Posted on 08/15/2011 6:16:32 AM PDT by marktwain
There's this old joke about the heroic three-legged pig. A passer-by inquires about the missing leg. Regaling the questioner with the pig's derring-do — saving his life from a house fire, a raging river and an oncoming truck — the farmer finally explains the missing leg.
“You wouldn't expect me to eat a great pig like this all at once, would you?”
Gun owners: You are the National Rifle Association's three-legged pig.
No, I'm not calling you a pig. Please see definition of metaphor.
The NRA, though highly dependent on you, has diminished you into a caricature, a punch line. The uncaring — my-cold-dead-hands — defender of the unrestricted right to pack as much firepower as you want, whenever you want, wherever you want. No need to balance this “right” against anyone else's rights.
I wouldn't be surprised if you aren't feeling a bit of sawing on that other leg because of the latest from the NRA. As promised, it is suing to halt a new federal regulation requiring that gun dealers along the border report multiple sales of certain semiautomatic rifles, which, in the hands of drug cartels, might as well be called Mexican killers.
A New York Times story says the legal complaint of the two Arizona dealers, on whose behalf the NRA is suing, explains that “the rule would be costly and that the dealers could lose business from customers who would be deterred from making a large purchase of such weapons because of loss of privacy.”
Um, yes. That's the point: That straw buyers will be “deterred” from buying these guns in bulk for Mexican drug cartels that are using them to indiscriminately mow down folks south of the border. They do this defending their presumed right to sell their drugs north of the border without restriction.
Gun dealers don't have an unassailable right to profit from this in the name of selling in bulk to others.
Not only is the NRA saying that you have an unfettered right to buy these guns in bulk without the kind of transparency the feds are newly requiring, they are saying that folks have the right to sell them. This is just the latest evidence that the NRA and the gun-manufacturing industry are locked in a loving embrace that threatens to squeeze the life out of the rest of us.
Yes, this includes even you gun owners who recognize no need to have multiple semiautomatics, weapons whose overkill capabilities make their purpose pretty transparent. It includes even you gun owners who recognize that not everyone can be trusted with an assault weapon that accommodates a 90-round snail drum — of the kind allegedly used to kill Bexar County Sheriff's Sgt. Kenneth Vann in May.
The NRA argues this new policy is illegal because it wasn't congressionally approved, as was an identical requirement for multiple handgun sales. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives notes that this rule on handguns sales was in existence and enforced before Congress codified it in 1986.
Undoubtedly, all manner of levelheadedness permeates the ranks of legal gun owners. But you can thank the over-the-top demands of the NRA for the stereotype that suggests otherwise. Here's the thing, though: The NRA perpetuates this caricature only because levelheaded gun owners enable it.
Often the NRA has said, we have to compormise, we can not get a better deal. If we don't compromise now, we will lose more. Funny thing, the compromise always used to be in one direction. Since 2004, the grass roots organizations have forced the NRA to become more proactive, and we have actually gotten a little compromise in our favor.
Why the type of weapon used is relevant is of course left unexplained.
Sgt. Vann would have been just as dead had his assailant used a single shot shotgun.
Ricardo would have had a somewhat better argument had this weapon been used to shoot up a food court, where the high capacity magazine would have been relevant to the crime committed.
Logic and rational thinking are not his strong points.
He feels.
What a condescending gasbag!
Please stop posting this.
I live in San Antonio, and nobody with the brains God gave a marble reads this liberal jackass.
In fact, there is no longer a single columnist left in that paper worth the time of day. More intelligent comments can be found written on the walls of a public lavatory.
Ricky is trying to carve another ham off the pig and it isn’t even his pig.
—O. Ricardo used to dispense his garbage in Wisconsin—the snow must have got to him-—
You make a valid point. It is not always easy to decide to post an article or not, but this one seemed to be worth the effort, if only to show the inanity of the left.
The NRA
Anti gun headlines read the NRA and other pro gun groups are trying to ............
Rarely are "other gun groups" identified by name.
The NRA is the lightning rod that the antis attack.
I'm just angry because once upon a time we had TWO newspapers here. One of them was conservative and often worth reading. The other, even a parakeet wouldn't poop on (redundancy don't you know). Long story short - the liberal one bought the conservative one and installed their “values.” Now even the parakeets laugh at us!
“Um, yes. That’s the point: That straw buyers will be “deterred” from buying these guns in bulk for Mexican drug cartels that are using them to indiscriminately mow down folks south of the border.”
This guy does not have a clue. What attracted the Cartel suppliers to Fast and Furious was the ability to buy weapons in the 30-40 items at a time range. Not 2-5. They didn’t speak English well, their papers looked fishy and the gun dealers didn’t want to sell but the ATF basically told them to sell the guns. One dealer called back 3 times and asked if the ATF was sure about letting the sale go through. Its total BS.
The drug cartels have the money and contacts to buy semi auto and full auto weapons from international arms dealers by the trainload. They don’t need to buy them a few at a time from American gun dealers. This whole thing was set up by the DOJ and the ATF. It was a conspiracy to attempt to promote stricter gun control laws in the USA. Holder and few others need to go to Leavenworth prison.
Mr. Pimento is an ass of monumental proportions. He insinuates that the NRA is ahead of it’s constituents in rabid defense of the 2nd Amendment. The truth is the exact opposite. We are continually having to drag the NRA to our position which is much less tolerant of encroachments.
I think this guy is the one who doesn't understand what a metaphor is. The metaphor actually fits in a way but only because the NRA is in many ways, exactly the opposite of the way he sees it.
NRA members (who do enable the existence of the organization as he notes), are constantly being betrayed as half the stuff the organization endorses amounts to ceding our rights slowly, because then we get to keep SOME of them. That IS sort of akin to a pig being eaten alive one shank at a time. Pretty ineffective lobby if that's the choice you face.
Ah. Apparently you and I saw his “metaphor” exactly the same way. Sorry for the repetition.
NRA! Motto “You’ll lose fewer rights with us on the job!”
Repetition is a good way to educate.
The right of your statist masters to "feel safe". /s
Oh how silly of me. LOL
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