"Guns Everywhere" Is Not A Solution

Well said... 

"Guns everywhere" is the dream of the NRA and the gun industry $$$$.  But that isn't the society the rest of us wish to live in.

Instead of making every place we go into an armed camp, let's instead address the root of the problem: pass commonsense laws to keep guns out of the wrong hands.

Let's make a new trajectory for our communities.

Music Video: Hallelujah Parody - Letter to Wayne LaPierre, NRA

Parody of "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen - Based on the arrangement by Pentatonix.







LYRICS TO THE HALLELUJAH PARODY Open Letter to Wayne LaPierre You see yourself the defender of the amendment passed to you from above, and any change that happens must go through ya. While other freedoms slipped away with nothing standing in their way, you waved your gun and claimed your hallelujah. Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah We’ve heard you say these words before, about the guns that you adore. There really is no point in talkin’ to ya. You pride yourself the ears and eyes of five or so million other guys, and think your words will draw their hallelujah. Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Your mind is stuck in sixty-five when cold-war commies were alive. And those who wanted change were out to screw ya. And gun controls of any kind mean liberal commies in your mind who'll steal your rights then raise their hallelujah. Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah Your logic is profoundly flawed, with teachers for your new vice-squad. You’d arm them to the teeth but they see through ya. Your rigid stance results in death. You claim that right with every breath, howling through your broken hallelujah. Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah We think it’s time that you step down. Just walk away and pass the crown, before someone decides they need to sue ya. The arms race lost, it would appear and you’ve become the thing you fear an echo of your bloody hallelujah. Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah


To support Pentatonix's work please visit https://parodyproject.com/supportus

The Growing Movement Of Gun Owners Against The NRA

The NRA was once a respectable organization.  Founded just after the Civil War, it existed to advocate for hunter training, marksmanship, conservation of nature, and gun safety.  It was a sportsman's organization which existed almost solely on membership dues and did not dip much into politics.  But all of that changed in 1977, when extremist members of the organization hijacked the sportsman's organization and converted it into a political lobby group intent on fighting any and all gun regulation.  As the Washington Post put it:

The Old Guard was caught by surprise. The NRA officers sat up front, on a dais, observing their demise. The organization, about a century old already, was thoroughly mainstream and bipartisan, focusing on hunting, conservation and marksmanship. It taught Boy Scouts how to shoot safely. But the world had changed, and everything was more political now. The rebels saw the NRA leaders as elites who lacked the heart and conviction to fight against gun-control legislation.

And because their focus shifted away from the needs of their members, and more toward ideological and legislative goals, the NRA leadership has forgotten their own followers.  Oh, they still talk the good talk of safety and hunting, but the truth is far from it.  Their only concern is money.  As I blogged before, follow the money!  And they've created a "circus of fear" to raise the ideological paranoia of their membership.

Time and again in my work with the community, in forums and public events, I talk with gun owners, hunters, and veterans who disagree with the NRA's stances.  Even some NRA members have expressed to me that they simply disagree with the organization and are actually closer to me in their beliefs on gun regulation.  Sometimes all it takes to make this conversation work is to get around the NRA talking points and to ask them about specific regulations.

Background checks are a good example of this.  At every turn, the NRA has fought each and every attempt to create and then strengthen the background check system, pouring millions of dollars into the pockets of politicians to buy their votes.  And even though a background check takes on average less than five minutes, and there are far more licensed dealers to go to for the check than there are Starbucks stores (see an interactive map, HERE), they nonetheless argue that that minor inconvenience somehow infringes on the right to bear arms and is a prelude to an all-out total gun confiscation (expanding background checks, by the way, used to be something the NRA approved of, and now heavily oppose, just to illustrate how extreme they have become).  And yet, polls repeatedly show that around 72% of NRA members support universal background checks for all gun sales (or 85% of all gun owners).  So who does the NRA really represent?  Again, follow the money.  They represent the arms dealers who line the pockets of the NRA leadership.  The same split goes for many other proposed regulation.  Despite the NRA line against such changes, the majority of gun owners also support a ban on semi-auto assault rifles and high-capacity ammo magazines, support child access protection laws, mandatory training for gun owners, prohibitions for gun ownership by domestic violence offenders, and many other laws.

With this in mind, it is little wonder that more and more gun owners are renouncing the NRA.

An early and well-publicized example of this was the senior George Bush, a lifelong gun owner and hunter.  In 1995, he sent in a "letter of resignation" from his lifetime NRA membership after the NRA's Wayne LaPierre called the government "jackbooted thugs" shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing.

And remember, back in 2013, when longtime Guns & Ammo writer and TV host Dick Metcalf dared to write that regulation should be considered and that it didn't infringe on the Second Amendment?  He was immediately fired, but not because gun owners disagreed with him.

In recent years, particularly after the Sandy Hook shooting and the NRA's extremist solution to arm all schools, gun owners have woken up to the fact that this isn't their father's NRA anymore.  

That was the event which turned one gun owner's opinion around.  She's a hunter and grew up in a gun family.

Ultimately, the people that are advocating for looser gun laws or less restriction end up making responsible owners look like idiots. Personally, I don't want to be associated with them, and I don't want to be lumped together. Some of us understand that keeping our children safe is the priority. We have too much gun violence in this country to ignore it anymore.

She was so fed up with the NRA and the pro-gun activist movement that she left the NRA and even joined Moms Demand Action Against Gun Violence in America.

One avid hunter recently turned his back on the NRA, tired of their ceaseless fearmongering:

The biggest problem in this entire issue is the NRA. People who buy guns and are interested in hunting or target shooting are not the problem. The problem is an organization that convinces them to join based on fears of the government, fears of other races, fears of invasion, fears of the police; FEARS. That’s their agenda. 

Once you’ve paid your dues to join this despicable organization, they are free to use that money however they see fit. And overwhelmingly the way that they see fit to spend it is through propaganda, advertising, and lobbying.

Another hunter, from Oregon, explained why the NRA doesn't talk for him:

I don’t belong to the NRA. The kind of hunting that I do faces its greatest threats from habitat loss, not gun control. During an election, I’m more likely to consult the League of Conservation Voters’ candidate ratings than the NRA’s. .... 

None of these restrictions prevent me or other hunters from enjoying the tradition. On the contrary, the rules keep us safe and protect the wildlife populations that must thrive if we are to continue to responsibly cull them.

After the Charleston massacre, another gun owner and hunter came out against the NRA after hearing a robo-call insinuating that President Obama was plotting to turn over the USA to the United Nations:

[The NRA] has successfully positioned itself as the singular representation of gun owners. For decades they’ve worked to defend and expand access to firearms in spite of polls showing that most Americans, including gun owners, favor laws that would limit access in various reasonable ways (even three-quarters of NRA households favor background checks prior to private gun sales). But when a U.S. congresswoman was shot in the face, the NRA made certain that no law was passed that would have made her safer. There’s no doubt that the NRA does have some grass-roots support, but it’s smaller than we think. The NRA does not represent all gun owners, and it certainly doesn’t represent me.

One Nevada legislator and lifelong hunter has turned his back on the NRA, as well, fed up with their inflexibility and tired of seeing so many people killed by gunfire in his years as an emergency responder, along with his own personal family history of gun suicide and domestic violence:  

“That, coupled with seeing Congress’ inaction [on gun control] made me say, ‘I can’t do this anymore,'” Oceguera told ThinkProgress. “I still own guns for self-protection in my home, and I’m going to teach my kids gun safety and have already started doing that. But I now think there are some people — who are criminals, who have mental illness, who are on the watch list — who shouldn’t have guns. It’s as simple as that. And I think that if law-abiding NRA members and gun owners like myself don’t stand up and say, ‘Geez, enough is enough. Let’s do something,’ then nothing is going to happen.”

A large group of gun owners recently took a trip to Washington to convince legislators to finally take action to enact universal background checks.

There's even a lifelong gun owner, trainer, and gun store owner who has turned his back to the NRA and the pro-gun extremists out there.  Michael Weisser, or "Mike the Gun Guy," has written books on the subject, and regularly writes on his blog site.

And gun owners have even joined together to form organizations to represent their interest in both gun ownership and reasonable gun regulation.

For instance, here in Oregon, some of the gun owning families who lost loved ones at the Clackamas Town Center shooting formed the organization Gun Owners For Responsible Ownership.  That organization then joined the Oregon Alliance For Gun Safety and helped to pass Senate Bill 941 for universal background checks in Oregon.   GOFRO's mission statement:  

We envision an America where all are safe from gun violence, and where responsible gun owners take the lead to promote safe gun ownership and sensible laws and regulations.

And they aren't alone.  Here are some other like-minded organizations and Facebook groups of gun owners:

American Coalition for Responsible Gun Ownership
Citizens for Smart Gun Ownership
Gun Owners Against The NRA
Gun Owners For Commonsense Laws
Gun Owners For Reform
Veterans for Responsible Gun Ownership

It is moderate gun owners who will make the biggest difference.  Don't let the NRA and other extremist pro-gun organizations speak for you!  Call them out for their extremism, and renounce your membership.  Help enact the sensible gun regulations that you support, and let's make a new trajectory for our communities away from gun violence.

ADDENDUM (1/19/16):  The recent executive actions by President Obama to strengthen the background check system are also very popular with gun owners, at 63% approval, despite the NRA opposition to them.  From the article:

Also, though it is from 2012, here is a very good opinion piece written by an NRA member who was outraged by the NRA stance after Sandy Hook and demanded to immediately cancel his membership.

ADDENDUM (4/29/18): A great article about gun owners wanting increased gun regulation.  

“I honestly believe that God-fearing, gun-owning Americans should be leading the debate on gun laws,” Dr. Haring said in an interview on Monday, after learning of another shooting, which killed four people at a Waffle House a few miles from his house. “It just makes sense to me that if I own weapons, I should be the first one to be advocating for safety with those weapons.”

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Who Does The NRA Really Represent? Follow The Money.

The NRA, as with other gun lobby groups, likes to promote itself as a membership-based organization that is fighting for the gun rights of the average gun owner, supported by their memberships, to promote gun safety and Second Amendment rights (but only the second half of the Second Amendment, mind you).

The NRA claims to have almost 5 million dues-paying members, a number that the organization likes to promote.  But this number is almost certainly greatly-inflated, with a real number down around 3 million.  That sounds like a lot of people still, until you consider that there are around 70 million gun owners in the United States, around a declining 22% of Americans, which means that the NRA only represents around 4% of gun owners, and this a tiny percentage of the total U.S. population of 320 million people.

Nonetheless, the NRA is a political powerhouse, pushing politicians to vote against their conscience to oppose any and all reasonable regulation to keep guns out of the hands of those who would misuse them.  Why?  Follow the money.  Many tens of millions of dollars come from gun makers to the NRA.  From an article:

Since 2005, the gun industry and its corporate allies have given between $20 million and $52.6 million to it through the NRA Ring of Freedom sponsor program. Donors include firearm companies like Midway USA, Springfield Armory Inc, Pierce Bullet Seal Target Systems, and Beretta USA Corporation. Other supporters from the gun industry include Cabala's, Sturm Rugar & Co, and Smith & Wesson. 

The NRA also made $20.9 million — about 10 percent of its revenue — from selling advertising to industry companies marketing products in its many publications in 2010, according to the IRS Form 990.  

Additionally, some companies donate portions of sales directly to the NRA. Crimson Trace, which makes laser sights, donates 10 percent of each sale to the NRA. Taurus buys an NRA membership for everyone who buys one of their guns. Sturm Rugar gives $1 to the NRA for each gun sold, which amounts to millions. The NRA's revenues are intrinsically linked to the success of the gun business.

And why do the gun manufacturers give the NRA so much money?  Is it to promote gun safety?  Hardly.  In the last election cycle, the NRA spent over $28 million on campaign contributions -- paying off our elected officials to make it easier for guns to get in to any and all hands.  More from the previous article:

"Today's NRA is a virtual subsidiary of the gun industry," said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center. "While the NRA portrays itself as protecting the 'freedom' of individual gun owners, it's actually working to protect the freedom of the gun industry to manufacture and sell virtually any weapon or accessory."

You can read more details from a Violence Policy Center report about the close ties between the NRA and gun manufacturers, as well as in this Forbes article.

What does this mean for gun owners?  It means the NRA does not really speak for them.  For instance, a study out of Johns Hopkins found that 85% of gun owners supported background checks for all gun sales, including private sales.  63% support banning semi-auto assault weapons.  And 60% support banning high capacity ammo magazines.  And it doesn't stop there:

In the 2015 survey, the majority of gun owners surveyed support prohibiting a person convicted of a serious crime as a juvenile from having a gun for 10 years (73 percent), prohibiting people who have been convicted of public display of gun in a threatening manner excluding self-defense from having a gun for 10 years (75 percent), and prohibiting people convicted of domestic violence from having a gun for 10 years (76 percent). 

Similarly, the majority of gun owners (67 percent) also support allowing cities to sue licensed gun dealers when the gun dealer's sales practices allow criminals to obtain guns and requiring a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison for a person convicted of knowingly selling a gun to someone who cannot legally have one (71 percent).

See more on these disagreements with the NRA HERE and HERE.

But don't tell all that to the NRA leadership.  They oppose such bills at both the state and federal levels.

The bottom line is that NRA doesn't care if a gun winds up in the hands of a felon, a child, or the mentally ill.  Every gun that is sold is another dollar in their pocket and the pockets of the gun manufacturers.  Follow the money!

How The NRA Observes 9/11

I remember when the Twin Towers fell on that awful day, September 11, 2001.  3000 people died at the hands of terrorists, and the nation fell into mourning, super-nationalistic thought, and political moves that lead to two wars, the Patriot Act, and many other downstream national changes.

But, primarily, we stop this time each year to think and reflect on the loss of life -- the innocents in those buildings and planes, the valiant emergency responders who died in the destruction, and those who helped with rescues and cleanup.

All over the nation, including in my town, people are taking moments of silence, holding vigils, and generally taking some time to think about what happened.

But how does the NRA respond?  By celebrating a gun that "survived" the falling of the Twin Towers.

No, really, that's how they responded.  They trotted out a donated, burned-out revolver that was

Officer Weaver's gun

carried by a New York police officer who died at the scene.  From their article:

Weaver’s revolver holds a place of honor today and serves as a somber reminder of the law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line daily. It’s an ordinary firearm that stands as a symbol of extraordinary bravery.  

There's nothing wrong with remembering a fallen officer.  He was, indeed, a hero.  But to hold up a lethal weapon as some sort of patriotic symbol is, simply put, sick.  But it illustrates quite nicely the real motives and thought processes of the NRA.  The same super-nationalism that fueled those two wars and the Patriot Act is the same super-nationalism that they try to appeal to, wrapping a flag around the ugly act of killing and lethal weapons to appeal to their followers (and sell more guns for the manufacturers who bankroll them).

The NRA's sick fascination with their weapons needs to be put aside today.

Instead, in our thoughts about the event, let's take a moment to put 9/11 in the correct perspective, when it comes to the issue of guns and gun violence.  I blogged on this once before back on the 10-year anniversary of 9/11.  As I stated in that post:

But while we are today mourning the loss of the 3000 who died in 9/11, I ask that you please keep another thought in mind.  The United States loses the same number of people to gun violence every 35 days or so.  That's around 31,224 people a year -- ten times the number who died in 9/11.  Another 66,768 a year are wounded but survive.  In the 10 years since 9/11, that equates to around 300,000 killed and 670,000 injured to gunfire on our streets and in our homes (compare that to the 5800 American soldierswho have died in that time in Iraq and Afghanistan wars).  Imagine, a million people shot in ten years!  But unlike the dramatic results that came after 9/11 -- the wars, the Patriot Act and other legislation, the trillions of dollars spent -- practically nothing has changed to slow the rate of civilian shootings in the U.S.  In fact, with cuts to the ATF, the lapse of the assault weapons ban, and numerous state-level legislative changes around the nation to relax gun laws, our nation has only become more dangerous.  To the NRA, these alarming numbers are collateral, insignificant compared to a warped sense of Second Amendment freedom.

In fact, if anything, the NRA has done more to arm terrorists on our soil than the terrorist organizations themselves.  The NRA has staunchly opposed adding those on the Terrorist Watch List to the NICS background check system.  The NRA has opposed any and all regulation of guns, such as background checks for private sales, making it insanely easy for terrorists to get guns.  And the NRA has pushed hard to reduce any restrictions to overseas sales of guns, meaning that the gun manufacturers are profiting from sales to the very groups that the U.S. and its allies are fighting.

Terrorist groups know this, and they have publicly encouraged their followers to take advantage of our weak gun laws to arm themselves here.

There have been very few deaths in America at the hands of foreign terrorists.  Let's focus were the real problem lies, with the tens of thousands killed each year in America by guns, and make a new trajectory for our nation away from gun violence.
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Oregon Is Taking A Decisive Step In Protecting Women Against Domestic Violence Shootings

(UPDATED -- See below)

Guns and domestic violence go hand-in-hand.  Here in Oregon, 55-71% of domestic violence murder victims are shot, and 44% of women murdered with guns in the United States were killed by a current or former intimate partner.

And yet, Oregon is one of the states with most lax gun laws regarding protecting women from domestic violence shootings.  Here in Oregon, convicted stalkers can still keep their guns, as can those who have a restraining order.  And though a felony domestic assault can stop a husband from owning a gun if he abuses his spouse, boyfriends and domestic partners with misdemeanor domestic assault convictions don't count; they can still own a gun.

This issue touches me personally.  I have one friend whose abusive husband held a gun to her head, execution-style, and threatened to kill her.  Another friend lost her sister in a shooting by an abusive husband.  And there are other cases that I don't mention due to privacy of the victims.

Here are just a few recent cases of domestic violence shootings in Oregon so far this year.:

• January 25, Oregon City, Oregon -- 55-year old Timothy Oliver Moffatt's wife had a restraining order again him after harassment and assault. But he followed her in his car, then shot her multiple times before shooting himself.  Both were in critical condition.
•  April 23, Portland, Oregon -- Police responded to find that 57-year old John Grant Coffey shot his wife to death during a domestic disturbance.
• May 20, Medford, Oregon -- 28-year-old Charles Perowski shot and killed his 30-year-old wife, Jessica Thompson, before he turning the gun on himself in a suicide.  Their 12 year old daughter and 9 year old son were in the home.
• June 6, Gresham, Oregon -- 44-year old Gerardo Gomez Ventura shot and killed his wife.
• June 9, Sandy, Oregon -- 29-year-old Stephen Burlison threatened his girlfriend with a gun.  The woman's father pulled out a gun of his own.  Burlison fled, fired a bb gun at the pair, then was in a chase with police, firing at them, before being captured.

And many more make headlines every week around the nation.  How many of these cases could have been prevented if the state had done a better job of keeping guns out of the hands of violent spouses and partners?

Now Oregon has taken a step in preventing domestic violence shootings.

Things are about to change, thanks to Oregon Senate Bill 525.  This bill has been passed in both the Senate and the House, with bi-partisan support passing the House 51-8, and now goes to the Governor, who is expected to sign it.  It is modeled after the recently-passed California "Gun Violence Restraining Order" law.



What does the bill do? This bill will prohibit possession of a firearm or ammunition by a person with a restraining order protecting intimate partners or children of intimate partners, or people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes against family members.  

And since restraining orders are temporary, so too is the prohibition of gun ownership in those cases.  If they clear their name, their rights are restored.

The NRA, and the GOP leadership they pay, oppose these measures.  They prefer to keep arming the abusers.  Any gun sale is a good one to them.  Follow the money.  This, despite the fact that 68% of GOP voters support these laws, as well as 71% of women.

But I guess it's not surprising that the gun lobby would be out of touch.  They've been supportive of the abusers for years.  

The NRA and the Gun Owners of America have said such laws "stigmatize" those poor, violent, gun-owning wife-beaters. We wouldn't want that, would we?  I mean, the right of a wife-beater to own a gun must surely trump the lives and welfare of their wives, right?

Consider also the Oregon Firearms Federation (OFF), the "no compromise" gun lobby in Oregon, which opposes the bill because people with restraining orders haven't yet been convicted of a crime and have only been charged through "assumptions."  Nevermind that a judge weighed the evidence and deemed that person dangerous enough to tell them to keep their distance.

But then, OFF has never been one to respect women.  Consider, for instance, a recent post to the OFF Facebook page, describing the female representatives of Moms Demand Action Against Gun Violence as "prostitutes of the anti-gun movement" as well as "Stepford Wives," "zombies," and "robots."  (see screencapture above, left).

And in another OFF Facebook posting, they described female members of Ceasefire Oregon as "Bloomberg whores" as well as "liars" belonging to a "coven."  (see screencapture at right)

These sexist, arrogant, and crude attempts to belittle women are part and parcel of the gun rights movement.  

I'm happy, at least, that Oregon legislators have seen past it and done what is right to create a safer environment for Oregon women.  Now, we need to extend that to the rest of the nation!

Ceasefire Oregon would like to thank the thoughtful legislators who voted for this bill.  Now, on to the Governor!

UPDATE (6/18/15):  Governor Brown has now signed the bill in to law!  Our thanks go out to the Governor and all the legislators and volunteers who made it happen.  Domestic violence victims throughout Oregon will be safer now.  The bill goes into effect January 1, 2016.

Addendum (6/19/15):  Get the statistics and facts on domestic violence, here:  http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/06/us/domestic-intimate-partner-violence-fast-facts/

The NRA Now Wants To Make It Mandatory To Arm Children In School!

(UPDATED -- See below)

Remember after the Sandy Hook tragedy how the NRA was silent for so long?  Even those of us who were used to the cynicism of the nation's main gun lobby thought that, maybe, the brutal deaths of all those elementary kids and teachers might be enough to get the NRA to at least sit at the same table and consider what could be done to find middle ground.

When the NRA finally broke its silence, instead of working with other organizations to find a way to keep guns out of the hands of madmen like Lanza or limit the deadliness of their weapons, the NRA had an entirely different proposal that shocked the rest of the world:  Arm our schools!  

They blamed the media.  They blamed video games.  And they blamed the absence of guns (of course) in schools.  They called for a program to train and arm school administrators and guards, and even teachers, and played up the myth of the conceal carry hero.  It was a line that any sane person would recognize as insanity, and was only supported by groups known to be exceedingly extreme (like this one from here in Oregon).

In doing so, they ignored all those cases of conceal carry gun owners and guards who actually CAUSED incidents by carrying guns on school campuses, some of which since happened because the schools followed the NRA's recommendation (Four, in fact, which you can read HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE)!

The reaction to the NRA's extremist position was swift and negative, including from the people of Newtown and teachers organizations:

The American Federation of Teachers called the suggestion "irresponsible and dangerous," while the National Education Association described it as shocking and based on the "delusional assumption that everything other than guns contributes to these tragedies."

Those of us who were used to the NRA's widely out-of-touch views wondered how they could possibly become any more extreme.  "What's next?" we wondered, thinking it exaggeration, "Will they want to arm the kids, next?"

For years, with household gun ownership falling and a largely aging white, male population of gun owners, the market was becoming saturated.  Marketing to women and minorities isn't terribly successful, and you can only sell so many guns to those who already own guns and buy into the NRA paranoia about the government coming to take them away.  The only other market to tap was that of children. 

The push to sell guns to kids and their parents has been shameless.  I'm not talking about hunter-safety programs here, or even Eddie Eagle.  The NRA has tried, and failed, to lower the legal age for teens to buy guns to 18, in Texas.  They host special "youth day" events to prop up child memberships.  Gun manufacturers market small, pink and multi-colored rifles, such as Crickett rifles, specifically made for children.  And they have a large number of kids' apparel and publications aimed at normalizing these lethal weapons for kids.

So this week it wasn't particularly shocking to those of us who know the NRA that they suggested that kids in school be armed.

Let me say it again:  This week, the NRA suggested that kids in school should be armed.  And not just armed, but have it as a requirement to be trained in order to pass a grade!

One of the NRA News commentators floated the idea this week on their website, in a video aptly entitled "Everyone Gets A Gun."

He starts the video with symbolic descriptions of civil rights against discrimination due to race, creed, gender, and other factors, for education, healthcare, food, and retirement.  The passive inference, of course, is that the Second Amendment is supposedly a right to have any gun anywhere, despite what the Supreme Court has stated against that suggestion in the Heller case, as well as in a number of federal court cases since then.

He then launches into the concept of requiring gun training in grade schools and making schools "guns required zones."  From a Media Matters article:

In a July 21 NRA News video titled "Everyone Gets A Gun," NRA News commentator Billy Johnson said, "We don't have a U.S. gun policy. We have a U.S. anti-gun policy" that is based on "the assumption that we need to protect people from guns" and "that guns are bad or dangerous."

Instead Johnson wondered what gun policies the United States would have "if we designed gun policy from the assumption that people need guns -- that guns make people's lives better." Johnson then made the following recommendations that would "encourage" and might "reward" people "to keep and bear arms at all times."

• Johnson wondered, "What if instead of gun free-zones we had gun-required zones?"

• He imagined a compulsory education system that would require children to become proficient with firearms, just like "reading and writing," even "if they didn't want to learn" in order to advance in school: "Gun policy driven by our need for guns would insist that we introduce young people to guns early and that we'd give them the skills to use firearms safely. Just like we teach them reading and writing, necessary skills. We would teach shooting and firearm competency. It wouldn't matter if a child's parents weren't good at it. We'd find them a mentor. It wouldn't matter if they didn't want to learn. We would make it necessary to advance to the next grade."

• Like "education, healthcare, food, [and] retirement," Johnson suggested that gun ownership be subject to a government subsidies, either through "government ranges where you could shoot for free or a yearly allotment of free ammunition."

We wouldn't want kids to see "that guns are bad or dangerous" would we? 

Well, the commentator seems to forget that, 

.... according to one study, almost 3000 kids are killed each year in America from gunfire, and another 14,000 are injured.

... the United States accounts for nearly 75 percent of all children murdered in the developed world. Children between the ages of 5 and 14 in the United States are 17 times more likely to be murdered by firearms than children in other industrialized nations.

... children in the United States between the ages of 5 and 14 have an overall suicide rate twice the average of other developed nations. This stark difference is driven almost exclusively by a firearm-related suicide rate that is 10 times the average of other industrialized nations.

Sounds pretty "bad or dangerous" to me!

[More statistics on the deaths and dangers of guns and children can be found HERE and HERE].

There have been at least 74 school shootings just since Sandy Hook (here's a MAP).  Arming teachers or children isn't the answer to stopping them.  To stop this, we shouldn't make fortresses of our schools.  Instead, we need to do more to keep guns out of the hands of those who would abuse them, by putting in place commonsense gun regulation to require safe storage of guns in homes with kids, universal gun background checks, better mental health reporting, and requirements to report lost or stolen guns.

Just as importantly, we need to adhere to the same rule we tell our children:  you can't stop violence with more violence.  When we teach our kids that the only way to feel safe is to arm ourselves with lethal weapons and prepare ourselves to kill others, then something very wrong has happened to our culture. 


UPDATE (7/25/14):  It didn't take long for the NRA's bizarre "make-kids-learn-guns-in-school" proposal to make waves on Twitter and news sites and for sane people to start criticizing them (examples HERE, HERE, and HERE).  In response, the NRA started backpedaling, and clipped out the end of the commentator's video (where he suggests that firearms training be mandatory to pass grades).  You can read more on this backpedaling in an article from MediaMatters.