By Don Tracy

“Think outside the box!” So easy to say, but no one seems willing or able to try it concerning thousands of innocent deaths each year. There are wars going on, horrors that we condemn loudly. Yet we have more casualties than ever in our country, where we are supposedly at peace. Some things may be worth trying:

Start with the NRA. Its foundation was originally supposed to be an organization to teach gun safety and skills to make good sportspeople. What is it now? A huge organization with the ability to give $30 million to politicians. The leadership is more interested in making pots of money from memberships and selling guns than it is in making sure guns are used safely.

The organization has announced that it is going to spend $7 million at schools all across the nation to teach gun safety and sportsmanship to rifle and pistol teams, a limited audience at best, as most teams have perhaps 10 or 15 members who participate. Meanwhile, politicians are raffling off weapons of mass destruction.

Maybe the members of the NRA would get better protection (and press coverage) for their sport if their leaders, such as mouthpiece Wayne LaPierre, would spend the $30 million on what they state is the big problem with mass shootings. The NRA repeatedly claims the “big problem” is mental health; at the same time, it pushes gun rights such that anyone and everyone should own a gun. Phony logic and propaganda.

The old line oft-repeated is, “If the Jews had had guns, they wouldn’t have been slaughtered.” There were instances where they did have weapons, and all it did was make the Nazis angry and vengeful.

There is a difference between having an army and having guns. Even George Washington figured that out, when Lafayette and Pulaski came to help organize and train the Continental Army. Besides, how does one account for all the other European countries who had armies but fell to the Axis powers?

At this point, it is time for the NRA to stop the 50-year-old mantra of “The Democrats are trying to take our guns away!” No. People are tired of the old song and dance that has not worked, and will not work, for the problem of innocent deaths.

“More guns” has not worked for 50 years. We are supposedly a free nation. But we are not free so long as we are in a cycle of paranoia because we refuse to accept that there is a limit to the need and use for guns. If you think you will be able to protect yourself with a gun in the next big war, you have not seen the pictures of the atomic blasts in Japan, let alone the results of the nukes set off in the Pacific that were 50 times more powerful and destructive than the scientists predicted. And we have a president who thinks bombs are great! Welcome to the new Cold War.

Maybe it’s time for universal, gender-neutral draft (and no bone-spur exemptions), with a minimum of six months of training, two weeks of summer camp for four summers, and no financial excuses.

Don Tracy lives in Salisbury.

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