When I was in second grade, almost every day after lunch, Miss Sarah Turk would announce it would be reading time and we would all dutifully take out our books and start to read aloud. We would read and wait.
What we were waiting for was the sound of Miss Turk’s book hitting the floor as she was lulled asleep by a full stomach, the warmth of of the room, and the sound of little voices struggling to sound out words.
I’ve though about Miss Turk a lot since the Parkland massacre and the stunningly stupid suggestion that arming teachers would be a solution to the problem of mass shootings in schools. If Miss Turk had been packing heat instead of just holding a book she might have blown off one of her sensible shoes as she drifted off into slumber.
That thought always struck me as funny until my former bishop, The Rt. Rev’d Dr. Sherman G. Hicks posted this question on his Facebook page: “Would you like to be a Black teacher holding a handgun when the cops showed up at a school shooting?”
No teacher should be holding a gun at any time but this argument has been embraced as part of the bill of goods that the National Rifle Association has been selling to its unwitting supporters not the least of which is the current drone occupying the Oval Office.
Even their very own website admits that the NRA was founded to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis.” Their emphasis was on developing highly trained “marksmen” with rifle ranges across America that promoted the "safe and skilled use of weapons." 1
There isn’t much money to be made with this limited mandate. However, there is a lot of money to be made knocking down “straw men.”
That is what the National Rifle Association has been doing for forty years now as they knowingly mislead their followers into believing that all of their rights were at stake at the mere mention of anything that hinted of gun control.
In fact: “The NRA assisted Roosevelt in drafting the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1938 Gun Control Act, the first federal gun control laws. These laws placed heavy taxes and regulation requirements on firearms that were associated with crime, such as machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and silencers. Gun sellers and owners were required to register with the federal government and felons were banned from owning weapons.” 2
For the next few decades, guns weren’t much of an issue at the federal level. But that began to change in the ’60s, with multiple assassinations — of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. — and the rapid increase in crime at the time. So the federal government again passed a new series of gun restrictions, particularly the Gun Control Act of 1968.
At this point, gun rights activists began to worry. The leadership at the NRA was complacent with and even publicly supportive of gun control policies, and began to talk about withdrawing from its already limited political lobbying. (Notably, Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated JFK, obtained the gun through an ad in the NRA’s magazine, American Rifleman — so the organization’s leaders likely felt restrained in how far they could go in opposing gun control, given the potential backlash the group could face
But a few hardline members, led by Harlon Carter, subscribed to the argument that if the federal government were given even an inch in regulating guns, it would take a mile, and that would end up with guns banned altogether. So during the organization’s 1977 meeting in Cincinnati, Carter and his supporters rebelled, placing him in charge. It was at this point that the NRA truly became the gun lobby. 3
It is a lobby that is built a logical fallacy promoted by the NRA from Carter to Wayne LaPierre whose annual salary is estimated by numerous sources to be around $1 million.
Mr. LaPierre is making millions by selling his followers the same “bill of goods” that Mr. Carter discovered. He said of the government after the Parkland shootings: “Their goal is to eliminate the Second Amendment and our firearms freedoms so they can eliminate all individual freedoms.” 4
That is a fallacy! As a matter of fact, it is such a major fallacy it has even been given a name. It is called “The Slippery Slope.”
Now I know that the few friends I have who have bought into the NRA’s scheme will probably not buy into what I am about to tell you but you are falling for a hoax. You are buying into a lie.
Here, in one simple black-and-white sentence, is what is making Mr. LaPierre $1 million a year. “Ban one type of weapon - this time it is the AR-15 - and before you know it they will all be banned.”The slippery slope basically argues that you cannot do anything without going too far. The fallacy introduces the irrelevant material of the consequences of more far reaching action in order to oppose the more limited proposal actually made. 5
That is not what anybody is advocating. Nobody wants to take away anybody’s hunting rifle!
What 67 percent of the American people would like to do is ban the sale of assault weapons which are the machine guns of our day. 83 percent would like to see a mandatory waiting period for all gun purchases. 6
According to the late Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, the wildly liberal Antonin Scalia:
[T]he conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. 7Therefore, Justice Scalia continues in the District of Columbia-vs-Heller opinion:
“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
“Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” 8Even the uber-conservative, super-hawk, former FOX contributor, Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, believes there is no constitutional right to own an assault weapon.
I believe, on moral, practial and constitutional grounds, that no private citizen should own an automatic weapon or a semi-automatic weapon that can easily be modified for automatic effects.
These are military weapons. Their purpose is to kill human beings. They’re not used for hunting (unless you want to destroy the animal’s meat). They’re lousy for target shooting. But they’re excellent tools for mass murder.
The latest school shooter could not have done what he did with a sports rifle or shotgun. The Las Vegas shooter could not have done what he did with hunting arms. No end of school massacres and other slaughters have tallied horrific body counts because of military-grade weapons in the hands of mass murderers.
The old saw runs that “Guns don’t kill people, people do.” But people with rapid-fire weapons kill a lot more folks a whole lot faster.
Having those weapons in civilian hands is madness! 9Let the hunters hunt. Let those who like to head out to the shooting range every once and awhile fire away. Let even those who feel they need to pack a pistol to protect their homes and loved ones carry heat if they would like. But hiding behind them so that the rest of society can live in fear of a crazy person with a rapid fire weapon is another matter.
The demagogues who grow wealthy by convincing responsible gun owners that some shadowy government agency can’t wait to seize their deer rifles will have a great deal to answer for on Judgment Day. 10May God have mercy on their souls but not much.
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1. "A Brief History of the NRA." Nra.org. Accessed April 5, 2018. https://home.nra.org/about-the-nra/.
2. Coleman, Arica L. "When the NRA Supported Gun Control." Time, July 29, 2016. Accessed April 5, 2018. http://time.com/4431356/nra-gun-control-history/.
3. Lopez, German. "How the NRA Resurrected the Second Amendment." Vox. March 27, 2018. Accessed April 5, 2018. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/12/16418524/us-gun-policy-nra.
4. Tuttle, Brad. "Wayne LaPierre Has Made a Fortune as the Leader of the NRA." Time. February 28, 2018. Accessed April 5, 2018. http://time.com/money/5178193/wayne-lapierre-net-worth-nra-money-salary/.
5. Pirie, Madsen. How to Win Every Argument. (New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2015.), p. 189 & 190.
6. "U.S. Support For Gun Control Tops 2-1, Highest Ever, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds." QU Poll. February 20, 2018. Accessed April 06, 2018. https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2521.
7. Rosenthal, Andrew. "Justice Scalia's Gun-Control Argument." The New York Times. December 11, 2015. Accessed April 06, 2018. https://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/justice-scalias-gun-control-argument/.
8. Ropeik, David. "Gun Rights Activists Say Gun Control Is Unconstitutional. Antonin Scalia Disagrees." Big Think. December 08, 2015. Accessed April 06, 2018. http://bigthink.com/risk-reason-and-reality/gun-rights-activists-claim-any-gun-control-is-unconstitutional-even-antonin-scalia-says-theyre-wrong.
9. Peters, Ralph. "I Am A Military Man and I Think We Should Ban Assault Weapons." The New York Post (New York), February 22, 2018. February 22, 2018. Accessed April 7, 2018. https://nypost.com/2018/02/22/automatic-weapons-dont-belong-in-the-hands-of-everyone/.
10. ibid.
