“Would Democrats be okay if the NRA got half-a-billion a year? Would they let that stand?”-Diane Black,Tennessee U.S. Representative running for governor complaining about Planned Parenthood funding.
credibility, her sincerity; how she has jumped sides on issues. You know, pumping extra chunky BS when it suits her political needs, then slathering on extra smeary BS when that seems to suit the political moment?
Yet her statement that led off this column displays not just her clueless-ness; but total clueless-ness that infects so much of the right these days. Would we be “okay?’ Well, if it had similar restrictions as Planned Parenthood funds do, and their audited books showed none of this funding siphoned off elsewhere to encourage more guns, more violence… Yes.
Problem is the NRA as it is run these days seems to have little interest in less violence, and far less in gun safety than years ago. In fact they do what they can to encourage more guns, more violence, more fear and therefore more people so damned frightened they buy more guns they simply don’t know how to handle safely, keep securely.
But let’s imagine a different, less politically and corporate driven, NRA. If tax money helped the NRA do gun safety courses that encouraged not using guns out of anger, taught more responsibly ownership, while they also worked to improve issues regarding the mental ill and those with a record of violence getting and/or misusing guns…? Even if it’s just to alert authorities to terrorists and vengeful white nationalists that support gun violence, or suspected school shooters? Hell, yes. I could see courses in all our schools, lobbying Congress on these issues: being how the NRA used to be when I was a member in the early 70s and the 60s: gun education and safety focused.
The NRA could become a partner with those of us who think there’s a problem with those found guilty of domestic violence having unfettered access to guns without authorities at least knowing that John Q. Kicknpunchher; who damn near beat his wife to death twice, just bought the high powered gun. The gun he told her he would kill her with the last time she went to the emergency room.
The funds should be only for gun safety issues, just like tax money legally can’t be used by Planned Parenthood for abortion. Oh, I’m sure the NRA would have nothing to do with any of that.
Ms, Black… yes, I am typing this especially for you. Planned Parenthood, as I’m sure you know, has plenty of other activities they’ve been involved with, long before they had to start clinics. Yes, “had to.” My wife and I used them for years, I and my previous girlfriends used them too. Health screening, pregnancy prevention… which by the way also prevents abortions, help women who otherwise might get an abortion, might get VD, might die from VD, might not be able to afford the kind of health care that would diagnosis cancer. In some areas they are the only resource some women can afford. If you have any intent on starting on this selling baby parts BS let me stop you right there. Like any other job, people who transport parts get paid. You know that. I know that. And I think we both know that propagandistic editing for partisan purposes is the opposite of truth telling.
So where, Ms. Black, you get your claim from that they are involved in criminal activity is puzzling, at best.
Yes, they perform abortions. But you only have anti-abortion and anti birth control jihadists for this. PP’s policy used to be they don’t do abortions, but they could tell you where to go. I remember well when they started to get into it. At the clinic my now wife and I attended I remember telling them getting into doing abortions was a mistake because they would be falsely painted as nothing more than an abortion agency. Their response was to say with all the shootings, with all the clinics shut down, if legal abortion were to remain an option, “What else were we to do?”
Reflecting back we were both right.
Planned Parenthood should be able to help women who can’t afford, or have no access to, feminine specific with health care, infertility, fertility, cancer, preventing pregnancy and more. These are causes worth funding. The NRA should be able to work on gun safety issues and this too is a cause worth funding. How either pursue these noble goals should, of course, should be open for public debate if any are to be funded with tax money.
I would have no problem with tax money funding gun safety courses; especially if we expand them to help limit crimes committed with guns, make authorities more aware of violence prone individuals or the dangerously mentally ill who any sane person might wish never came near a gun. If we are to be a free society maybe preventing ownership is a lost cause, but gun safety which includes all the aforementioned, not so much.
So, no, Ms. Black: I no problems with funding of the NRA if they really want to cut down on gun violence, or with with funding used to cut down on abortions and help women with very personal health concerns. Do you? I’m guessing, “Yes,” when it comes to the last because actually cutting down on abortions has never been the goal here of those who pump the issue. But you do seem to have no problem once again making up BS for political gain.
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Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 40 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses, that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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