Eshman on the NRA (From "Mayhem and Madness"

"The National Rifle Association (NRA) claims it exists to protect our rights. My question is this: who will protect us from the NRA?"

My question to The Jewish Journal Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Mr. Eshman: what makes you think that we need protection from this lobbying firm?

The Second Amendment has become a taboo topic for gun-control advocates, yet the mainstream media indicted the institution for all but shutting down debate on the issue. Even President Obama has refused to take up any debate on amending the current laws in this country.

The Supreme Court recently struck the provision in Washington D.C which prevented the individual ownership of handguns, construing the Second  Amendment to refer explicitly to individual owners, not merely as members of a state militia.

Eshman, like many more liberally-inclined columnists, assumes that the massive warchest of the NRA has intimidated politicians from taking up gun-control, for fearing of getting outspent by a rival candidate in an election.

True, the NRA commands a budget of $220 million, yet unlike the state the NRA does not compel individuals or corporations to donate money and join the organization. The NRA commands such wealth because a dedicated group, a massive number of individuals in this country care about their right to keep and bear arms.

"The key to driving down these numbers [the number of gun victims in this country] is to enact federal laws that address the most egregious flaws in gun legislation."

I would agree that tightening background checks would have some merit, but the Aurora, CO mass-killing was perpetrated by a straight-and-true scholastic type who had no record of mental illness or criminal behavior.

The factors which contribute to a higher homicide rate in this country compared to Israel, France, and the UK has to do with the fact that in the United States, men and women own more goods, have more to protect, and thus property crime is higher, which then influences the number of assaults with a firearm in order to protect the property that people own in the first place. I would agree  with Mr. Eshman's analysis that the roots of the higher gun-homicide  rate in this country stem from other factors, yet more gun laws will not prevent the deaths. Instead of globalizing the gun problem altogether, a closer examination of the circumstances of death in these higher homicide rates is warranted.

Mr. Eshman may believe that gun control would have spared the massacred and terrorized residents of Aurora, Colorado, yet public opinion, independent research, and legal arguments all have established the right and legitimate presence of firearms in the possession of individual Americans.

Liberal activists like Mayor Bloomberg believe that this country needs more leadership on the issue of gun control. I believe that gun-control activists like Mr. Eshman need to accept that a growing constituency respects the Second Amendment as written and should find more credible arguments to support their contention for gun-control beyond the tragic truth that life has difficult moments of indiscriminate horror because of the flaws of human nature.

To balance constitutional rights with the sanctity of life on the pivot of gun-control is a false dichotomy. Those who bear arms in many ways are pro-life as well as pro-law and order.