Dear Wayne:
Sorry I couldn't make it to the annual meeting. I'm a Life Member and
I try to get there every year. But this year is different. If I showed
up you'd tried to get me to help you fight a "culture war." But if there
is a war going on, you represent the wrong side.
I just watched your speech.
I think it's time you dropped this nonsense about protecting our
"rights." Be honest and tell it like it is. The reason you're opposed to
background checks has absolutely nothing to do with the Second
Amendment. It's about making it as easy as possible for everyone to own a
gun. More guns means more profits for the gun companies, and that's who
you really represent.
In 2011, Ruger's stock was by Text-Enhance"> by Text-Enhance"> by Text-Enhance">trading
at $21 a share, now it's at $51. Smith & Wesson's stock was three
bucks a share, today it's almost nine. I remember after the 2010
elections when it looked like the Obama administration was going to be
toast, gun dealers like myself couldn't give away the inventory. Now we
can't keep anything on the shelves. You keep referring to the president
as an enemy of the gun industry. The truth is that Barack Obama is the
best salesman the industry ever had.
And the reason he's such a good salesman, Wayne, is because you and
your allies have spent the last 20 years making every gun owner believe
that the only reason we have any gun laws at all is because the
Washington "elites" want to take away all our guns. So when a tragedy
like Sandy Hook occurs and well-meaning people react to such senseless
violence by looking for ways to make it harder for guns to get into the
wrong hands, you and the other "protectors" of the Second Amendment get
right to work convincing responsible gun owners that such laws are aimed
at them. You are protecting illegal and "irresponsible" gun owners,
and lumping them in with the majority of legal gun owners who are
careful with their weapons. That's because an irresponsible gun owners'
money is just as good for gun companies as a responsible gun owner, and
you want to protect your market share, even at the expense of innocent
lives.
It's easy to cloak yourself in a holier-than-thou mantle of God-given
rights to avoid looking at the facts. And the facts are that
private-citizen vigilantism doesn't protect anyone from gun violence; it
actually results in more violence and deaths. It's easy to disparage
the 90 percent of Americans who are in favor of expanding background
checks by telling your audience that some unnamed Congressman from some
unnamed state hasn't gotten any calls. But maybe the time has finally
come when most Americans are more worried about ending the 100,000+
firearm deaths and injuries than whether you and your NRA cult of
followers can Stand and Fight.
For all your talk about defending liberty Wayne, I'll give you
something more important to defend: the young children whose lives
always seem to take a back seat to how many guns you can get Americans
to buy. I'm talking about children at Sandy Hook, a 4-year-old in New
York, a 2-year-old in Kentucky. There's something immoral about denying
any connection between the deaths of children and the explosion in gun
sales that you claim show how much we love our freedom. I'd rather have
those kids alive, even if it costs me more than a few bucks in gun
sales. I joined Evolve so I could be part of an organization that wants
gun owners and non-gun owners to lead with solutions that can talk about
saving human lives and preserving our Second Amendment rights. That's
patriotic and that is a future worth fighting for.
