Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
– Frederick Douglass
The NRA (National Rifle Association) is a powerful lobby and “special interest” organization. In recent years, it has become an influential partisan donor to the GOP and predominantly Republican political interests. The elite leadership of this organization has overtaken the debate on common sense gun control legislation in apparent opposition to what the majority of its membership supports. The epidemic of gun violence and mass murder committed with military assault weaponry in the United States is once again front and center within current critical discourse because yet, another angry and disenfranchised young white male legally bought an AR-15 assault rifle and massacred 17 high school students in cold blood, wounding 14 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida last week. This shooting adds to the unprecedented number of school shootings within the first two months of 2018.
The power and influence of the NRA comes in many forms, but one of its most successful and strategic impacts is in its deep pockets and targeted financial support of members of the U.S. Congress. The NRA lobbies on behalf of gun manufacturers and sellers by supporting members of Congress who tow-the-line on what many might call a “bastardized” version of the 2nd Amendment. Just like other amendments in the U.S. Constitution, “the right to bear arms” is not without limitations. However, the NRA in its efforts to “protect” said right has become completely immovable and unwilling to compromise or move towards ANY sensible gun control legislation at all because, for them, it becomes a “slippery slope.” If they give an inch, they believe the anti-gun lobby will take a yard and the gun rights advocates are afraid of losing their guns. The debate always brings us to the same old place, a standoff and a stalemate. Ultimately, we do NOTHING but “TALK” and wait for the next mass shooting in a school, or movie theatre, concert or church service which is inevitable given the current laws and political climate in which we find ourselves. The horror of this is not “If” it happens again, it’s “WHEN” it happens again.
The United States of America is the only nation on earth where our children are intentionally massacred in their classrooms over and over again and we DO NOTHING. Where is the moral outrage? Do we love our guns more than we love our children? If we continue to allow those who promote Gun Rights over our Children’s Rights to live, to learn and to grow up to fulfill their God-given potential, then we must ALL take responsibility for the outcome. Frederick Douglass was exhorting people to a moral outrage without which the fowl and heinous institution of Slavery would never have been abolished.
“There is no doubt that the fear of the consequences, acting with a sense of the moral evil of slavery, led to its abolition.”
The time for Moral Outrage is long overdue…we must begin to be afraid of the consequences of continuing to DO Nothing. We must DEMAND Change NOW! #NotOneMore #GunControlNow
Photo by David Levêque on Unsplash
