“The Gun Lobby”

If all you read were the New York Times, you’d think that the only support for protecting the right to own firearms comes from “the gun lobby.” No actual people, aside from the robots who write letters at the command of the NRA, just the “gun lobby.”

A good example is Katherine Q. Seelye’s article in today’s NYT, “THE GUN LOBBY: Killings May Not Affect Gun Control Measures.” This article appears under a super-heading, “THE HUNT FOR A SNIPER: Interests and Law,” suggesting (or more) that “interests” (guess who) and “law” are antagonists.

It is of course legitimate, even if a bit snide, to speak of “the gun lobby” when referring to the NRA. But when that phrase is used incessantly it drums in the notion that only “the gun lobby” has reservations about gun control measures. A typical example, from Seelye’s article:

In Pennsylvania, Edward G. Rendell, the former Philadelphia mayor and now a Democratic candidate for governor, has not flinched in his opposition to the gun lobby and appears likely to win on Election Day.

However one interprets the right to own and bear arms, it is a civil right (even if it is a narrow and restricted one) since the Second Amendment is a part of the Bill of Rights. Alone among civil rights, however, the NYT sees this right as of interest only to a lobby, a large, rich interest group.

If this seems overstated, consider the following results from a Nexis search of the New York Times for “gun lobby” and comparable phrases:

gun lobby                  545 hits

civil rights lobby          13

peace lobby                 12

gay rights lobby             8

feminist lobby               4

privacy lobby                2

Fair and balanced (to borrow a phrase)? You decide.

UPDATE – I’ve just gotten around to reading “Shopping for Sniper Rifles,” a remarkable OpEd also in today’s NYT by Stacy Sullivan, who was so shocked to discover that foreigners can buy rifles here and ship them overseas that she is writing a book about it.

Since this piece did after all appear in the NYT, her take on this is predictable: “our gun laws not only inadvertently fuel foreign conflicts but also enable terrorists to purchase guns to launch attacks against people on American soil.” (Indeed, Sullivan is so fond of the phrase “fueling foreign conflicts” that she uses it twice.)

If this piece had not appeared in the New York Times or some comparable source, it would not merit much attention or concern. Ms. Sullivan apparently went to her first gun show as part of her research. She was not surprised to see sports utility vehicles with “Sportsmen for Bush” bumper stickers lining the parking lot, but she does profess surprise at seeing “a surprising number of families with children.” Presumably she expected only single skinheads. She also reports as though it were true “what a dealer told me”: that “with the .50 caliber rifle … a good marksman can kill a large animal from two miles away and an amateur could probably shoot a person from a mile away.” (At least she was not as gullible, or disingenuous, as Tom Diaz of the Violence Policy Center, who testified before Congress that “an expertly trained marksman could use the rifle to hit targets at distances of 7,500 yards.” By way of comparison, Chuck Mawhinney, one of the most successful Marine snipers in Vietnam, “was routinely deadly from 300 to 800 yards [but] had confirmed kills at more than 1,000 yards.” No mention of a mile, much less two or four miles.)

But it did appear in the NYT and so must be taken seriously, especially given its implication that Americans should surrender whatever rights they have to buy rifles in order to deprive terrorists or their supporters of the ability “to fuel” their goals. But why only guns? There is a wealth of information on the Internet that could be of enormous benefit to foreign or domestic snipers — try Googling “sniper” and look at what you get. Why not shut that down too? If access to the Internet were controlled here the way it is in China, it would be much more difficult if not impossible for terrorists to take advantage of it.

How interesting that the New York Times is lending its platform, and megaphone, to the curtailment of civil liberties and civil rights in order to fight the war against terrorism.