"law abiding gun owners will not accept blame for acts of violent or deranged criminals." wayne la pierre jan. 30 2013. The call for responsible control and oversight of the purchase of guns is aimed at creating a more safe and responsible culture. No one is blaming gun owners. No one is trying to take your guns. The only ones who profit from these ideas is the weapons industry and their ideological thugs (see above), who would turn a moment for a societal evolution and frank examination of its violence into a cheap and reactionary freedom wank, and a false victimization.
The intensified gun debate of these past months forces us to interact with our society in a way that before was relegated to college students and professors, your annoying friend, social workers and talking heads on cable. I don't mean simply that our last year's irking surplus of massacres forces us to talk about the regulation of assault weapons and magazine sizes. I point rather to the way the "camps" frame their debates.
If our culture is going to push most of us to side one way or the other on the issue of gun control, then the underlying points of view that frame our opinions have a venue, now, to be analyzed. These tragedies have pressed "us" to respond with calls for or against particular legislation or permutations therein. But I would have to take this opportunity to call out both "sides" on their lack of scope.
The overwhelming response on the left has been a call for gun control, adding increased oversight to gun transactions while creating a more peaceful culture through stigmatization of violence. This is in reaction to a recent outbreak of massacres, and in the face of an extremely weakened ATF, and a culture of state laws waging the battle for gun rights (a la deranged and misdirected channeling of the founding fathers) with outrageous legislative concoctions borne of ideological symbolism. Perhaps in such a moment more concrete regulation is needed to decrease the flow of guns to criminals and the mentally ill.
The overwhelming response of the right has been a call against gun control. The aims of tighter regulation resulting in less available guns in the hands of less criminals and mentally ill people is framed as an assault on the second amendment, and the genesis of a new dawn of tyranny, while purveying a false notion of what gun control is really being proposed. Perfecting our society via laws that can net an overall result of less massacres is juxtaposed to Hitler and Mao before the discussion can even be entertained by those who watch FOX news. The right seems to be set on making the people believe that they are being victimized and that the government wants their guns.
What a smooth ideology that can all at once lull a culture into a symbolic distrust of the people they pay to govern themselves (symbolic, because the lobbyists and the money have major influence on the government) and at the same time be pushing the culture of a brand and a product that they themselves are physically selling. (And at record high rates)
Are conservatives really ready to do battle with the defense department? Are they really going to take out the US army with their AK 47s? No they are deluded and they are pacified by their guns. The notion that "this AK is for my government if they want to infringe on my rights" is laughable. Coordinating a colonial era styled overthrow of tyranny would entail cooperating with your fellow man towards a common goal, it would be collectivist and infringe upon the individual.
As for those who would relegate our societal problems and propensity for violence to lack of gun control, I would argue that this is the same flawed logic of: "Main street, not wall street", when wall street creates the conditions for those on main street to buy electronics, finance a house and car, and retire with a pension.
You can't vilify greed and separate its perpetrators from the larger issue, without acknowledging the fact that greed in inherent to the capitalist system. You can't vilify violence and separate its perpetrators from the larger issue without acknowledging the fact that it is a function of the culture we live in.
