The National Rifle Association (NRA) is probably the far-left's most beloved bogeyman. Any time there is a tragedy involving a firearm, liberals from the top down are quick to blame the NRA--typically before any of the details of the crime are known.
Unsurprisingly, the left seems completely flummoxed as to why the NRA and other 2nd Amendment supporters oppose some gun laws that have been floated by liberals in the past few years, despite some of these laws enjoying the support of a majority of Americans. So, allow me to explain for the benefit of all our gun-grabbing friends.
Forget for a second that there is no evidence that the proposed laws would do anything whatsoever to curb gun violence.
Of course Americans are going to say that they don't think that mentally ill individuals should be able to purchase a firearm. It sounds like a no-brainer.
But, the left never thinks the proposal through beyond the sound bytes. Making sure that no mentally ill individuals buy guns would require an unconstitutional burden on potential gun purchasers and would be impossible to enforce. How do we determine the mental state of someone who has no psychiatric record? Will all potential gun buyers be forced to have their head's shrunk prior to purchasing a handgun? Who decides who's too crazy to buy a weapon? The Federal Government? Uh, huh. That's not a recipe for a constitutional crisis at all, is it?
The current administration is always pushing its "common sense" solutions. Does that make people who oppose those ideas too "crazy" to buy guns?
Here's the thing that the left really doesn't understand. The real reasons for the NRA's staunch opposition to these feel-good policies is not based on the symbolic nature of the policies themselves or the burden these silly policies would impose on law abiding Americans. They are based on the past activities of the left itself.
In the 1950s all the way through to the 1980s and early 90s, many liberals wanted to ban ALL handguns. New York Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed banning all ammunition, in the late 80s.
In 1993, liberals were successful in passing the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, and in 1994 Bill Clinton signed a ban on assault weapons. These bills were a far cry from what anti-gun activists had been demanding for decades as is evidenced by this hopeful Rolling Stone piece in which the author dreamily opines on what anti-gun activists should try to accomplish next, now that they thought the Brady Bill had gotten the snowball rolling down the hill for them. At the end of the article, the author clearly lays out the endgame. "Limit the number of guns."
While these bills became law, the strong opposition to these pieces of legislation served to solidify Americans support for the Second Amendment and, in 1994, anger over the new laws helped the GOP win Congress for the first time in over 50 years. Even former President Clinton once said that “The N.R.A. could rightly claim to have made Gingrich the House speaker.”
After the public turned against the left's efforts to stringently regulate handguns, liberals turned their anti-gun agenda to keeping the assault weapons ban alive. This too proved a futile effort and the ban expired more than a decade ago.
Because these agenda items did not work out the way the anti-gun left had hoped, the lobby had no choice but to continue to lower its expectations.
Nowadays, president Obama spends an inordinate amount of political capital in an effort to promote symbolic, gun control measures that have no impact and have no chance of passing.
But, the NRA rightly understands, from past experience, that if you give the gun-grabbers an inch, they'll take a mile. Cave on new background check laws and they will simply politicize the next tragedy to demand more gun control in an effort to get back to a place where they can once again promote truly Draconian policies. Because, of course, the anti-second amendment crowd understands that there will ALWAYS be a 'next tragedy.' Hence the left's bumbling, long-game strategy.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
If you ask current gun control advocates if they'd like to repeal the Second Amendment or want to ban handguns, they will typically deny that they have any interest in pursuing those goals. But, history tells another story: they go to great lengths to portray the NRA as mindlessly opposing "sensible" gun laws for no good reason.
But, the very "good reason" for the NRA to oppose the gun-grabbers' latest demand for an "inch" is to prevent the anti-gun movement from gaining any momentum. Momentum that could end up ushering in an era where their most Draconian dreams actually become a reality.