Fish Story

About twenty years ago on an overnight fishing trip I met two New York State Troopers with whom I engaged in a long and pleasant conversation. They sounded very much like Democrats until the subject of gun control came up and I learned that they were NRA members and were against the pertinent issue of the day, which might have been the assault weapons ban. They freely acknowledged that the law in question was sound and that their opposition was based solely on that old “the next thing you know” business.

This phenomenon of logic is in now in full bloom although I consider its current advocates, as a group, several notches beneath the state troopers. “They’re going to confiscate our guns” is the fairy tale being spread. It’s anybody’s guess whether even a background check can clear Congress and yet some people are worried about their guns being seized.

The NRA people are working hard to make this point. A video they produced, and of course edited, showed interviews of several New Orleans residents describing the heavy handed seizure of their guns during Katrina. There are a few things unconvincing about the production. This stuff is eight years old. Hasn’t something like this been “documented” since? If either federal, state or local governments had a plan to seize the city’s private weaponry they could have enforced it in better weather. Most revealing is that all the “information” came from the people whose guns had been seized. The NRA leaves us guessing at the reason they were being taken. In such a disaster it’s easy to think of circumstances in which people, including gun owners, might act something less than rationally.

There are more guns in fewer households today. It follows that fewer people have more guns, quite a bit more than necessary to handle an intruder or two. If we are to believe some of the more committed owners, the purpose of this hoarding is to defend themselves against the government, the federal government that plans to take their weapons. The unsuccessful 2010 Nevada Senatorial candidate specified “Second Amendment remedies” as a solution for what one feels ails the nation. To my knowledge no Republican member of Congress, for whom these people tend to vote, has gone this far. Still the natives are getting restless and, in the case of some of the hotter heads are publicly warning, you could say threatening, the United States Government.

There was a time when just having been friendly with a former member of a political party that recommended overthrowing the government was cause for penalties ranging from loss of a job to imprisonment. This movement came from the political right, the same direction as those who are now threatening to “defend” themselves from the government, a statement closer to treason than anything coming from the mouths of fellow travelers. I wonder how those state troopers feel about all his.