National Rifle Association

Comment and Opinion

The NRA site took out the prestigious Anus Maximus Award for 2010 in the 2012 Millenium Awards. The award citation read:

There were several contenders for the top prize this year, and it wasn't until the murder of kindergarten children and their teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut on December 14 that a clear winner managed to draw clear of the pack. As in all cases of mass murder using assault weapons there was no shortage of insane defence of people's rights to carry guns, although all these people seem to forget that when the right was included in the US Constitution it allowed citizens to be armed with single-shot muzzle-loading muskets. The drooling love of guns reached its peak, however, when the National Rifle Association started to comment. They of course repeated the idiocy of the safety of a fully armed populace, and then went on to suggest that school shooting sprees could be prevented if teachers and other school staff carried loaded weapons at all times. Up until then they were just repeating the mindless nonsense that apologists for murderers always come up with at times like these, but then they took a step which separated them from the crowd. The NRA requested that a national register of the mentally ill be created and that the list should be provided to the NRA. My immediate response was that the NRA already has a quite comprehensive record of people with a mental illness. It's right there in their database, under the heading "Membership".

Buffoonery (2/6/2001)
I NRA president Charlton Heston holds up a musket at 129th Annual Meeting and Exhibit in Charlotte, N.C. (Ric Feld/AP Photo) occasionally get challenged about listing the National Rifle Association here. These challenges usually imply that I must know nothing about guns otherwise I would love them (both guns and the NRA). Actually, I do know a bit about guns. My government spent a large amount of money once to teach me how to kill people and I haven't felt the need to kill anyone since. One question that I am always asked, it seems, is why I have the NRA listed on the Buffoonery page. I would have thought the answer was obvious – the NRA is a pack of buffoons, so where else would I put them? If you want evidence, just think back to those pictures of loopy old Charlton Heston waving an ancient cannon over his head at the NRA annual meeting and cackling some drivel about taking it from his cold, dead hands. The word "buffoonery" seems so appropriate for the quaint madness of it.

The joy of killing (18/9/2004)
I read in the papers that the buffoons in the National Rifle Association are salivating at the news that the US ban on assault weapons and large magazines will not be renewed, thus allowing people to practise their inalienable right to use Uzis and AK-47s, set on automatic fire, to hunt such vicious animals as foxes and squirrels. Across the Atlantic they use different methods, and the British Parliament has been besieged by buffoons protesting that they are about to lose the right to hunt foxes by riding horses across other people's property following a pack of dogs that are looking for a fox to rip apart. I was cornered at a party once by some chinless wonder who regaled me with the joys of riding to hounds. I made some comment about red jackets and she immediately froze and told me that I must be of very low caste, as anyone with any class knew that the coats were Pink (with a capital "P"). I said that they looked red and she told me that of course they looked red, but they were really Pink. I excused myself and turned to a potted palm for a more intelligent conversation.

Guns Redux (2/10/2004)
Several people wrote to me about my comments about the non-renewal in the US of the ban on certain semi-automatic weapons and told me that I should not have mentioned Uzis and AK-47s because they have been illegal for years. I used those names because I had seen an interview in the paper with a gun shop owner who was holding what was obviously an assault weapon of some kind and who specifically named Uzis and AK-47s as the sort of weapons which people were now going to be able to use to protect themselves. It took me about four minutes with Google to find a place which would sell me the eight parts necessary to "legalise" an AK-47, including the pistol grip which is supposed to be still banned. The same site mentioned places to go to get other "enhancements", such as the bayonet mount. One writer mentioned that he hadn't been inconvenienced by the ten-round limit on magazines, because he could change magazines in less than a second. I once received very expensive training in how to kill people with an assault rifle, so I can only assume that he must live in a very tough neighbourhood. I would only have to reload if I was attacked by more than about nine people at once, because they usually give up and run away after you shoot the first six or seven. Just in case people think that I don't know anything about guns, here is a picture of a much younger me relaxing after some practice at killing people.

An old picture of a young soldier

NRA moronicity (5/6/2010)
Doing the monthly check for broken and changed links I found that the National Rifle Association had changed its domain name. I always look at the sites when this happens just to make sure that what gets seen is what is expected and I found this wonderful editorial on the front page of the NRA site, written by the one of the head peanut brains in the organisation:

Pirates of Lake Falcon

The Mexican drug cartels that have made life hell for so many decent people south of our border are now becoming more brazen. In fact, on one lake that straddles the Texas-Mexico line, pirates believed to be associated with the Zetas cartel are targeting American fishermen who may stray across the invisible border between the two countries.

These modern-day pirates are using fully automatic machine guns, according to press reports. Where they obtained these guns is unknown, but suffice it to say it's exceedingly unlikely they got them from anywhere in the United States. More likely, these cartel members either obtained these military-grade rifles from the illegal black market or through corrupt members of the Mexican military.

So far none of the attacks on fishermen have occurred in U.S. waters. Perhaps that's because under Texas law, it's legal for anglers to have their firearms with them. Members of the drug cartels seem unwilling, at least for now, to take the chance of facing an armed mariner who refuses to be a victim.

I very much doubt that these heavily armed Mexican pirates with their "fully automatic machine guns" are leaving fishermen alone on the US side of the border because they are worried about a few shotguns and pistols. It is far more likely (if anything about this paranoid fantasy is likely at all) that they know that killing US citizens in US territory will provoke a response from the authorities. Of course if the Vice President of the NRA wants to test the theory that a machine gun with a firing rate of 600 rounds per minute and a range of 300 metres is outmatched by a pistol with a 9 round magazine and a range of 50 metres he is welcome to go down to Lake Falcon and chase the pirates away. Idiot.

This is what insanity looks like (28/7/2012)
This picture was posted to Facebook by someone who is so in love with guns that he feels he can ignore human decency. It is not possible to even imagine that someone who thinks like this is sane. I didn't bother to look (because there's so much even I can stand) but I would bet money that the moron who posted this would also be a Holocaust denier, because we all know that that is a left-wing plot.

And you know how all these clowns claim that they have a right to carry guns because the Constitution of the USA gives that right to members of a militia? They seem very quiet about how the US law defines a militia, because otherwise they would have to hand in their artillery on their 45th birthdays.

10 USC Sec. 311:
"(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 year of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32 [32 USC sec. 313], under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are commissioned officers of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are -- the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."