If There Were an NRA for Automobiles

May 1, 2013 at 12:28 pm | Posted in Dysfunctional Politics, Fairness | 5 Comments
Tags: assault rifles, E.J. Dionne Jr., gun control, large capacity magazines, National Rifle Association, NRA, Paul Kane, Philip Rucker, Wayne Lapierre

A Leclerc-IMG 1744 battle tank, photographed by Rana.

If there were an NRA for automobiles, what would it do?

Basing its statements on the freedom of travel that is implicit in the inter-state commerce clause of the Constitution, It would oppose any
– licensing of drivers,
– registration of cars,
– tests of driving skills and of the knowledge of traffic laws,  (Indeed, it would oppose the very existence of traffic laws.)
– requiring insurance,
– the legality of speed limits,
– the installation of traffic signals, and the requirement that they be obeyed,
– rules of the road.

It would insist that horse riding and carriage driving had no licensing and no restrictions, so automobiles should not, either.  After all, an automobile is to a horse-drawn carriage as a large-magazine assault rifle is to a 22 rifle.

On that basis, it would insist that anyone be able to buy – with no public record of the purchase – any car, any truck, any bus, any snow plow, and any battle tank.

Wayne LaPierre at a political conference in Orlando, Florida, on 23 September 2011. Photo by Gage Skidmore, rotated for this blog posting.

At every possible opportunity, its leader, Weenie DaPebble, would gruffly repeat his slogan: “Cars don’t kill people, bad drivers kill people”.  He might add, “Cars don’t drive themselves, you know”, and “If cars with machine guns were illegal, only criminals would have cars with machine guns.”

To evaluate any assertion by the NRA, ask yourself whether it would be reasonable to apply the same assertion to cars.

Applying this test, it becomes obvious that hunters and other sportsmen are not the NRA’s real focus.  Although those communities are good sources of recruits, the NRA’s real priorities are self defense and preserving the ability to revolt, and the short-term economic interests of the gun manufacturers who fund the NRA.

Paranoia drives the NRA, not sport, and not patriotism.  In fact, the NRA’s underlying agenda is nearly the antithesis of patriotism.  It claims to base its positions on the Second Amendment to Constitution, but that is only because the NRA has tricked others into viewing the Second Amendment through a distorting lens.  The NRA really accepts only the Declaration of Independence, and not the Constitution.

To put into perspective the position of the NRA and the gun manufacturers, ask yourself: would it make sense to require auto dealers to keep records of car buyers, but never to share that information with the police, nor with any other government agency?

Two recent articles in the Washington Post provide encouragement that sensible, balanced laws on guns will eventually be enacted: an article by Philip Rucker and Paul Kane, and an article by E.J. Dionne Jr.