Is Wayne LaPierre Pulling Your Strings? by Rick London

Before the NRA was founded America had guns.  We never worried about our 2^nd Amendment rights, because like our other rights, they were and are clearly written in the Constitution. All common usage guns are protected.   When the NRA was founded, they were on the side of gun-owners, even teaching gun safety classes (one of which I took and most enjoyed). 

 

   

     

 

 

 

 

In the early 1990s, things changed. Suddenly we were told our 2^nd Amendment rights were at risk.  How could this be. America was fine for 300 years before the founding of the NRAand suddenly the 2nd Amendment was in trouble?  Who was telling us this?  It turned out the NRA was telling us this.   The smart Americans began to easily understand they were lobbying, no longer for gun owners, but for gun manufacturers (and sellers).   The end-buyer was to be the fearful chess pawn who would buy more guns due to the big bad monster under the bed who swallows guns.

LaPierre, admittedly did his job so well, that on 12/14, when 20 children were brutally mowed down to the size of molecules, Americans all over were holding tight to their guns, wondering if this was the last straw; not even thinking of the families and their horrendous losses.   He not only has brainwashed them, he has made them extremely ill.  Children are more important than Bushmasters.  I know that’s hard to believe for some, but its really true. 

Every country which has had horrendous civil wars have had their own version of  Wayne LaPierre; Syria, the former Libya and Iraq and the list goes on and on.

The chess game is not rocket science. It’s simple unscrupulous business. The gun lobby pays (and grades) the political system of each country, tells them how to vote and often writes their states laws.   They then instill fear in the end user (gun owners) that they need more guns as bad people with even more guns are after their guns.   And every time they buy into it.

I so hoped Americans were smarter than that. Fortunately most are (yes even NRA members) who joined it in the nostalgic times when it was honest and provided a decent service.

So what happens when inevitably a civil war breaks out in each of the countries (which it does)?  The Wayne LaPierre’s of the world leave those countries right at the outbreak of the wars sipping drinks with umbrellas on Polynesian beaches laughing loudly at all the puppets they manipulated to become billionaires.  

Are you one of their puppets?   You don’t have to be a gun-owner to be one.  There are plenty of decent law-abiding gun-owners who know this game a lot better than I do.  And they want no part of it.  To be one of the puppets, all  you have to be is A. Paid by the NRA or B. Naive or both. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Rick London is a writer, designer and cartoonist. He founded Londons Times Offbeat Cartoons & Funny Gifts which have been Google’s #1 ranked since 2005.   

Advertisement

Lost Dog In An Imaginary Fight by Rick London

     Social media is a lot of fun because we get to talk to friends we’ve never met (or probably will meet); mostly on Twitter, and on facebook we run into plenty of old friends that we did know a millennium ago in our cities of birth.  One also meet new ones from that same city, but perhaps they lived outside of our school district so maybe didn’t get to know them as well, but now we do.   And we meet new ones from being in groups “with similar interest” worldwide which is great fun.  And we get to send birthday wishes to each and every one of them without buying one stamp.

     Now if facebook has done nothing else for us, let us be grateful for those incredible services.  Plus that imaginary feeling of importance  we all get when we update our status, and in our minds,  people are on the edge of their home/office chairs waiting to read what we are going to say next (when in reality they are playing Poker, Farmville or Mafia Wars).

     I try not to turn on the news but sometimes I can’t help myself.  This past week we learned the TSA feels it is a good idea to allow knives on commercial planes.  One thing we all surely learned in 2001 is that there simply aren’t enough sharp objects being taken onto planes.  I bet every TSA agent and exec gets vetted to make sure they have at least one ivy league degree….or at least has caught a terrible case of poison ivy at least once in their lifetime.

       We live in a dangerous world with a lot of people extremely sensitive about a lot of topics.  Some of them, they have every right to be, some of them have lost dogs in imaginary fights that aren’t even theirs; or, they haven’t a clue what the invisible fight is about.  One is the 2^nd Amendment. Thank you Wayne LaScare for sending enough emails and letters to keep your gun manufacturer’s businesses very lucrative. They all salute you even though they feel you’re as loco as we think you are.

      I’m relatively neutral about guns per se; that is, I believe in the Constitution and that includes 2^nd Amendment rights.  But unlike many (who truly believe they support the Constitution), I’ve studied it and I do have a clue what it says and means.  All the amendments are VERY conditional.  Let’s take the 1^st Amendment.  Free speech is great fun and makes me proud to be an American.  What we can do and say here can’t be said in a very lot of countries on this planet without losing a limb or a head. But there are limitations.  We can’t and shouldn’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater anymore than we should make a racial statement that could incite violence or even a riot.  With the 1st Amendment comes a multitude of responsibilities, just like with the 2nd Amendment.  If someone doesn’t understand that, they believe in the NRA’s Wayne LaScare, not the 2nd Amendment. The two are as different as night and day.  

      I grew up around hunters and half or more of our little hamlet’s homes have a firearm for protection.  And that’s their business (the gun owner), not mine.  Handguns and rifles are (COMMON USE WEAPONS) in the U.S. hence protected by the 2^nd Amendment.  Every other gun is conditional and is not even really a 2^nd Amendment argument as extended magazines, AR-15s, Bushmasters etc etc. are not the common use guns of our country. 

     They were all designed for military combat.  The very use of them by civilians in our country is a spit in the eye of every soldier in the battlefield who is fighting for us to have a country where we civilians would never have to confront such terror as they do on the battlefield.  It’s a spit in the face of every veteran who has ever experienced war.  They all fought so we could feel safe in our country and never have to worry about such weaponry.  Those are not guns; they are terror weapons and for military defense only.  They have no other intelligent usage.  

     We pay taxes that pay our local law enforcement’s salaries and buys their equipment (often including assault weapons).  Why?  So we won’t have to use them.  If you are unhappy with their service, and feel you can do better, why are you paying taxes?  They can do better, believe me.  The statistics of someone with a weapon in their home (whether it be automatic or not) is so dismal, as far as “getting the bad guy”,  you might as well have loaded guns at the front door with a sign that says, “Here…take one”.  The police are here for a reason.  And they are very trained to get bad guys with guns, a lot better than you or me. 

      I am proud of the Million Mothers For Gun Safety and The Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

     One friend made the stale old NRA Wayne LaScare statement that when/if we ever automatic weapons, only criminals will have automatics.

     Actually that has already been proven to be untrue.  When machine guns were banned on May 19, 1986 only criminals were using them.  They were not the “common use weapons” in America, and caused horrendous damage to those shot, very much like today’s automatics. 

      So tell me, when is the last time you heard or read about a crime committed by someone with a machine gun?   Me either.

     So I never purposely get into these meaningless debates because all they do is push someone with a strong opinion further into their strong opinion, and that’s okay.  At least they know the real deal whether they want to believe it or not.

   For law abiding citizens, no matter what Wayne LaScare spouts, nobody wants your guns. Not me, not Congress, not our military, not President Obama, nobody.  Only that scared little boy/girl paranoid voice that lives in your head that is absolutely positive someone is pulling a fast one.  Besides, admit it, you’ve been wanting to form or be a part of an organized militia since you studied military science in 1976.  Come on. Admit it. I won’t laugh.  At least not where you can hear me.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Rick London is a writer, cartoonist and designer.  He founded Londons Times Cartoons (LTCartoons.com) in 1997.  By 2005 the project had become Google’s #1 ranked offbeat cartoons and funny gifts and it has remained in that position ever since.  London also creates famous quote gifts which are unique to the gift market and sells them at such stores as RickLondonDesigns.com. He is married to popular wildlife/nature photographer Lee Hiller London who runs the nature blog HikeOurPlanet.com.