The Price We Pay

If anyone out there has a set of rose colored goggles they can spare I can really use them.  I am in urgent need of some sort of filter to keep me from seeing how truly insane our country has become.

I just struggled through an article on the school safety measures recommended by a panel funded by the National Rifle Association (NRA).  The struggle was keeping my jaw clenched while reading to avoid vomiting on my keyboard.  The core of the recommendation is that selected school officials undergo a background check, receive training and then carry a gun to protect the school.  This makes perfect sense in a world where the Senate is preparing to vote on whether to grant $40 million for schools to improve security.  With a Defense Department budget of nearly $700 billion, that seems a bit low.  Roughly .000057% of the Defense Budget, that's equivalent to paying an extra $20 to put brakes on your Lamborghini.

Why is the NRA universally opposed to background checks for gun purchases?  This is a very serious and extremely important question.  If the NRA is about gun safety and promoting responsible gun ownership and use, then they should demand background checks.  After all, it only takes one nut case with a gun to make all gun owners look bad.

Regardless of propaganda, regardless of any gun safety and training programs, the NRA is interested in only one thing:  Selling Guns.  If they could get away with it, they would be lobbying to require every student to own and carry a gun to school, and once the killing began, they would claim it was because the students needed to carry more guns.

Guns are a very high profit margin commodity.  Thanks to the lessons taught by Henry Ford, the cost to manufacture guns is extremely low, leaving a very high profit margin.  Plastic and steel, with automated casting and machining processes, the only labor required is assembly, and that labor cost is quite low.  If automobile profit margins were comparable to gun profit margins, a cheap car would exceed $100,000.

Background checks cut down on the number of people who are able to buy guns.  Some because something in their history shows they should not be allowed to own guns, and some because they fear the background check.  Still, this shouldn't have a major effect on the number of guns sold.  After all, if only 2% fail the background check, that's only 2% less guns, right?

Wrong.  The people, least qualified to own guns (due to mental instability) tend to buy more guns than the average responsible gun owner.  The responsible gun owner buys a gun, or guns, for a purpose. The purpose is served by one or two guns.  Multiple purposes might require more guns, but there is a reasonable limit.  The irrational gun owner buys guns for an irrational purpose.  Rational limitations do not apply.  Quite often the problem is paranoia.  They feel threatened by everyone and everything.  Imagine feeling the whole world is trying to do bad things to you.  Now imagine how many guns, knives, swords, etc. it would take to make you feel safe.  Keep in mind "they" can get all the weapons "they" want.

Although this is purely speculation on my part (based upon the responsible and irresponsible/irrational gun owners I have known), I imagine eliminating 2% of gun owners through background checks would result in approximately 10% decrease in gun sales.  Even worse, if crime rates decrease, less people will feel the need to buy guns.  Within a few years, gun sales could easily drop by 25% or more.  Numbers like that worry the NRA and the gun makers that fund them.

Instead of spending pennies to put guns in schools, why not spend dollars putting education in schools?