NRA's firm gun stance planted in 1960s U.S. unrest
Lewis DiuguidFear keeps causing gun sales to spike.
The 2008 election of Barack Obama as president started it with people afraid that the new president would take away their guns. Since then, 67 million firearms have been sold in the U.S. The Kansas City Star reports that the number exceeds what had been purchased in the previous seven years.
Keep in mind that threats against the president also have spiked, including one gunman taking a pot-shot at the White House. That had never happened before.
Recurring mass shootings in this country continue to spur sales as gun advocates fear a government clampdown on individuals’ ability to purchase whatever weapon they want whenever and wherever they want. Vice President Joe Biden’s intent on recommending by Tuesday to President Obama gun control measures is certain to cause gun sales to spike anew.
Count on gun-hungry customer traffic being up Saturday and Sunday at the Gun-Knife Show at the KCI Expo Center, 11730 N. Ambassador Drive. Parking there will be a nightmare.
The Violence Policy Center in an article on the Web notes that the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Sen. Bobby Kennedy and rioting in the civil rights era in the 1960s pushed the pro-gun National Rifle Association into a corner, resulting in meaningful gun control legislation.
The article said:
“On March 8, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson, linking “the ease with which any person can acquire firearms” to the country’s rising violent crime rate, called for increased gun controls….
“The NRA’s ability to stop any gun control measure ended in 1968. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was gunned down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. (We prepare now to celebrate the national holiday marking the slain civil rights leader’s birth 84 years ago.) The next day the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 — which was amended to include a ban on the interstate sale and shipment of handguns — became the first firearms control bill to pass out of committee since 1938.
“On June 5, against a backdrop of urban rioting, New York Democratic Senator Robert Kennedy — who had just won the California presidential primary — was gunned down in Los Angeles by Sirhan Sirhan with a .22 handgun. He died the next day.
“That same day, the crime bill cleared Congress. It was signed into law on June 19. Although the public supported stricter gun controls (a January 1967 Gallup poll found that 70 percent believed that “laws concerning handguns should be more strict”), most Americans had never been motivated to act.
“Now they were. As historian Richard Hofstadter noted in 1970, after the killings ‘there was an almost touching national revulsion against our own gun culture.’ (We are close to that today after 20 schoolchildren and six adults were gunned down Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.) Letters poured into Capitol Hill while enraged citizens picketed the NRA’s headquarters.
“‘Can Three Assassins Kill a Civil Right?’ asked the NRA in the July 1968 Rifleman. A besieged (NRA Executive Vice President Franklin) Orth promised that Kennedy’s assassination could not have been prevented by any law “now in existence or proposed.”
That was 45 years ago, but the NRA arguments sound so familiar today. More gun control laws were proposed in 1968 with President Johnson finally signing the Gun Control Act of 1968, on Oct. 22, 1968.
Such strident gun control measures following national outrage over shootings is what the NRA wants to prevent now and in the future. The real gunfight hasn’t even begun yet.
http://www.vpc.org/nrainfo/chapter1.html
Matt Henry
5 months, 1 week agoPerhaps outrage over isolated incidents is exactly NOT the time to make these decisions. Perhaps this is precisely when decisions are made that provide some relief on the heart but no real relief for the problem, and in fact make things worse. It is in moments of human suffering that tyrants are most able to gain control.
In the same way the Lewis contends that the NRA is trying to prevent strident gun control measures following moments of national outrage, I would suggest that those on the other side of the issue are trying to USE a moment of national outrage to enact strident gun control measures. I content that the latter is worse because we are making decisions for all the wrong reasons, and are at our most vulnerable because of the emotional heat of the issue. Relieving people of what are now considered basic rights should be a sober experience, not one used by those who want to set your hair on fire so they can justify buying a hose. You know, those who say things like “never let a good crisis go to waste.”
Phil Cardarella
5 months, 1 week agoAustralia’s Conservative government banned possession of these weapons TWO WEEKS after its LAST mass murder — in 1996!
Rational folks have always known that these weapons have no place in civil society. Tragedy just brings focus on both the need and the emptiness of the NRA arguments.
You know, those who say things like “never let a good crisis go to waste.” ???? You mean the guys who hold the economy hostage over the debt ceiling?
Greg McFarland
5 months, 1 week agoIrrational people refuse to acknowledge that Australia’s violent crime rate has gone way up after their gun ban while preventing only a few dozen deaths. It sounds like you prefer tens of thousands (or likely hundreds in the US) more violent crimes. The UK is even worse with a violent crime rate 3-5 times that of the US.
Matt Henry
5 months, 1 week agoSure, why not. I am an equal opportunity criticizer, as opposed to some of the leftist shills who find the right answer square in the laps of their government masters all the flippin’ time.
“Rational” folks. Again, how are we supposed to deal with someone like you? Someone who can’t defend his positions but with saying “well, uh, well, uh, I just get it and you don’t.” Well I don’t agree with you. And I’m edumacated. And rational. So what do we do now?
Your point about Australia is the very definition of specious, not to mention trying to prove a negative; not very rational. The Wiggles rose to stardom in the mid-1990’s, injected Australia with a whole new kind of happy-happy-joy-joy that they had never seen. No wonder there have been no more mass murders!
Greg McFarland
5 months, 1 week agohttp://www.aic.gov.au/statistics.html for Austalia
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html for the UK AND MOST OF THE EU
Robert Copher
5 months, 1 week agoHere’s a thought. Were the twin towers brought down with guns? No, they were brought down with airplanes because they knew there would be few, if any people on those planes with guns to stop them. I would have gone with a warning after 9/11. “We’re not going to body scan anybody at the aiports anymore, you better start carrying your gun with you when you travel”. It would have been more in keeping with American values and our constitutional rights. Instead we started questioning everyone’s constittutional rights and encouraging others when they should also. Stop protecting us claiming its your right to protect yourself by denying the laws of the land. Fair enough? I’ve grown up and been taught in school that those are the reason’s America is what it is.
Robert Copher
5 months, 1 week agoIf the assasination of Pres. Kennedy and the sudden acceptance of mafia law, along with the other assasinations and massacres were caused in order to provoke the response of more gun control and stricter moral policeing we have right to me concerned. There is a pattern, a predictability, and very troubling connections that can be made with some aspects of our history. I can no longer deny that to myself.
Robert Copher
5 months, 1 week agoBy mafia law I mean. “Trust me, we’ll take of ya” and then not agreeing with their methods. Then yes. Happens a lot. Am I to believe Kobach is protecting my rights by colaborating and pushing forward unconstitutional law? How do these misconception gain momentum?
Robert Copher
5 months, 1 week agoOne common fear on both sides of the gun debate is concern that our obituary will include the words “oops, the gun went off accidsently” So we have that in common.
Steven Revare
5 months, 1 week agoPeople have taken potshots at the White House before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FranciscoMartinDuran
Greg McFarland
5 months, 1 week agoSounds like a correction needs to be made!