National Rifle Association leadership, and some GOP congressmen, oppose efforts to close the loophole in the nation's gun laws that allows people on the federal terrorist watch list to buy guns and explosives from licensed gun dealers in the U.S.
Let me repeat: you can be on the watch list that keeps you from boarding an airplane because you are considered a possible terrorist -- and you can still walk into a gun show and buy guns and explosives material.
When NY mayor Michael Bloomberg called for this to be fixed in his testimony at a congressional hearing, there was some opposition from Republicans. The NRA strongly objects and calls such restrictions "21st Century McCarthyism."
However, a recent poll shows that rank and file NRA members don't agree. One member simply refused to believe that it was possible, while 82% of gun owners and NRA members support “prohibiting people on the terrorist watch lists from purchasing guns.”
I do not share that deep-seated psychological urge to own guns and to fight any effort to limit my right to carry them anywhere -- now including airports, if the latest effort in Georgia becomes law. (It awaits the governor's signature.) So I just don't get it -- why some people feel so vehemently about being able to purchase, own, and carry weapons of rapid, mass murder.
When it's just as easy to buy a high-powered, people-killing, assault weapon as it is to get a public library card, and even easier than getting a driver's license -- something is crazy in our society. And I don't think it's me -- at least not on this one.
Ralph
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