Logic Shot Through The Heart

The NRA is the winner of this year’s SFTA Batshit Crazy Award. Congratulations! You earned it.

The existence of the National Rifle Association begs the question, “Can you win an argument with a crazy person?”

The answer, of course, is, “Hell no. BANG. BANG. You’re dead. Now don’t say shit like that ever again.”

Well shut my mouth.

I’ve been trying to think of an analogy to start this post. I utterly failed so we’ll go with the ever popular cookie.

“If you eat that cookie you will die.”

“You know what? I’m willing to risk it. NOM NOM NOM!!!”

Four years later…

“If you eat another cookie you will die.”

“Are you fucking serious? You were totally wrong about that four years ago. Totally. It is scientifically impossible to be any more wrong than you were. I’m still here. I ate the cookie and I didn’t die. You were the worst wrong of all time. You hold the world record for wrongness about that cookie. How do you live with the fact that you were absolutely wrong in every possible way?”

“Easy. I figured out that the cookie had an evil plan. It decided to kill you later. It didn’t kill you the first time because it wanted to lull you into a false sense of security. The next time you eat the cookie you will die. You’ll see. That’s why I was wrong. I failed to truly understand the evil and deviousness of that cookie.”

Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice? You must be the NRA.

It was 2008. Barack Obama was running for president. In the halls of power, someone decided that fear would be an effective weapon for preventing an Obama presidency. (They were also wrong about this.) Thus the “Obama will take your guns” mythology was born. The NRA was the obvious choice to carry that banner.

The NRA screamed their prediction. “Obama would be the most anti-gun president in American history.” They advised people to “learn more or lose your rights.”

Frightened Americans, believing that Obama would “take” their guns, ran to stores and stocked up on guns and ammo. The only problem? It never happened.

In the four years since Obama became president he’s done practically nothing that could be deemed any attempt at gun control.

Now it’s 2012 and it’s time to trot out the “Obama will take your guns” argument one more time. This time with a twist.

Who is the most powerful lobby in the United States? Last time I checked it was the NRA. They were #1 atop a “power” survey by Fortune Magazine in 2001. I don’t know if they are still #1 but no doubt they remain a force to be reckoned with. So much so that presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle are afraid of them. So much so that none will dare oppose them. It would be political suicide. Therefore the rights of gun owners trumps everything including public safety and common sense. Their positions are absolute and fly in the face of logic.

Bring a gun into a bar? Fine. Bring a gun onto a college campus? Fine.

Here’s a question: Have you ever heard of a gunman being taken down by a regular citizen packing heat in the middle of a crisis? Perhaps it has happened but I’ve never heard of it. And yet that’s one of the most popular arguments offered by the NRA, that an armed populace will be able to take care of business when the shit goes down. Yet somehow it never quite works out that way. What’s the alternative? A gunman gets bored and goes out, completely unmolested, to hang loose by his car until the cops show up and take him into custody without incident.

So, what do you call someone who predicts something that never happens? Dead wrong.

Naturally no one likes to be wrong. What to do? Revise your position, of course. Don’t ever admit to being wrong, though.

Logic dictates that persons of intelligence ask the question, “If you were so wrong before, why should we believe what you say this time?” Hell, could it be that they’ll spew whatever self-serving shit can satisfy any given moment? They wouldn’t do that, would they? Put their wants, needs and agenda ahead of actual truth?

They said Obama would take guns. It didn’t happen. They were wrong. These are immutable absolute facts. They are indisputable.

That means it is time for the narrative to change. Obama obviously planned the whole thing. It was all a master plot. His real objective was to get a second term then he’d finally act. Once he doesn’t have to worry about re-election any longer he’ll pounce. Not only will he “destroy” gun rights he’ll also “erase” the second amendment.

Yes, the NRA is an organization that clearly understands the awesome power of the presidency. Maybe Obama will also use the power of his brain to melt down all gun parts and turn them into a machine that produces robots that give out welfare and free money to all Americans. Yeah, that makes just as much sense.

The NRA is out there right now selling the argument that Obama didn’t really want your guns four years ago, the exact opposite of what they told you. He actually wants them now. Consider the words of NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre, a man with the NRA teat so far down his throat you can see it wiggling out the backside of his anus.

“All that first term, lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term. We see the president’s strategy crystal clear: Get re-elected and, with no more elections to worry about, get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms’ freedom, erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights and excise it from the U.S. Constitution.”

Not one to undersell an argument, Mr. LaPierre says this about Obama 2012: “All of what we know is good and right about America, all of it could be lost if Barack Obama is re-elected. It’s all or nothing.”

All or nothing. Indeed. That has been the NRA approach to logic for a long, long time.

I guess to the NRA being wrong doesn’t mean reassess your logic. It means reload.