The National Rifle Association is riding high, having succeeded in promotion of “Stand Your Ground” laws which has led to the deaths of hundreds of victims in the past ten years, including Trayvon Martin in Florida in February.
The NRA was the host of the rant of Ted Nugent last week, threatening the life of President Barack Obama, and calling for harm on Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Attorney General Eric Holder.
The NRA sat back and had no reaction to the assassination attempt against Arizona Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords in Tucson in January 2011.
The NRA had no reaction to the mass murder of 32 people at Virginia Tech five years ago this week.
The NRA had no reaction to the mass murder at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, also occurring this week.
The NRA continues to say that guns do not kill people, and that instead, people kill people, but fight against any sensible background checks, or the banning of assault weapons.
They continue to state that the Second Amendment allows uninhibited ownership of guns by anyone who wishes to collect them.
A Supreme Court case in June 2010 in McDonald V. Chicago further cemented their 2008 decision in District of Columbia V. Heller, with the five Supreme Court conservatives deciding both cases, in favor of gun owner rights.
The thought that such an important decision came about by a bare 5-4 vote on ideological grounds is very disturbing, and belies the statement of former Chief Justice Warren Burger, appointed by Richard Nixon in 1969 and serving to 1986.
In 1991, the former Chief Justice stated that the Second Amendment was subject to fraud by special interest groups, does not guarantee the right to have firearms at all, and was designed to provide state militia to promote defense of the state.
But then, as conservative as Burger was thought to be in his tenure on the Court, it is clear that the conservative majority on the Court today is far more right wing than any since the 1920s, a foreboding of the damage they may do in many key cases to be decided and announced between now and the end of June, including the Obama Health Care legislation!