DC Sniper and the NRA

The DC sniper - or one of them - has just been sentenced to life inprisonment. I can't quite believe how quickly the last four years have gone since I helped my little sister move out to DC for the start of her internship at the Smithsonian.

When we arrived in October 02 DC was gripped by fear if you read the media, or just pissed that someone was causing havoc at the gas lines if you listened to my friends. We all felt sorry for anyone who looked foreign and drove a white delivery van.

Even the cab drivers were concerned, and they are normally the least scared people on the planet.

The day I left my sister to fly home to London after ten days in DC the cab driver needed to stop and pump gas around the corner from the apartment block. I have never seen someone duck down and look around so often whilst pumping gas as that cab driver. He took off out of the Mobil station like he had just robbed the place!

What I can't remember is what the NRA's position at the time was. I am sure they were saying that guns don't kill it is people, and that the sniper showed why one needed to be allowed to carry a firearm.

The NRA scares me - not in response to Heston's insensitive comments whilst waving a rifle above his head - but more in how otherwise intelligent people can spout such inconsistencies and believe them.

Last Friday's Economist had an article on how the NRA are now opposed to the UN's disarmament programmes in Africa which aim to disarm child soldiers and reintegrate them in to mainstream societies. Anyone else would see this as a highly laudable programme, that should be supported. The NRA in contrast see it as the first step as an attack on the American way of life. Urghhhh!!!!

Am posting the Economist article below:

The coming threat to gun-owners - UNbelievable

May 25th 2006 | MILWAUKEE AND YEKEPA, LIBERIA
From The Economist print edition
The NRA takes aim at global bureaucrats

AFP New-look Security Council

DUKU PAUL does not know how many people he has killed. Though still young, he is a veteran of one of West Africa's nastiest civil wars. For more than a decade, he helped to burn, loot and bloody his homeland, Liberia. Then, in 2003, the United Nations, with American backing, brought peace. Bangladeshi blue helmets took Mr Paul's gun and gave him $300. Interviewed last year, he said he was sorry that he ever became a soldier, and that he wanted to get back to school.

Mr Paul was enrolled in what the UN calls a “disarmament, demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration” programme. The world body is keen to promote such programmes wherever appropriate. The National Rifle Association (NRA), the lobby for American gun-lovers, does not like the sound of that.

“So, after we are disarmed, the UN wants us demobilised and reintegrated. I can hear it now: ‘Step right this way for your reprogramming, sir. Once we confiscate your guns, we can demobilise your aggressive instincts and reintegrate you into civil society.’ No thanks,” shudders Wayne LaPierre, the indefatigable executive vice-president of the NRA.

Why does the UN want to take away Americans' guns? Because it is a club of governments, some of which want to “strip opposition forces of the means to challenge their authority,” argues Mr LaPierre. During the 20th century, governments murdered 169m people in various parts of the world, he says. Individual gun ownership is the “ultimate protection against tyranny”.

Mr LaPierre was signing copies of his new book, “The Global War on Your Guns: Inside the UN Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights”, at the NRA's annual convention in Milwaukee on May 19th-21st. What do rank-and-file members think? Joe Carlson, a rifle salesman, is serenely unaware of the threat. “I'd not heard about that,” he says. “I've been so busy selling these [award-winning semi-automatic weapons]. I'd better take a look.” Others are better informed. “All these pirate governments want to take from people their rights. That's wrong,” says Greg Johnson, who runs a lodge in Michigan where you can shoot imported Russian wild boars.

For both men, their livelihoods are at stake. Mr Johnson's customers can, it is true, hunt wild boars with “stick and string” (ie, a bow and arrows). But most would prefer to bring their favourite firearm, for those “raging Russian” boars are fierce. “If you hunt him, he'll hunt you,” says Mr Johnson, adding that it is the kind of beast that was running around in the Dark Ages. Yes, “It's one primordial pork chop.”

Mr Carlson's position is even more precarious. The guns he sells are more powerful than the M4 rifles that the army uses. (As any gun-lover knows, with the M4 “there's a problem with one-shot kills,” says Mr Carlson: ie, soldiers are finding it tricky to take out distant targets with a single shot.) Under Bill Clinton, they were labelled “assault rifles” (inaccurately, in Mr Carlson's view) and banned. Congress let the ban lapse in 2004. If “the wrong people” are elected, says Mr Carlson, they'd ban them again in a heartbeat.

The NRA, like so many conservative American groups, has long detested the UN. But Mr LaPierre's claim that it is “the biggest coming threat” to gun-lovers represents a new emphasis. It reflects, in part, his organisation's astonishing success at home. The second amendment is in “the best shape it's been in for decades,” says Mr LaPierre. “Gun-haters” consistently lose elections. The president and both houses of Congress are solidly pro-gun. Last year Congress passed legislation protecting gun manufacturers from “frivolous” lawsuits. Of the 50 states, only two—Wisconsin and Illinois—refuse to let law-abiding citizens carry concealed firearms.

Challenges remain, of course. During the post-hurricane lawlessness in New Orleans last year, the police confiscated a number of legally-held firearms from civilians. Last week, the NRA urged every mayor and police chief in America to pledge never to disarm law-abiding citizens. The governor of Wisconsin, Jim Doyle, has twice vetoed a law that would have allowed licensed citizens to carry concealed handguns. Gun-owners are urged to “Dump Doyle”, among others, at the mid-term elections in November.

For a truly all-embracing threat, however, the UN is hard to beat. Mr LaPierre predicts that the “global war on guns” will boost the NRA's membership from 4m to 8m, and reduce Hillary Clinton's chances of becoming president in 2008. This last point is crucial. The UN, whatever its evil aims, is hardly in a position to push Uncle Sam around. To disarm Americans, it would need Congress on its side, plus an American president willing to sign an anti-gun treaty and appoint Supreme Court justices willing to rule it constitutional.

Mr LaPierre anticipates that some people might find this far-fetched. “I can hear some readers now: ‘Oh, Wayne's just over-reacting’,” he writes. But that is what they want you to believe. “Just how sure is the United Nations that it can take your guns?” he asks. His answer: “The UN chose the Fourth of July to hold its global gun ban summit on American soil!”
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6980071