A Commentary by Doug Draper
America’s sweetheart Sarah Palin was back on centre stage again this May 3, soaking up one standing ovation after another from thousands of members of the National Rifle Association meeting this weekend in Houston, Texas.
Kristian Sparks, 5, of Kentucky accidentallly shot his two-year-old sister Caroline with a rilfe a parent bought him for his birthday.
I watched a clip of Palin on the cable news, all fired up as she used the event to blast U.S. President Barack Obama for “exploiting tragedy” by flying family members of the victims of the mass shooting last December at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 20 young children and six of their educators were slaughtered, to Washington, D.C. this April and “making them a backdrop” in his push for some gun safety laws.
At the risk of being accused by the likes of Palin of exploiting tragedy further, Obama might also now point to an incident this April 30th involving a five-year-old boy in rural Kentucky who accidently shot and killed his two-year-old sister with a .22 –caliber rifle his mother bought him for his birthday.
The mother purchased the weapon from a U.S. gun merchant called Crickett, which is no doubt a member of the NRA (or as I prefer to call it the GNA or ‘Gun Nut Association’) and which regularly markets pint-size guns to pint-size people under the slogan; “my first rifle.”
Following the shooting of the little girl, I watched an interview CNN did with another mom from that same region of the country who had purchased a similar rifle for her boy. Asked if she thought it was a good idea to sell a real gun to children that age, she said giving a gun to a kid that young has been a part of her culture for generations and, besides, it is a good “learning experience” for a child.
A learning experience? You have got to be kidding? How about piano lessons or teaching the child how to read? But then again, if the child starts reading, he or she may soon discover what a moron Sarah Palin is.
I’m listening to all of this insanity on the tube and can’t help but wonder if the mother of the children involved in this terrible incident in Kentucky ever said anything to the boy like; “Hey there Billy Bop. Stop playing with that stick. You’re going to poke your sister’s eye out.
Of course, there is nothing in the second amendment of the U.S. constitution protecting a person’s right to play with a stick. And it’s a good thing too or Sarah Palin would be up in front of a cheering audience defending that too and there would probably be a lot of people walking around America with an eye poked out.
If all this sounds like I am making light of this horrible incident involving these little kids, I am sorry. Like countless millions of people around the world, my heart went out to the people of Newtown Connecticut and the families of those slaughtered by gunfire in that elementary school last December. And like so many others, I hoped that this incident, following so many other mass shootings across the U.S. in recent years, might finally lead to some rational, across-the-board gun safety laws at the federal level in that country.
But the politicians in Washington can’t even see it in themselves to pass legislation for background checks that might keep a few more guns out of the hands of individuals with a history of crime or mental illness. Even when polls show a majority of Americans support background checks the politicians who are supposed to be representing them are taking their marching orders from the NRA.
So you know that sooner or later there will be another mass shooting like the one at the Sandy Hook school and how much more sympathy do the rest of us have to spare when you are looking at a country so hell bent on gun play at any cost, that it won’t even take modest steps to do anything about it.
According to some reports in the American media, there have been close to 4,000 gun deaths in the U.S. in the four and a half months since the Sandy Hook massacre, and you are almost to reduce to hardening yourself to the fact that in this country, there is no foreseeable end. To be selfish, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that when I go to visit my friends and relatives in the U.S., the most I can hope for is that we don’t find ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time the next time a nut walks in to a crowd carrying a military style assault rifle with a capacity to spray out a hundred bullets a minute.
Meanwhile, those of us who live on the Canadian side of the border should press our security officers to be extra vigilant at the border crossings since, according to police reports here, many of the guns used in crimes in Canada are smuggled in from the good old U.S.A.
(Niagara At Large invites you to join in the conversation by sharing your views on the content of this post below. For reasons of transparency and promoting civil dialogue, NAL only posts comments from individuals who share their first and last name with their views.)
Niagara At Large 
…all sad but true, Doug. maybe the best we can hope for is to wake up one morning and find all the NRA nuts and ranters have sh…..no, i shouldn’t say it…but honestly, are they that invested with shooting and killing that they have no morality left for their fellow country men???
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I’ve been following this debate…if you can call it that…all along, even before Newtown. One idiot on talk radio in the US even said the Newtown parents were “taking advantage” of their childrens’ deaths and they could “Go to hell”. He also said loss of his gun rights was “much more of a tragedy than what happened to their kids”! How do you fight such a callous mentality?
If anyone gets a chance, check out Comedy Central on your computer for the Daily Show, the week before this for John Oliver’s 3 part report on the Australian gun buyback and American vs Australian politicians. It’s hilarious but reveals how insane the lobbyists’ arguments are. The Australian laws & implementation after Port Arthur faced the same ire & politicians lost their jobs but since then gun crimes are down 60+% including suicides and there have been no massacres. THOSE politicians committed political suicide but did it for the “good of the people” which they stated was their job as legislators. The US politicians said their job as elected officials was to get re-elected. Different land, different attitude. The Australians who had been against gun restrictions now admitted that in retrospect, it was the right thing to do.
I fear Americans always place individual rights above the common good. It’s me, me, me vs us, us us. It has also had a culture of violence since its inception, almost perpetual wars, independence by war, war against the Aboriginals and Mexico for territory, Civil war, etc. It’s still a mentality of the wild west.
An excellent You Tube video is “Ed – petition for gun laws” It shows a man entering a business with a musket. He misses his target (those guns were ridiculously inaccurate) and by the time he reloads, everyone has left. It eloquently shows how the 2nd amendment was of a different time. The founding fathers that Americans cherish wouldn’t have made concessions for amendments unless they knew they would be needed. This is all about money and the NRA. Shame on them! Over 90% of Americans polled favoured increased gun laws but they were voted down and declared a victory by the NRA!
Since 1980…900,000 Americans have been killed by guns (30,000/yr.).
Since 1970…3000+ Americans have been killed by foreign terrorists, yet the US has invaded several countries, passed laws like the Patriot Act (many legislators didn’t even read it first) which DID usurp privacy rights of citizens and spent trillions fighting terrorism. What has been spent on gun control? It seems if Americans kill Americans it’s OK but if foreigners kill Americans…watch out!
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I watched CNN ‘s Peirs Morgan this past week and one nut case said that they need guns to protect themselves from their own government.!!! this is treason if ever I saw it.,they are hell bent to cling to their weapons of mass murder regardless of how many die, more people have died since Sandy Hook than 9/11 2001. 4000 people this is crazy,.the further South you go to the red states the crazier it gets.
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I agree with most of what has been said above about the American love affair with guns. Unfortunately, I know a few Canadians who think they should be permitted to carry handguns at all times too!
Just tonight, on the national news on CTV there was an item, including dashcam video from a police cruiser, of a man jumping out of a car after being stopped by the police. He fire more than 30 rounds from an AK47 at the police officers and their car.
But oh, that must be okay with the NRA because he is exercising his “God given right to bear arms” as “required” under the US constitution.
What an F-ed up country the United States has become!
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Aw, Cath, it’s not that bad to say it. I’ll just put my spin on it: If people with guns shot each other as often as people with guns shoot innocent unarmed people, the problem would be resolved. And, what kind of a mother or any kind of an idiot arms a 5 year old with a gun? Family tradition!?! When I think of the intellect of people who give guns to children I think of people who are likely from familys where brothers marry sisters or their own mothers. I expect to get slammed for that last sentence. Seriously, if junior had been annoyed with his little sister he would have run out of energy before he could have beat or strangled her to death. Is there anyone in the GNA… I thank Doug for this closer to the truth label…that actually thinks that an unarmed nut could go on a murderous rampage and kill very many people in one location if they had to use their hands and not guns? Even with a big stick you can’t kill very many people before exposing yourself to having a heart attack. Maybe there will be a time in the future where the USA gets a chance to claim “in retrospect” about gun control. I am not crazy enough to think this will happen before the year 5013. By then the NRA will have killed off most of the folks who don’t have guns. I can’t comment on Sarah pain-in-the-***-Palin because you would not print what I think of her. I’ll just say that I have a higher opinion of slug excrement. My heart does go out to the children injured and dead from the guns that don’t kill people because there probably were some who would not have received weapons for their birthdays. I still believe that unarmed lunatics a way less dangerous than armed lunatics and even the bacteria in slug slime can probably figure that one out.
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I have a hard time reading this stuff for personal reasons. As I write this, my eyes are welling up. From what I know of the gun situation in the States, some of these NRA types people must be real f****** idiots.
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The NRA can’t go wrong now. The Convention had Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum and Senator Cruz as keynote speakers. How can they go wrong with this line up?
Mike Barnicle pointed up this morning that Palin used emotional imagery and appeals to complain that Obama was using emotional appeals like 20 dead children to bolster increased gun safety.
I truly think the extreme tactics of the NRA is going to turn a lot of good people off and will end up weakening them. It can’t happen soon enough for rational folk everywhere.
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It isn’t often that I agree with Mark Taliano … but on this issue, I think we are in full agreement!
Mark wrote: “some of these NRA types people must be real f****** idiots.”
The only issue I have with that statement is the word ‘some.’ I think ALL would be more appropriate!
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