NRA chief benefits from stoking fears

Madam Curie: Now is the time to understand more, so we can fear less.

Who is most responsible for promoting mass murder in America over the past two decades? Yes, you are right. It is Wayne LaPierre and his semi-automatic killing machine, the NRA. But that’s too obvious. To win a prize, you need to go down a level or two and pinpoint trigger mechanisms.

For example, consider the fact that many of the recent perpetrators were people we instinctively labeled “crazy.” When a young man murders nine people in prayer in a Charleston church, how can we not see that as insane? For a denizen of the Carolinas to walk into a health clinic for women and kill a policeman and as many others as he could get a bead on, how can that not be deranged?

But these psychotic people and their ilk could have gone off in many possible directions. What caused them to do precisely what they did? Yes, the answer leads us down a profane path to politics. When politicians suggest by innuendo or deed or campaign slogan that contempt for others is laudable, and if an irrational individual is listening, what is most apt to go wrong?

Could such person interpret the politician’s personal venom as a clarion call to action? If violent people hold this advocate of antipathy in high regard, could they not conclude they are serving him by firing indiscriminately into a crowd like the ones he singles out in his diatribes? If a politician argues, for instance, that the refugees coming into our country are rapists or potential terrorists, or our president is a Muslim, is he advocating for due process? If not, then what is his point? What outcome is he seeking?

Wayne makes the killing easy by providing the semi-automatic weapons – the proximate cause. But the provocative politicians get at least 50 percent of the credit for inciting the multiple mass murders. Maybe that is what Wayne is telling us when he says, “Guns don’t kill, people do.” Maybe we misread him about who the “people” are.

What, then, are we to think upon learning that a rabble-rousing politician benefits monetarily from Wayne’s killing machine? Just as politicians funded by the military-industrial complex congratulate each other when war breaks out, do Wayne and his death-cult colleagues give high fives for each mass murder event? It strains the brain not to suspect collusion.

If that all seems a bit harsh, think of how easy it would be to stop, if preventing mass murder were the goal. Wayne could say, “Get rid of semi-automatic weapons and over-sized clips.” Then the politicians could say, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” or “stand up for the oppressed,” or something expressing even mild concern about random killing, and the number of victims would decline over night.

For all we know Wayne is a lovable lobbyist. But if mass murders serve his purpose of selling a few more guns, or his political followers’ purpose of keeping us in a high state of fear to garner a few extra pro-NRA votes, then I’m betting our suspicions of his motives are justified. Wayne apparently doesn’t want us to fear less, because it might lead to understanding more.

This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 9:10 AM with the headline "NRA chief benefits from stoking fears."