NRA owes Obama family an apology

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Daniel Ruth: Pistol-packing poltroons owe Obama family an apology

By Daniel Ruth, Times Columnist

In Print: Friday, January 18, 2013

Do you suppose this was the inevitable result when the National Rifle Association appears to have hired Lindsay Lohan to help burnish its image?

How else to explain the National Redneck Association's loopy and dangerous Web video suggesting that President Barack Obama is an "elitist hypocrite" because his daughters, Sasha and Malia, receive Secret Service protection while the president opposes posting armed guards at schools.

"Are the president's kids more important than yours?" the video asks, as if the Obama daughters are the first progeny of a president to have a Secret Service detail.

This is it? This is the best the NRA can do in taking issue with Obama's views on gun violence? To go after 14- and 11-year-old girls? How manly of NRA president David Keene.

It's not too much of a stretch to suspect the video is targeted to appeal to the drooling Mongo wing of the NRA's membership. After all, no coherent, rational member of the gun industry advocacy group would disagree that a sitting president and his family aren't entitled to Secret Service protection.

But it should give pause to those card-carrying members of the Scientology of the gun culture whether they want their names and checkbooks to be associated with a group that not so subtly targets the security of a president's daughters to score political points.

Like most bullies, Keene disingenuously insisted on CNN that an ad specifically directed at Sasha and Malia's Secret Service detail was "not about them specifically." Keene has been inhaling too much gunpowder.

Perhaps criticizing presidential security seemed like a simply swell idea by Keene and his pelts of fellow trigger-happy travelers. So it is probable no one bothered to stop and think over at the NRA's Washington bunker that the inhabitant of the White House often arouses unkind thoughts.

The Secret Service doesn't release precise figures, but it is a generally accepted conservative number that the death threats a sitting president receives is something on the order of 3,000 a year. Still think it's a great job?

The Southern Poverty Law Center has estimated that since Obama was elected president in 2008, the number of known hate groups across the country has risen to around 1,274. It is probably not unreasonable to conclude that the number of death threats against him is probably somewhat north of 3,000 potential plots. Way north.

As recent events demonstrate, we live in a society with no shortage of delusional, unhinged people who have their local gun dealer on speed dial.

Yet against that backdrop of presidential threat levels, paranoid hate groups and a bloody history of mass gun violence, the NRA still went ahead with a video arguing that the Secret Service protection extended to members of the first family is elitist and hypocritical and, by logical extension of its perverse reasoning, undeserved.

It has long been an unspoken rule of what passes for political dialogue in Washington that family members of public figures are off-limits.

Keene and the rest of NRA leadership of pistol-packing poltroons vaulted across that line. Its propaganda video comes awfully close to the edge of being a de facto threat against Obama's daughters.

What a pathetic commentary on the state of Washington discourse that a powerful lobbying cartel is so unable, or unwilling, to debate the issue of gun violence on a higher intellectual plane.

To be sure, presidential life has its perks — the White House, Camp David, Air Force One and never having to stop for a red light.

But the presidency also comes with the dark realization that there are unbalanced folks like Lee Harvey Oswald and John Hinckley and Squeaky Fromme haunting the populace who only need the merest encouragement to embrace their inner Travis Bickle.

Keene and the NRA "leadership" owe the Obama family an apology. They owe their membership a refund. But that would require having a modicum of common decency. It would require being an adult.

[decocker 7,198]

is the nra trying to rouse the same sector that kept bush in office for eight damn years back into recruit mode?

are die hard democrats trying to further ostracize the gun toting working poor that they've always wished would just 'grow up' or 'read a book' or 'go away' already?

tune in next week, to the never ending culture economic divide that unites us all in loathing!

[himher 634]

Apology for what? For making himself look like a dumba$$ for saying that armed security doesn't work in schools when it is what provides security for his own family?

He did that all by himself. Nobody insulted his family. They insulted his stupid logic.

Is he also going to surround himself with children when he demands his apology?

Edited January 19, 2013 by himher

[Ban Hammer 12,867]

Apology for what? For making himself look like a dumba$$ for saying that armed security doesn't work in schools when it is what provides security for his own family?

He did that all by himself. Nobody insulted his family. They insulted his stupid logic.

Is he also going to surround himself with children when he demands his apology?

just my opinion, fwiw. a president cannot make decisions with emotions clouding his judgment - therefore his family needs a similar level of security afforded to the office of the president. the last thing we'd want is someone using a member of his immediate family as hostage pawns for political gain. this level of security for his family removes that as a possibility.

in short - trying to compare the security afforded to obama's family/children to the average citizen's family is comparing two entirely different situations due to the very nature of the office held.

[james&olya 1,121]

Apology for what? For making himself look like a dumba$$ for saying that armed security doesn't work in schools when it is what provides security for his own family?

He did that all by himself. Nobody insulted his family. They insulted his stupid logic.

Is he also going to surround himself with children when he demands his apology?

Charles said it quite well but I will add that it is an indictment of the level of blind paranoia on the right that such an obvious reason for the security given to the president's close family is so difficult to grasp by the loons on the far right! I would guess that the president and first lady, while understanding and appreciating the service of their Secret Service protectors, nonetheless recognize the loss of freedom and innocence for their daughters that such a life entails. Do we really want a society where heavily armed guards are needed everywhere? Why can't we just get the tools of mass killing out of the hands of those unfit to have them? Why don't we, the voting public of this country, have the right to put sensible limits on guns?

As to your argument about armed security and whether it works, you should know that answer. Columbine had armed security at the time of the massacre there. Reagan had heavy security when he was shot. It takes a far greater effort to achieve security for an individual than it does to breach that security! It is not a luxury any of us can afford personally. The president and his family get it ONLY because it entails national security!

[Pooky 3,365]

Being from the UK, I am used to the general population being without firearms. I am also used to the police, on normal duty, being without firearms. The other half still looks at me with a slight sense of bewilderment whenever I react to yet another shooting incident here in the USA.

I can still remember the initial horror and consequent reaction after the Dunblane massacre in 1996, when 16 children of the same age as those at Sandy Hook were killed by another lone gunman. The UK does not have an armed presence in schools as a result.

However, as anti-gun ownership as I may be, I realise that there is one essential difference between the culture in the UK and what exists here in the USA. In the UK, gun ownership is rare. Here, gun ownership is commonplace, routine even. The police are armed all the time. Firearms have been a part of the way of life since this country's independence. Guns are out there. Everywhere. The Genie, so to speak, is out of the bottle.

And therein lies the problem here in the USA. It was still possible for the Dunblane gunman to carry out his attack and kill 16 children. Criminals and those determined to carry out acts like Columbine and Sandy Hook will always be able to find the means to do so, because there are so many guns already out there. The restrictions on firearm types and magazine capacities will have a far greater effect on the law-abiding gun owners than it will on those on the other side of the equation.

By all means increase background checks on gun buyers and their immediate family, to identify possible risk factors. Encourage greater gun safety and security in the home. Work on human side of the issue.

But leave the guns alone. You're going to leave the people at greater risk if you don't.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Pooky

[james&olya 1,121]

Being from the UK, I am used to the general population being without firearms. I am also used to the police, on normal duty, being without firearms. The other half still looks at me with a slight sense of bewilderment whenever I react to yet another shooting incident here in the USA.

I can still remember the initial horror and consequent reaction after the Dunblane massacre in 1996, when 16 children of the same age as those at Sandy Hook were killed by another lone gunman. The UK does not have an armed presence in schools as a result.

However, as anti-gun ownership as I may be, I realise that there is one essential difference between the culture in the UK and what exists here in the USA. In the UK, gun ownership is rare. Here, gun ownership is commonplace, routine even. The police are armed all the time. Firearms have been a part of the way of life since this country's independence. Guns are out there. Everywhere. The Genie, so to speak, is out of the bottle.

And therein lies the problem here in the USA. It was still possible for the Dunblane gunman to carry out his attack and kill 16 children. Criminals and those determined to carry out acts like Columbine and Sandy Hook will always be able to find the means to do so, because there are so many guns already out there. The restrictions on firearm types and magazine capacities will have a far greater effect on the law-abiding gun owners than it will on those on the other side of the equation.

By all means increase background checks on gun buyers and their immediate family, to identify possible risk factors. Encourage greater gun safety and security in the home. Work on human side of the issue.

But leave the guns alone. You're going to leave the people at greater risk if you don't.

You are right, of course, about the genie being out of the bottle here relative to the massive numbers of weapons in private ownership. Yet I still think we owe future generations at least making an attempt to make gun laws a bit more sane. Self-defense very rarely requires the ability to discharge 30 or more rounds without re-loading. I know it is shown on the screen multiple times but reality shows that the only real use for semi-auto firing large capacity weapons is offensive in nature. Zombie wars are not reality! So why don't we make semi-auto firing and the ability to accept large capacity magazines illegal for gun sales here? Register all those already out there and forbid transfer of ownership! Someday the citizens of this country might thank us. I know this incites the ire of the crazies on the right but if more of us will have the courage to stand up and declare publicly how we feel maybe we can turn the tide on this issue!

[himher 634]

Nobody said anything about the entitlement of the president to a high level of security. Nobody said anything negative or deragatory about his children either. The armed security works - which is why this president arranged to have it for life.

So why get up in front of the nation and state that armed security works for him but not for the rest of the nation?

That's stupid, the video pointed out how stupid it is, and the lot of them are angry not because it's wrong but because it makes them and continues to make them look stupid.

Their arguments about "using children for political gain" look even stupider after they held a press conference and surrounded the president by children for his big signing.

just my opinion, fwiw. a president cannot make decisions with emotions clouding his judgment - therefore his family needs a similar level of security afforded to the office of the president. the last thing we'd want is someone using a member of his immediate family as hostage pawns for political gain. this level of security for his family removes that as a possibility.

in short - trying to compare the security afforded to obama's family/children to the average citizen's family is comparing two entirely different situations due to the very nature of the office held.

Did you even WATCH the video? What the hell are you talking about paranoia? The effective security for the president's children was contrasted with his dismissal of the idea that the same security would work for everyone else's children.

Charles said it quite well but I will add that it is an indictment of the level of blind paranoia on the right that such an obvious reason for the security given to the president's close family is so difficult to grasp by the loons on the far right! I would guess that the president and first lady, while understanding and appreciating the service of their Secret Service protectors, nonetheless recognize the loss of freedom and innocence for their daughters that such a life entails. Do we really want a society where heavily armed guards are needed everywhere? Why can't we just get the tools of mass killing out of the hands of those unfit to have them? Why don't we, the voting public of this country, have the right to put sensible limits on guns?

As to your argument about armed security and whether it works, you should know that answer. Columbine had armed security at the time of the massacre there. Reagan had heavy security when he was shot. It takes a far greater effort to achieve security for an individual than it does to breach that security! It is not a luxury any of us can afford personally. The president and his family get it ONLY because it entails national security!

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

So why get up in front of the nation and state that armed security works for him but not for the rest of the nation?

Did you even WATCH the video? What the hell are you talking about paranoia? The effective security for the president's children was contrasted with his dismissal of the idea that the same security would work for everyone else's children.

I take it you would like the Secret Service to protect you and your family 24-7-365 for the rest of yours and their lives. I guess that means you would rather suck on the taxpayer teat and throw out the Second Amendment, if you had a choice.

But then again, you would have to get elected first.

[james&olya 1,121]

Nobody said anything about the entitlement of the president to a high level of security. Nobody said anything negative or deragatory about his children either. The armed security works - which is why this president arranged to have it for life.

So why get up in front of the nation and state that armed security works for him but not for the rest of the nation?

That's stupid, the video pointed out how stupid it is, and the lot of them are angry not because it's wrong but because it makes them and continues to make them look stupid.

Their arguments about "using children for political gain" look even stupider after they held a press conference and surrounded the president by children for his big signing.

Did you even WATCH the video? What the hell are you talking about paranoia? The effective security for the president's children was contrasted with his dismissal of the idea that the same security would work for everyone else's children.

Who is going to pay? Now if you will propose that these guards will be paid by a gun purchase and ownership tax or by the manufacturers themselves then I will support it! But it will be massively expensive to protect all our classrooms, theatres, shopping malls, places of worship, and everywhere else gun loonies occasionally lose it and vent their rage with gunfire on the innocents. Who do you want to bear this cost?

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

May be a bit off topic.. Obvious one of the Obama girls has become a woman. This is still pootcial. How do you date a presidents daughter. It must be bad being the child of any President. Can you imagine trying to get your first kiss with all that secret service around

I bet you have to have background checks out the yazzo to go out with one.

[scotinmass 588]

How do you date a presidents daughter. It must be bad being the child of any President. Can you imagine trying to get your first kiss with all that secret service around

I bet you have to have background checks out the yazzo to go out with one.

Katie Holmes was in a movie about that but the boyfriend was a secret service officer.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

Being from the UK, I am used to the general population being without firearms. I am also used to the police, on normal duty, being without firearms. The other half still looks at me with a slight sense of bewilderment whenever I react to yet another shooting incident here in the USA.

I can still remember the initial horror and consequent reaction after the Dunblane massacre in 1996, when 16 children of the same age as those at Sandy Hook were killed by another lone gunman. The UK does not have an armed presence in schools as a result.

However, as anti-gun ownership as I may be, I realise that there is one essential difference between the culture in the UK and what exists here in the USA. In the UK, gun ownership is rare. Here, gun ownership is commonplace, routine even. The police are armed all the time. Firearms have been a part of the way of life since this country's independence. Guns are out there. Everywhere. The Genie, so to speak, is out of the bottle.

And therein lies the problem here in the USA. It was still possible for the Dunblane gunman to carry out his attack and kill 16 children. Criminals and those determined to carry out acts like Columbine and Sandy Hook will always be able to find the means to do so, because there are so many guns already out there. The restrictions on firearm types and magazine capacities will have a far greater effect on the law-abiding gun owners than it will on those on the other side of the equation.

By all means increase background checks on gun buyers and their immediate family, to identify possible risk factors. Encourage greater gun safety and security in the home. Work on human side of the issue.

But leave the guns alone. You're going to leave the people at greater risk if you don't.

+1 You have pretty much the same opinion as my wife. She doesn't like firearms, doesn't want to use one in self defense etc. therefore I keep everything I own under lock and key which even she doesn't have access to. I'm not going to push her to do anything she isn't comfortable with.

[Ban Hammer 12,867]

closed pending review

[Penguin_ie 5,986]

**** Several posts removed for personal attacks or quoting same. Discuss the article in the OP civilly, or don't post. Thread bans and further admin action will be next *****