February 15, 2018
Mr. Wayne Lapierre
President
National Rifle Association of America
11250 Waples Mill Road
Fairfax, VA 22030
Dear Mr. Lapierre:
Yesterday in America we celebrated Valentine’s Day and Catholics around the world also marked the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday. We also watched the unfolding nightmare in Florida with 17 dead, brought about by a deeply disturbed young man and his rifle. Like in most mass shootings, the shooter did not break a single law until he chambered his first round and fired it into his first victim.
You know the list better than anyone. Some 26 church-going people in Texas gunned down by a madman using a weapon that used .223 caliber military style ammunition. Another madman in Las Vegas used the same ammunition, plus 7.62 millimeter and a few other types to kill 58 and injure more than 500. Before that it was the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando and 49 dead (9 millimeter and 7.62 millimeter), Virginia Tech with 32 dead, (.223 and .22 calibers) and Sandy Hook Elementary with 27 dead, 20 of them children (223 caliber). The list is endless, including Columbine’s 13 dead (9 millimeter), Aurora, Colorado, 12 dead (.40 caliber and .223 caliber) and on and on. In most cases, very large quantities of legally purchased ammunition were part of the story.
You, Mr. Lapierre, can help fix this. Your organization is, in fact, the law when it comes to gun ownership. Your organization is all powerful, you control the politicians at any level of government. You are exceptionally well funded and can make or break politicians who oppose your 2nd Amendment position. I’m not naive enough to think that a Republican held House, Senate and White House are going to oppose you on gun ownership. We just wait two weeks until the funerals are over and the news cycle rotates and then we can brace for the next one, and the next one, and the one after that.
But your organization, Mr. Lapierre, was founded on the issue of firearms safety. Why not return to those worthy roots and get behind this simple idea:
Start treating the most deadly ammunition the same way we treat powerful drugs that require a doctor’s prescription. Recognize that certain type of ammunition need to be controlled, because they are overwhelmingly used in homicides and mass shootings. Get them off the retail market, both in stores and online. They include:
- 9 MM
- 7.62 MM
- .223 CAL
- .380 CAL
- .45 CAL ACP
- .22 CAL
This means that within a defined period of time (90-180 days?), these ammunitions come off the retail shelves and the Internet and enter a federally controlled distribution system. This also means that all other types of ammunition are unaffected by this law. You can buy all the shotgun shells, 30.06 rounds, etc. you want (subject to local regulations) for hunting, sporting clays, whatever. These rounds aren’t the problem; they mostly kill deer, birds, varmints, and clay pigeons.
The NRA, and probably only the NRA, could make this happen. And in doing so, you could provide the nation with a solution that its citizens desperately want, but whose politicians are mortally afraid to move on. But not if you were behind it.
There are some practical aspects to the plan, so that we keep the range shooters happy, ammo manufacturers can still sell their product, etc. I wrote up some of the practical steps in an article on a blog site. You can read it at http://uncletommyonline.com/?p=377, if you care to. It says some unflattering things about the NRA, but we’re all big boys, so I think we can get past it.
In a single bold stroke, the NRA could alter its’ image within this country and the world from a polarizing stance of “gun ownership freedom at all costs” to the “champions of public safety.” Your membership would grow considerably, once the polarization was off the table and you were behind saving innocent lives. Hell, I‘d even join.
And you can keep your 2nd Amendment position intact. The Constitution doesn’t say anything about bullets, only the muzzles they come out of. It’s an opportunity for the NRA, Mr. Lapierre. I’m guessing you must be as tired of counting bodies as the rest of us.
Sincerely,
Tom Wogan, Sr.
Private Citizen