The Pentagon and the National Rifle Association have a lot in common these days. They're in love with guns. They maintain powerful lobbies. They refuse to acknowledge the dangerous consequences of their policies.
And they're both on the defensive.
After yet another gun massacre over the weekend in Tucson, the NRA in particular has a lot to answer for. The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), and the killing of six others, has again focused attention on how easy it is to buy guns and use them in this country.
The NRA has managed to survive attempted and successful assassinations of presidents, the horrifying school shootings at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech, and killing sprees in Omaha (2007), Binghamton (2009), and Appomattox (2010). So many rampages have taken place in shopping malls that trade groups held a conference a couple years ago on how to deal with them. So many workplace rampages have occurred -- eight dead this summer at a Manchester, Connecticut warehouse -- that the Labor Department has issued a fact sheet that cites, for instance, 421 workplace shooting deaths in 2008. Every year, nearly 100,000 Americans are shot and guns kill nearly 10,000 people, according to gun control advocates.
It's practically a war. Yet gun control is still a dirty word for many Americans. Despite a spate of shootings over the last two decades, support for stricter gun laws has declined from 78 percent in 1990 to only 44 percent in 2010. To be sure, the NRA will dig in its heels this time around as well to make sure that "the guys with the guns make the rules," as NRA head Wayne LaPierre phrased it in 2009.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, faces a similar public relations disaster. It's fighting two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and failing to achieve the stated objectives. The Taliban still controls large sections of Afghanistan. Iraq is a mess. Drone attacks in Pakistan have simply disturbed the hornet's nest.
~John FefferCo-director, Foreign Policy In Focus
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/gun-crazy-nra-and-pentago_b_807516.html
