Corporate Profits Fuel Our Nations Gun Culture. Are You OK With That?

I had another column topic planned for the November issue something about this being the month to give thanks but then the Las Vegas massacre happened.

And then I learned that a coworkers friend was one of those who didnt survive the shooting, who didnt get to go home that night and reflect on the pleasant, regenerative power of listening to music with friends. One moment, she was probably hoping Jason Aldean would play her favorite song. The next, she was gone.

So, while Im grateful that none of my friends were gunned down in a bloodbath while attending a concert on a warm night in the desert, Im not feeling sanguine. More like furious. Frustrated. Restive. Powerless.

I often donate blood in these situations. And by typing the words in these situations, I magnify the lunacy of it all. Shedding my own blood to save the life of someone whose life may slip away someday soon because of a leadership vacuum in this country strikes me as hopelessly perverse.

When you leave for work tomorrow, reflect on this: In this country, youre 25 times more likely to be killed by someone with a gun than is someone in another developed country. And at least one TV bloviator has had the nerve to call it the price we pay for freedom. This calculation is deeply flawed math, rooted in pure and demonically cruel nonsense.

The real math is this: If you give money to the National Rifle Association, you are part of the problem. If you vote for congressmen and congresswomen who are owned and manipulated by the NRA, you are part of the problem. Dont believe for a minute that the NRA is a grass-roots organization dedicated to your individual rights. This long-running charade merely preserves the NRAs status as a nonprofit under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. In reality, it is a corporate shill, doing the bidding of gun manufacturers who need congressional approval to keep this nations gun culture thriving and growing.

Im going to get mail from the usual suspects who will call me a bleeding-heart, knee-jerk liberal. Bring it on! Because this is not a liberal-vs.-conservative issue. Anyone who thinks that is the case is delusional. This is a civil rights issue. I have the right to go to work, to attend a concert, to walk along the waterfront with a reasonable expectation of returning home in one piece.This right is the essence of a free country.

On the day of the Las Vegas massacre, there were at least 24 other fatal shooting incidents in the United States. One of them occurred in the Seattle area. Polling data suggest that the American people liberals, conservatives, intellectuals and nincompoops alike are favorably disposed to the enactment of reasonable gun-control legislation. But the Republican party, a wholly owned subsidiary of the NRA, wont budge.

I wonder why.

If I were a Hollywood screenwriter, Id pitch a script that centers on an unscrupulous corporate honcho who recruits disgruntled, mentally unstable and, yes, suicidal misfits to unleash on a regular basis say, every six months or so the sort of hell-on-earth misery that occurred in Las Vegas. And Orlando. And Newtown. Because every time a lunatic goes on a killing spree, share prices of gun companies rise almost instantaneously in the case of Las Vegas and their CEOs all get richer. The hero of the piece, of course, would be a journalist who exposes the monsters nefarious scheme and persuades Congress to do the right thing.

But he may need some help. Are you game?

JOHN LEVESQUE is the managing editor of Seattle Business magazine. Reach him at [email protected].