Is the Gun Lobby Giving Material Support to Narco-terrorists?

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Related subjects: Arms Proliferation, Denver Lessing, Diplomacy & Politics, Legislation, Opinion, U.S. Politics Comments (2)

15 March 2009 :: Denver Lessing

The web of interests concentrated in the National Rifle Association and which spends millions of dollars to lobby against gun control legislation in Congress may be inadvertently aiding in the reign of terror being waged by drug cartels in northern Mexico. Recent reports suggest as much as 90% of the weapons used by the cartels come from north of the border.

The gun lobby has consistently argued against any form of gun control, even against the logic of barring civilians from carrying concealed semi-automatic weapons. During his tenure as governor of Texas, George W. Bush signed legislation that allowed Texans to carry concealed weapons into churches, amusement parks and diners, among other public places.

The money and the effort being spent by the gun lobby to break down government’s ability to prosecute the illegal gun trade or to halt the proliferation of highly dangerous firearms, has in effect made it far easier for Mexico’s most brutal narco-terrorists to acquire weapons.

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The NRA is not, of course, guilty of the horrors being committed in Ciudad Juárez, nor is it complicit in the assassination of public officials who oppose the drug cartels, it has not created the smuggling routes that criss-cross the border, nor is it interested in the negative PR that the recent statistic of 90% of firearms coming from the US will bring it, but it has worked hard to achieve a state of affairs where the illegal cross-border gun-trade is far easier to execute.

The administration of George W. Bush detained, held without charge (for years), then prosecuted a man accused of simply driving a car (and related services) for Osama Bin Laden, as giving “material support” to Al Qaeda. An American citizen found in a Taliban camp in Afghanistan, who had traveled there to study Islam, and who was captured injured, hiding and unarmed, had his constitutional rights (initially) stripped, was labeled and “enemy combatant”, and was charged with giving “material support” to terrorists.

The nation of Iran has long been assailed by American officials as giving “material support” to Palestinian militant groups, largely for making arms more available by a complex of regional relationships and black market channels. Though many of those channels may not be linked directly to the Iranian establishment, it has been standard US policy to accuse Iran of actively providing support to Hamas and other groups.

Now, the NRA is not likely to be engaged in such flagrant acts of illegality, but its attitude of moral indifference to the consequences of small arms proliferation throughout the US market clearly has made more weapons available for criminal entities to take advantage of.

The crux of the gun lobby problem is that its efforts have been aggressive and have arguably led to such a proliferation of small arms in US society that there is now a massive surplus, far beyond the real “need” experienced by the population at large. So we have to ask a series of key questions:

What effect has the aggressive lobbying of Congress had on the gun market? How much is that effort worth? Was it necessary to spend so much money in order to defend manufacturers’ or hunters’ rights? Is the campaign used to do so dishonest about the risk to citizens’ safety? How does the mass proliferation of small arms in the US compare to the availability of such weapons in societies without such a lobby? And, how much added violence can be attributed to the excess availability of firearms?

Let’s put the 2nd Amendment aside for a moment — reasonable law scholars disagree about whether or not the “right of the people to keep and bear Arms” was intended to be linked only to “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”, or whether it was intended to grant all citizens the right to carry handguns and semi-automatic firearms.

There was no standing army at the time of the Constitution, because the founders believed a standing army was a tool of tyrants and a substantive threat to the democratic union of free states. Militia were privately organized and privately held weapons were a basic necessity to allow for a system of mutual defense based on “well regulated militia” to work.

If we consider that existing law bars rebellion against the US, that the Civil War was THE definitive commentary on the relevance of bearing arms to the potential of the people to defend against a tyrannical government, and that we have a military complex far more powerful and deeply rooted than any historical “standing army”, personal sport or defense against crime remain the only credible logic behind barring all gun control.

In fact, strict gun control would not require a ban on weapons licensed for hunting, sport shooting or personal safety. So, one could argue that, except for the desire to push the proliferation of small arms, for the profit of interests backing the intense lobbying of Congress, there is no serious threat to 2nd Amendment rights from gun control and no sound legal basis for the lobbying effort itself. This would mean that one could argue the entire activity is superfluous, and that at least as an ethical failing, the gun lobby is in part responsible for the resulting violence and chaos that may ensue from their efforts.

If we accept this premise, it’s not because anyone is contemplating ascribing legal responsibility to the gun industry or to law-abiding gun-owners, nor even to the aggressive stance of the gun lobby, for crimes committed by narco-terrorists; it is, however, incumbent upon all who have a say in the matter to act responsibly and to think more seriously about how to stop the spread of weapons from licensed, law-abiding citizens to armed criminals, organized crime and narco-terrorists in foreign states.

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