Americans allow NRA to be a bully
Six thousand rounds of ammunition, purchased online, a semiautomatic assault weapon with a 100-round magazine, a pump action shotgun and two automatic pistols cost a monster about $1,800 to murder and maim fellow Americans. “Tragic,” says America’s gun lobby, but “that’s our right” — including what we make on sales!
Fellow citizens, President Obama and legislators, we are responsible for such tragedies as Aurora. We allow the NRA to bully America with the pretext that “weapons don’t kill, people do.” We are accomplices for every life taken, every parent who will never see their child’s graduation; hear their loved one laugh again.
We liberals are as grateful as every other American for the “the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.” Is that “liberty” synonymous with the “freedom” to murder citizens with weapons of mass destruction?
Writing this letter, I feel like the proverbial fiddler on the roof. My bow sings tears for those killed or maimed by weapons stamped “freedom.” My lament is meant to challenge the NRA’s hold on so many. For that, is not both courage and passion required — a passion whose plea for weapons regulation is at least equal to their kind of disingenuous “freedom”? The courage to proclaim: No more “right” to murder, rather sing: “l’chaim: For Life!”
PHILLIP M. POSNER