You are either with the USA or the NRA. You can't be with both.

I went to bed Sunday night having written a reasonably cogent first draft of this week's episode. I woke up to the Las Vegas massacre. 

Over-60-white-guy with no history of crazy, with a pilot's license, with a seemingly normal family, registers in  a  Las Vegas hotel, and then three days later, shoots up an outdoor concert from the 32nd floor. 

Law enforcement found a cache of 19 weapons and assorted accouterments of destruction in the hotel room. Keep in mind, Nevada is an open-carry state where semi-automatic machine guns and concealed weapons are legal. An unknown number of the semi-automatic weapons had been converted to fully automatic. 

Legally. With one of these.  And you can hide them under your coat. No prob. And you can fully automate the little buggers with with mail-order Slide Fire SSR you can order from Cabela's for less than $300.00. Yes, folks, you, too, can have all the fully automatic weapons you ever wanted...legally...pretty much without any questions being asked. 

Regardless of his motivation, the real truth is over-60-white-guy did not act alone. He had to have help, an accomplice. He had to have been aided and abetted by someone. The guns and the after market equipment had to be readily available to him. And they were. They were out there in every store that sells guns. From Cabela's to Walmart. Not to mention outta the trunk of any number of "gun show dealers." 

These are weapons of war. They are not hunting rifles. They are not sport rifles. These implements have one purpose and one purpose only: to kill people. 

Then, my cousin Howard posted this status on Face Book today: 

You are either with the USA or the NRA. 

You can't be with both.

And it got me to thinking. He's spot on. There is no half-way in this conversation; the NRA is the main purveyor of death in this country. They enable and encourage death by bullet. They are the handmaidens to every massacre we have seen in the last 42 years. 

The NRA made over-60 Stephen Paddock possible. They are the ones who act as his accomplice, who make sure over-60-white-guy can get the guns and the after-market supplies to automate said guns. Who else is out helping anyone and everyone to buy any kind of gun at any time? They are the suppliers and the fixers. They are the ones putting the bullets on the streets and into the bodies of bystanders. They hide behind their posh offices and pretend the are merchants selling a product. 

But it's not a product; it's death.

(Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)

So what discussion should we be having? 

• That over-60-white-guy has issues, maybe even a brain tumor that made him crazy and he's wasn't really responsible for his actions? 
• That he should be labeled a domestic terrorist and rave accordingly?
• That had more people been carrying guns, someone coulda taken this guy out from across the street?
• That more than 4 dozen people are dead and more than 525 are wounded because he was not just able to buy semi-automatic weaponry, he was able to upgrade them to full automatic?

Or are we going to have a conversation, and ultimately a set of laws dealing with the ready availability of  semi-automatic guns ? Can we finally hold the NRA accountable for its active role in the continuation of mass murder in this country?

As desperately as we need that conversation, I don't think it's going to happen any time soon. The overly deep pockets of the NRA will continue its congressional purchase policy as long as they can. And they have successfully perverted the Second Amendment into something it was never meant to be: the right to kill.

Don't believe me....try this latest piece of destruction: 

The first responders in Las Vegas were able to find the shooter because they were able to triangulate initially by sound. They could hear the bullets, determine the direction from whence they came, and by using their ears and their eyes they were able to spot the window from which over-60-white-guy was shooting. 

Sound. Ears. Location. 

At the moment, the House is set to hear the "sportsman" bill that will make suppressors (aka silencers) easily obtainable. The NRA claims this is an "important safety-oriented aspect of the bill that will help protect the hearing of America's hunters." 

Sure it will. 

We cannot be a nation made up entirely of tootsie dicks. There cannot possibly be a significant segment of our population that really believes everyone should have access to  silencers, not to mention automatic weapons. There cannot really be people out there lobbying who actually believe adding a silencer to a gun is either sportsmanlike or will protect their hearing. These are the same people who roar around on ATVs and snowmobiles. They can't wear earmuffs like you wear on the lawn tractor or the home work shop? Really? 

I've written about the Second Amendment 5 times:

1. July 23, 2012:             The Second Amendment ~ Stuff You Might Not Know         
2. August 6, 2012:           The Second Amendment ~ Part 2                                    
3. December 17, 2012:    The Second Amendment ~ Part 3: Enough Is Enough          
4. May 6, 2013:               The Second Amendment ~ Part 4: Blown Away                 
5. September 16, 2013:   The Second Amendment ~ Part 5: Gory, Gory, Hallelujah! 

I don't want to write about it again. Every year, we have a new "greatest mass shooting" in the US history. Makes it sound like a record to be broken, but it's not. It's a tragedy. Up until last year's presidential election, I actually hoped we might be on the path toward reasonable gun legislation. 

Apparently not.

Waiting for Congress to do something is what we do best. Expecting congress to do something is a pipe dream. The refusal to take up gun legislation has become a hallmark of our government. If the shooting was an "act of pure evil," then silence in the face of repeated mass shootings is an act of pure cowardice.

Of course, had over-60-white-guy been some other color or a practitioner of a different faith, well, that would be a very different story. The fallout would be spectacular. The conversation we would be having is not the one we need, but the convenient, divisive one that slapped label after label after label onto a human being regardless of applicability. Instead, we are wondering why a seemingly successful, reasonable human being like over-60-white-guy shot up a plaza. Already people are making excuses for him. 

Talk about white privilege. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Normal people don't send "warm" condolences; that's just weird.