In the Shower with the NRA

After listening to Wayne LaPierre off and on throughout 12/21/12, I first struggled with my idealist belief that an organization that has (like so many other groups and organizations over the past 12 years) isolated itself from public opinion and discourse, might come out with a speech that would rock our world--in a good way. Sadly, they responded (after an entire week to contemplate) exactly the way realists predicted.

I come from a long line of hunters and gatherers, and for the most part, this heritage has ended--with the exception of one nephew. But the memories of my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and their friends, planning their hunting trips and then gathering together around one of their dining room tables to carefully cut and package what would help feed each family, are still fresh in my brain. As well as the deer leather gloves each family hunter received from the donation of hides and the collection of rifles kept under lock and key  in our home (though hardly secure in that beautiful, glass front cabinet). Why do I tell you this? To add necessary shading to the  illustration of my point of view.

And now I come to my second thought (which came to me in the usual place--the shower). Perhaps it's finally time for the rest of us to foster the creation of a new organization, peeling away the layers of a group that once claimed to promote gun education and rights. The need for gun safety and education is at an all time high and so is the need to eliminate the NRA's promotion of fear of our fellow human beings and over losing gun rights. (Have gun rights ever truly been threatened?) Possible name:  "Responsible Gun Owners of America"?

Those who seek change, could use social media to broadcast and promote this idea. I believe it's time. What say you?

Opinion piece from Michael Bloomberg
Opinion by Tom Watson on Forbes