The National Gun Victims Action council is one of dozens of small gun control groups founded by a grieving parent. In this case it’s Eliot Fineman [above] whose son Michael was gunned down in 2006. According to the org’s website, “This utterly senseless act was committed by a mentally ill man who had no legal right to a gun yet was able to buy it legally because of holes in the background check database.” At sentencing, the killer’s lawyer said his client’s mental illness went untreated. And even if the NICS check had stopped Ralph Garbarini from buying a gun, the madman might have acquired a firearm from another source. That said, I’m not a grieving parent who’s spent an eternity playing woulda coulda shoulda. Thank God. But it’s important to note that that trauma can lead to this . . .
Wayne LaPierre Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the NRA has been in the news a lot of late. He gave the NRA’s response to the massacre at Sandy Hook—never mentioning anything about the victims in his speech. He did speak of his proposed National School Shield Program but did not talk about a Shield program for theaters in Aurora, CO or shopping malls in Portland Oregon, or parking lots in Tucson, AZ. He has testified before Congress, has been interviewed extensively on T.V., radio, is often quoted in print, and was a speaker at the recent CPAC in Washington D.C.
He is taken as a serious commentator on issues related to guns. He assures us that the only reason we have any of our freedoms is due to the Second Amendment. That if we lived in a country without a Second Amendment we would be pitiless slaves—without any freedoms—under the rule of tyrants. Was he talking about living in countries like England, France, Italy, and Sweden? (A country to live in with no gun regulations—LaPierre’s dream—is Somalia.) Does he have a point? Are his rants sensible or are they, in fact, the rants of a psychopath?
Fineman’s blog goes on to share professional criteria for what constitutes a psychopath, clearly indicating that he believes the NRA Prez qualifies.
I know Wayne comes over a bit stiff. OK, a lot stiff. But Fineman’s ad hominem attack on the NRA jefe tells us more about Mr. Fineman than it does about Mr. LaPierre. It tells us that he’s looking for someone to blame for his son’s incredibly random, indeed senseless death. That man is in jail.
Mr. Fineman doesn’t see it that way. He believes the NRA, the gun industry and gun nuts are to blame for firearms-related death and injury. And so he wants to disarm civilians, people who fear the fate that befell Mr. Fineman’s son. And Mr. Fineman. That’s deeply misguided and not a little ironic. But it’s also sad. And dangerous.
According to his website, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, the United Church of Christ, the National Council of Churches (NCC), and the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) support the National Gun Victims Action Council. They would do well to see the hatred buried in Mr. Fineman’s heart and move away. No good can come of it.