Debate Magazine
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Ironically, Wayne seems to be relying on an emotional appeal. That's what they always accuse us of, but in the opening minutes of this speech, it was all about emotion.
One big lie was that today gun ownership is at an all time high. Another was that the NRA is responsible for bringing gun accidents to an all time low. Imagine the hubris of taking credit for that.
At 7:00 he begins talking about background checks. Amazingly, La Pierre is still claiming they will never be universal because criminals won't participate. He and his listeners know very well that's not what is meant by "universal," yet they keep on with this straw-man. "Universal" means private sales included not that criminals will comply.
And of course no discussion of background checks would be complete without the insistence that the government's true motive is to have a gun registration. This is another straw-man as well as another emotional appeal. The CPAP crowd loved it.
Mental health records will never be a part of the system, says Wayne La Pierre. The crowd cheers in agreement. I guess they're purposely forgetting what happened in California the other day.
Sarcastically, he mocks the government's supposed attempts to stop gun violence by "building a list of all the good people." The problem with "all the good people" is twofold. 1. that group includes many who are not good. Every day we see them, the previously law abiding, behave badly with guns. In fact, most of the mass shootings are done by hidden criminals who, since they too are innocent until proven guilty, qualify just like everyone else for lawful gun ownership - Loughner, Holmes and Lanza to name just three.
And 2. "the good people" who own guns are the sole source of guns that flow into the criminal world. Through theft and above all through private sales, guns flow from the good guys to the criminals like the Mighty Mississippi. With sarcasm and mockery Wayne is trying to ignore the obvious fact that "the good gun owners" need to be controlled and regulated.
Furthering the straw-man argument that the government wants to register all guns, which is not the issue, we're talking about requiring background checks on private sales, La Pierre steps up the scare tactics with mention of The Mexicans, The Chinese hacking our data bases and the newspapers who will print the names. He actually says this is the governments ostensible reason, which makes no sense at all. Their real reason he insists with a catchy slogan is " to tax 'em, or to take 'em." The crowd loved it.
The reason is obviously something else, which the NRA is absolutely opposed to. It's to hold gun owners accountable when something wrong is done with their guns. It's that simple.
