This just in from BLOOMINGTON, Ill.

2 men shot, wounded at central Ill. gun show

Two men have been injured in what officials say was an accidental shooting at a central Illinois gun show.
AP,  12:15 p.m. CST, February 26, 2011. Read the rest here in the Chicago Tribune.

Did you know 34 people are killed every day with guns? -- fixgunchecks.org

Every time there is a new shooting tragedy the spokespeople from the NRA have to create a response. I’ve heard enough of them to anticipate their verbiage. Here is my impression of an NRA supporter’s response.  I think it will go a little like this:

“How come the media never report on all the guns shows where there are no shootings? Huh? One little mistake and suddenly it’s, ‘Oh we have to shut down all the guns shows, they are too dangerous.’  It was just a silly accident, get over it. It’s no worse than a forklift accident at a trade show.

I’ll bet this will trigger the Brady bunch to shut down all guns shows. What if they applied the same standard to car shows after someone was killed at a car show? They wouldn’t shut down all the car shows, would they?

Or how about a cookware show where someone accidentally cuts themselves with a knife?  Huh? What about that? Do you want to shut down all the cookware shows?

Guns shows are just like any other trade shows of deadly objects. You gun grabbers are just looking for an excuse to take our guns and stop our trade shows.

Why don’t you focus on the Rachael Ray Gusto-Grip Line of Santoku Knives? Did you know that every day 34 people lose a finger to Rachael Ray’s knives? Do you every read THOSE stories? No. It’s the dirty little secret of the cookware industry. But the liberal cooking show media won’t tell you that.  How do you think Obama’s man Rahm Emanuel lost his finger?  All the media want to do is talk about is the 34 people killed by guns every day.

Or how about the new Chevy Volt. I’ll bet you didn’t know that the Volt is predicted to kill more people than any gun ever made! You can bet the Volt Owners of America won’t be putting those statistics out when they happen! Yet we are expected to acknowledge ever little shooting like it’s a big deal. It’s not! Shootings happen all the time, but why doesn’t the press do stories about the millions of NON-shootings! There wasn’t a single shooting on my block this week. Why don’t they cover that? The bias in the media makes me sick. If you folks would read American Rifleman or Armed Citizen you could see some real unbiased stories of lives saved by shootings and non-shootings.

Could the Media people write a story about the millions of lives saved by people who answer the door with a loaded shotgun? Sure they could, but NOOOOOO. They want to talk about how Jared Loughner shot 32 bullets in 16 seconds. Maybe one time in a billion someone handling a gun screws up. But the second that a terrorist comes knocking on your door suddenly everyone is in favor of guns all of a sudden. If you folks get killed in a home invasion trying to fend off someone with an AR-15 with a Gusto-Grip knife, don’t come crying to me. Because I won’t be listening, I’ll be cleaning my gun!”

Signed,
Perry Latt Pierre. Real American.

I’ve noticed that when the media cover incidents like this the NRA isn’t ever tasked with a solution to the problem.  Why not?  Because they have defined their job as making the world safer for guns, not people.  So when there is a shooting tragedy nobody goes to them and demands, “Seriously, how would you fix this problem?”  They don’t have to actually come up with solutions that work, because they don’t care about real solutions  (a real solution isn’t, “everyone should wear guns.” That’s preposterous on its face.)

The NRA and GOA pass onto their members methods to counter any suggestions of sensible actions. They create strawmen, use specious arguments and redefine whole classes of objects, all in the continuing quest to never “lose” the conversation.  The majority of NRA members aren’t as radical as their leadership. But it is the leadership and the radical members who define them to the public.

Why do we have to solve the problems that they create? Because they don’t see it as a problem.

I think Sparky the Penguin said it best when he said to a gun’s rights person:

“Barring some seismic realignment in this country, the gun control debate is all but settled–and your side won. The occasional horrific civilian massacre is just the price the rest of us have to pay. Over and over again, apparently.”

I don’t know why you humans let the NRA supporters win arguments, it’s not like they are holding a gun to your head while they are arguing with you. One thing I do know–the gun people on your planet make it hard to live long or prosper.