We can't win - the NRA is just too big

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Guns.

Boy, I don't know.

I'm torn on the social discussion, as guns are almost like the third rail. You start talking gun control and you can really create some animosity with friends in a small town.

I keep going back to a freedom is a privilege lost when abused.

We certainly have an abuse, but the freedom is too entrenched to lose.

If I was a Democrat running in primaries anywhere in the country, and we were less than a week from a national primary, and we just had another massacre committed at the hands of someone clearly suffering from mental illness, I would say this to the voters.

"There's nothing we can do."

I'm all about transparency, but the National Rifle Association is just too powerful. And there's nothing we can do politically."

It took all of three minutes for the GOP to jump on mental illness and how we have to do more to combat mental illness. Misdirection is in every politician's briefcase.

I can't help but think of a conversation with State Rep. Martin Graber who said a bill to eliminate the deadline for open enrollment was rushed through the Iowa legislature because of a video that surfaced about an LGBTQ party being held at an Ankeny public school.

They had the numbers to pass that bill on the emotion and disgust alone of what they saw in the video. The value of tolerance be damned.

Yet the focus gets shifted as video rolls in about 19 children and 2 teachers killed at an elementary in Uvalde, Texas. Where's the emotion there? Beto O'Rourke, the former presidential candidate who unveiled his candidacy in 2018 in Fort Madison, interrupted Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott's press conference on the shooting, pointing at him and telling him the massacre was on his hands until he decided to do something.

O'Rourke was escorted from the event.

If it's okay for a knee jerk reaction based on a video of students exercising rights as Americans to identify as they choose, it's probably okay for a knee jerk reaction to eliminate guns.

But Iowa doubled down and passed a bill allowing AR-15s to be used to kill antlerless deer in January in all 99 counties. Statements from Charles City Rep. Todd Prichard indicated these weapons can fire ammunition up to 2.5 miles as semi-automatics and still take a deer. But where does it go when they miss?

I'm a full believer in extending deer hunting seasons. In Wisconsin, I interviewed for a job in a town that allows a weekend bow hunt in town to help keep the deer population down. Deer cause millions of dollars of damage annually on Iowa roadways and they are an alternative source of food for many food-insecure Iowans.

But if the GOP can pass a last-minute law that seriously messes with public schools' abilities to budget and plan because of a video that was shared in the hallways, certainly this massacre... this time, would carry a vastly larger motivation for a quick bill to change the law.

It won't happen. The NRA is just too powerful. There's nothing we can do. Not because they aren't law-abiding citizens who are fighting to maintain 2nd amendment rights. I have Republican friends and I believe in their right to carry a firearm and defend themselves. I believe in allowing shotguns and rifles for hunting. I have many, many friends who hunt and that's critical to our ecosystems, environments, and economies.

But just like I believe it's Mark Zuckerberg's and Elon Musk's ultimate responsibility to get our children off their phones and back outside playing, it's the NRA's responsibility to cut into the frequency of mass shootings through education and marketing campaigns.

We did it with big tobacco and kids are smoking less and less.

We don't have to go after the guns because, for the most part, people are responsible with them and they have a right to continue to enjoy their lives that way. We don't pass laws aimed at taking guns, we pass laws with added taxes to ammunition and firearms that are used specifically for mental health campaigns, gun safety courses, hunter safety courses, enhanced conservation programs, and educational programs aimed specifically at curbing violent behavior.

The NRA is too big, too powerful, and too influential. They can and will lobby against higher prices for ammunition and guns. But so did Phillip Morris, But that's Beside the Point.

Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at charles.v@pencitycurrent.com.

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