{"id":99955,"date":"2017-10-09T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T11:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=99955"},"modified":"2017-10-08T13:56:16","modified_gmt":"2017-10-08T12:56:16","slug":"fear-is-the-nra-and-gun-industrys-deadliest-weapon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/10\/fear-is-the-nra-and-gun-industrys-deadliest-weapon\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear Is the NRA and Gun Industry\u2019s Deadliest Weapon"},"content":{"rendered":"

5 Oct 2017 – <\/em>School children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut; parishioners in Charleston, South Carolina; co-workers in San Bernardino, California; nightclub attendees in Orlando, Florida; and now concertgoers in Las Vegas, Nevada.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Each time, the horror of yet another mass shooting leaves us stunned, grief-stricken, and desperate for answers. But always lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce, is a modern-day Cerberus. Like that three-headed hound of Greek mythology that patrolled the gates of hell, the National Rifle Association, the firearms industry, and their bankrolled politicians obstruct every step toward gun reform, ominously warning that any restrictions will make us helpless to protect ourselves.<\/p>\n

When it comes to promoting this manipulative \u201cwe\u2019ll all be helpless\u201d mind game, the leading huckster is undoubtedly Wayne LaPierre, the NRA\u2019s longtime CEO. In an op-ed<\/a> shortly after President Obama\u2019s re-election in 2012, LaPierre explained, \u201cNo wonder Americans are buying guns in record numbers right now, while they still can and before their choice about which firearm is right for their family is taken away forever.\u201d In the same piece, he described the NRA as \u201cthe indispensable shield against the destruction of our nation\u2019s Second Amendment rights\u201d and \u201cthe only chance gun owners have to withstand the coming siege.\u201d That same year, a week after the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, LaPierre called for armed security guards in every U.S. school, arguing<\/a> \u201cthe only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.\u201d And in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, he listed<\/a> \u201chome invaders, drug cartels, carjackers, knockout gamers, and rapers, and haters, and campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers\u201d among the threats that only assault-style rifles and other guns can stop.<\/p>\n

The NRA and gun lobby aggressively push these psychologically-potent appeals because they know nothing sells guns like fear \u2014 including the fear of not having a gun. Indeed, in the aftermath of massacres, worries about gun restrictions often lead to sharp increases<\/a> in handgun purchases. Sure enough, gun stocks rose<\/a> on Wall Street in the days immediately following the Las Vegas attack. The bottom-line here is simple: easy access to deadly weapons means greater profits<\/a> for gun manufacturers and dealers. At the same time, let\u2019s remember that our country\u2019s far-too-frequent mass shootings actually account for only a small part of the bloodshed. The number<\/a> of deaths from gun violence in the U.S. this year \u2014 including homicides and suicides \u2014 is again likely to exceed 30,000. That figure is comparable to the number of Americans who are killed in automobile accidents.<\/p>\n

To help give their \u201cwe\u2019ll all be helpless\u201d scare tactics the sheen of academic respectability, the gun industry has eagerly turned to the likes of economist John Lott, the high-profile promoter<\/a> of the widely discredited thesis that more guns lead to less crime. Lott has argued<\/a> that gun reform \u201cwill leave individuals more vulnerable and helpless\u201d and that \u201cinstead of making places safer, disarming law-abiding citizens leaves them as sitting ducks.\u201d But his claims have collapsed<\/a> under careful scholarly scrutiny. The prestigious National Research Council dismissed<\/a> Lott\u2019s findings and his methodology, and researchers at Stanford and Harvard have shown<\/a> that higher rates of household gun ownership are associated with higher, not lower, homicide rates, both nationally and in state-by-state comparisons.<\/p>\n

Of course, scientific evidence regarding gun violence isn\u2019t popular with many beholden members<\/a> of Congress. For them, propaganda is just fine. In fact, thanks to NRA lobbying, Congress prohibits<\/a> the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from even conducting research related to guns and public health. And let\u2019s not forget who\u2019s in the White House. Benefiting from millions of dollars<\/a> of support from the NRA during his presidential campaign, self-proclaimed<\/a> \u201ctrue friend and champion\u201d Donald Trump has opined<\/a>, \u201cYou take the guns away from the good people, and the bad ones are going to have target practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making matters still worse, the NRA\u2019s messaging machine has been winning over large segments of the public as well. For the first time in decades, recent national polls<\/a> have shown there\u2019s greater support for \u201cgun rights\u201d than for \u201cgun control.\u201d This support is especially strong among those white Americans who mistakenly believe crime rates are rising. And whereas people used to report that hunting was their primary reason for owning a gun, now they say it\u2019s for personal safety.<\/p>\n

A fearful country is exactly what the NRA and gun industry want. But to protect their turf and profits even more, they also want us to believe there\u2019s yet another terrifying monster under our collective bed: the prospect of a future in which we\u2019re all disarmed and helpless to keep our loved ones safe. How can we resist these fearmongering ploys? By recognizing that sensible gun reform is only a phantom menace \u2014 and that the real one looks like the deadly arsenal of firearms and munitions on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas last Sunday night.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Roy Eidelson is a member of the TRANSCEND Network<\/a> and was a member of the American Psychological Association for over 25 years, prior to his resignation. He is a clinical psychologist and the president of Eidelson Consulting<\/a>, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational, and group conflict settings. He is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility<\/a>, associate director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College, and a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology<\/a>. Roy can be reached at reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 royeidelson.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Home invaders, drug cartels, carjackers, knockout gamers, and rapers, and haters, and campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers\u201d among the threats that only assault-style rifles and other guns can stop. The NRA and gun lobby aggressively push these psychologically-potent appeals because they know nothing sells guns like fear \u2014 including the fear of not having a gun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}