnn Windholz
Planned Parenthood offers reproductive health care, sex education to women and men and, at some clinics, abortions.
Since Planned Parenthood can’t expect help from Republican lawmakers, perhaps it’s time for its officials to consider the advice of Niccolo Machiavelli.
“For among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible,” he writes in Chapter 14 of The Prince, his primer on gaining political power.
“Because there is no comparison whatever between an armed and a disarmed man. It is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey willingly one who is unarmed….”
Niccolo Machiavelli
In short: Planned Parenthood should begin training its personnel in the use of automatic firearms. And widely advertising the fate that awaits future terrorist attackers.
This would send an unmistakable message to future would-be terrorists: We will no longer be passive victims to your violent fanaticism. Attack us—and die.
By doing so, Planned Parenthood would be following the advice of Wayne La Pierre—and the example set by New York City after 9/11.
In 1993, Islamic terrorists unsuccessfully bombed the World Trade Center. Six people were killed and 1,042 others were injured during escape attempts.
Eight years later, on September 11, 2001, they launched their second—and this time successful–attack on the Center, killing 2,977 New Yorkers.
On both occasions, New Yorkers had expected the Federal Government to protect them. After 9/11, the NYPD decided it could no longer rely on the FBI and CIA for protection.
The NYPD greatly expanded the ranks of its Counterterrorism Division. More than 600 officers and operatives both stateside and worldwide now stood guard over New York City.
Since 9/11, New York has not faced a similar terrorist attack.
Finally, an Aesop’s fable serves up a lesson known long ago—but repeatedly ignored by the idealistic but ineffectual Left:
A snake was stepped on by so many people that, one day, he prayed to Zeus for help. And Zeus replied: “If you had bitten the first person who stepped on you, the second would have thought twice about it.”
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