The Gun Lobby That Cried Wolf!
Most people are probably familiar with Aesop’s oft-repeated fable of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf’. For those who have not read it, the condensed version is that a young shepherd tending his flock outside of town gets bored. To create some excitement, he stars crying ‘Wolf” so that the townspeople will come running which they do. Eventually, when a real wolf shows up, he cries wolf but the townspeople are fed up with his stunts and don’t come to his aid. The moral of this fable is that if you lie enough times people will cease to believe you.
Aesop may have been a great fabler but he was clearly not familiar with the NRA. For over sixty years, usually during election years, the NRA has cried wolf by telling the public that electing Democrats will mean that their guns will be taken away. In fact, when I was in 9th grade and McGovern was the Democratic candidate, we were told he was going to get our BB guns, too.
For over sixty years, Democrats have in fact been elected and they have yet to go to any house and get a gun or pass any legislation that would take guns away from legitimate gun owners, no matter how many guns they had. In fact, we have had six Democratic Presidents since the rise of the NRA: Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden. None of them have tried to take away a single hunting rifle or pistol from a registered gun owner. In fact, they have all actually been criticized for their lack of inaction when it comes to gun control.
Yet every election, the NRA cries wolf and, unlike Aesop’s townspeople who finally wised up, a sizeable portion of the American public comes running. They are once again assured that this time the wolf is really at their door and this time it is for real. And once again nothing happens.
For people who did not grow up in rural areas, this can be particularly hard to understand. But if you grew up like I did in the rural South, it is much more understandable. Guns in rural areas provide two things: The first is recreation. A lot of men work very hard blue-collar jobs that are outside and are cold in the winter and hot in the summer with terrible humidity. It’s backbreaking work (I spent three summers working in a lumberyard and it was a great inspiration for me to get an education). Furthermore, they cannot afford to go to Paris for a week or even Orlando. They are lucky if they can afford to go out to dinner once a month.
What they can do is take two weeks off a year during deer season and duck season and go into the woods with their buddies where they can drink, tell dirty jokes and cuss the government for trying to stop this yearly vacation. For many of them, it is the highlight of an otherwise tough year. The actual hunting is secondary – this is a way to relax. The NRA is essentially telling them that Democrats are wanting to take their vacations away from them. Imagine the revolt among upper east side New Yorkers if they were told that the government was going to prevent them from dressing up in penguin suits and going to the opera.
The second thing that guns provide is even more important – freedom, patriotism, masculinity, safety etc. etc. etc. What is amazing that for many gun owners is that the guns provide all of that without every being used or at least rarely used. Most gun owners rarely shoot their guns, even for target practice. In short, guns are symbols.
The ownership of a gun and the defense of owning it are the best way they can give the government the finger. It’s no coincidence that gun ownership skyrocketed with the rise of the anti-government movement.
The NRA has always understood this. The battle cry of “They are coming for our guns!” gives people something tangible as a battle line to draw. Most are too afraid not to pay their taxes or to deface government property so this gives them a way to express their feelings. Truth be told, most of these people would not even notice if their gun was taken – it plays almost no part in their daily lives.
When I was in law school, I clerked for a judge who was hearing a divorce case where the two parties were fighting tooth and nail over $3000 worth of china. At that point they had each spent well over $10,000 in legal fees to get the china. As the judge explained it to me, it was not the china they were fighting over - the china was simply where they chose to draw the battle line.
The NRA has convinced millions of Americans that guns are where they need to draw the battle line in their imagined war against the government. There is no war. No political candidate, not even the most liberal anti-gun politician, has ever suggested taking away a citizen’s hunting rifle or pistol they need for protection. And no politician ever will. The NRA has incited millions of citizens to fight a war that does not exist.
What is remarkable is their ability to keep people believing that the war is real despite sixty years of no fight from the other side. Apparently in America you can cry wolf one hundred times and the townspeople will still come running.
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