NRA has bought the Republican Party
Why is it that Republicans in Congress have more love and empathy for the NRA than they do for their families, themselves, their supporters, and, by extension, any other citizen?
What has Wayne LaPierre done to earn such obsequiousness from those who pledge to keep us safe and who brag about how good they are at it? Surely money can’t completely explain that level of lunacy, nor can the possibility of losing their government sinecures as feckless employees of the institution they claim to despise. Marco Rubio doesn’t even bother showing up for work he hates it so much, so it’s puzzling how he or any of his colleagues back up their promises to keep us from harm.
My brother – a congressional page – was outside the entrance door to the House of Representatives in 1954 when four Puerto Ricans shot five House members. Is that the sort of thing Congress is waiting for to motivate them to liberate America from the NRA? Alone, the NRA cannot perpetuate these atrocities, but with the help of Republicans in Congress they will go on until it touches one of those two institutions personally. That’s pretty amazing, but less amazing than the fact that so many voters want them to continue in their gutlessness. What kind of people provide a refuge for terrorists?
The very people who express such profound fear of terrorism that they won’t permit Guantanamo to close are guilty of keeping in office the very politicians who abet terrorism. That makes sense, how? We don’t even have the excuse that the shootings are too far off to affect us.
Remember last year’s attack at Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston? That’s just down the road from here. Yet South Carolina’s politicians, among the most irresponsible in the nation (Texas may be worse), have done nothing to forestall a re-enactment of that event. My total inability to understand the joy of being owned and controlled by an institution, let alone one that exists solely for lobbying, prevents my understanding any of this. To me it’s all surreal. This can’t possibly be the courageous country I grew up in. Will this nightmare ever end?
The writer lives in Pawleys Island.
This story was originally published July 17, 2016 at 9:40 AM with the headline "NRA has bought the Republican Party."