Is a good offense. I tend to agree. This incident has definitely re-energized our opponents, which, in itself, Â troubling. We need to make sure they go home empty handed. Our opponents seem to think we’re heartless bastards for not bending to their will, but I think it’s fair to question people who use tragedy to their political advantage.
Because of our volunteer role with NRA, we’re sometimes contacted by members who don’t quite understand our role, and are looking for someone vaguely associated with NRA to talk to about something. One member, fairly shortly after the tragedy called very distraught over what had happened, and just kept saying how he was a father, and how the images of that nine year old girl just tore him up. He was looking for someone to talk to about ways we could prevent such tragedies, but he was also very worried about the implications in regards to his gun rights. He wanted NRA to focus on congressional security and mental health treatment.
The single issue nature of NRA would probably preclude their venturing into those areas, but members are not heartless creatures; we just have very different ideas about how to prevent these kinds of tragedies, which starts with not having dangerously mentally ill individuals roaming the streets in the first place.
I agree. They will use emotion and lies, we will use calmly stated facts. We do not need them to get any foothold off of this.
BUT, as you and others have said already, we need to hope that the demoncrat Congresswoman does not change her view of the 2nd amendment. I want her to join the many that are packing heat to defer the crazies.
I think you meant “deter the crazies.” The fact is that Loughner’s statements online indicate that he was not planning to survive. You really can’t deter someone who is prepared to die. You can lock them up when they demonstrate mental illness–as we used to do in this country, back when random mass murders were shocking because of their rarity.