NRA transformations

The NRA’s response to the “March for our lives” movement, speaking out to diminish the students’ experience, and saying the survivors are strictly pawns in anti-gun propaganda machine, is bullying the victim.

In 1934, NRA President Karl Fredrick testified to Congress that he didn’t subscribe to the “general promiscuous toting of guns …,” saying “… it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses,”(Wikipedia). Currently the NRA strictly pushes an extreme interpretation of the Second Amendment.

The fact is, America is suffering a serious gun violence epidemic. From suicides, domestic violence and mass shootings by either handguns or semiautomatic weapons, refusing to acknowledge that we have a gun problem is obtuse. A common denominator is the perpetrators’ use of guns. Guns are readily available, and effective killing tools.

Even conservative Justice Antonin Scalia believed there are limits to the Second Amendment. Retired Justice John Paul Stevens currently argues for repeal of the Second Amendment.

An unstable individual commits these atrocities, and mental health issues need immediate attention. However, by victim-shaming and deflecting the truths about the current American experience, the current NRA continues to sully the reputation of an institution originally founded to simply promote rifle marksmanship.

Steve LaCombe

Spokane Valley