History shows that NRA formerly supported gun control

To The Daily Sun,

It’s unfortunate, but a contributor to this forum has exposed himself for the fool he must be by suggesting that I, or anyone else, would want women raped and killed — a typical scare tactic strategically used by the NRA. Fear has become their ultimate recourse rather than common-sense logic.

As a gun owner, I have realized that the vitriol from the far right has driven people away. People have come to recognize liberal gun owners as an alternative to the NRA. They’ve felt ostracized by not thinking that the government is an evil, fascist state who’s going to take their guns.

The argument, promulgated by the NRA, that having more guns makes us safer plays into American ideals of independence and personal responsibility, but it’s just a savvy marketing ploy by the NRA, conjured out of thin air, and does not hold up to facts. Americans own nearly half of all the civilian-owned guns in the world, and on a per capita basis, the U.S. has far more guns than any other nation — 120.5 firearms per 100 people. If more guns, as suggested by the NRA, are to make us safer, why is it that, among industrialized countries, the United States has an outstanding rate of firearms mortality and almost triple the rate of the next country in line. While no other country in the industrialized world tolerates such statistics, in the United States, it is accepted as a grim reality.

We need to take steps to fix our culture so that guns are not seen as a way to solve a problem, prove a political point, or as an outlet for the stress we may be experiencing.

Through most of the NRA’s history it has supported, or at least condoned, gun control initiatives. This contributor should know that, in stark contrast to the NRA’s rigid opposition to gun control in today’s America, the organization fought alongside the government for stricter gun regulations in the 1960s as part of an effort to keep guns out of the hands of African Americans as racial tensions in our nation grew. When blacks wanted to carry guns, the NRA supported the 1967 Mulford Act that restricted people from carrying guns — it was crafted in response to members of the Black Panther Party who were conducting armed patrols. In 1968, the NRA supported and approved the Gun Control Act which put substantial restrictions on the purchase of guns based on mental illness, criminal convictions, drug addiction and age, among other factors.

It was gun control laws, supported by the NRA, that were put into effect against African-Americans that led rural white conservatives across the country to fear any restrictions to their own guns. In less than a decade, the NRA went from backing gun control regulations to inhibit groups they feared, to refusing to support any gun legislation at all.

I would suggest that this contributor expand his knowledge beyond the NRA propaganda and learn about his organization.

Robert Miller

Alton