Wayne LaPierre Retires

 By now, you have heard the news that Wayne LaPierre Is Retiring As NRA CEO and Executive Vice President, if you are a gun owner. Cam Edwards has the report over at Bearing Arms. Gentle readers can read Edwards' piece for themselves. I want to say a few words though.

I have been in the past, and right up until this year, a member of the NRA. But I have often disagreed with the approach taken by the National Rifle Association toward the Second Amendment. The NRA was established by Union Army officers after the Civil War as a way to improve the marksmanship of the average rifleman, which they deemed abyssimal. They wanted men already trained in good marksmanship if we had to go to war again. Now, the NRA has done many good things for the gun owning community, but it had by the early 1970s become a club for Fudds-gentleman hunters and trap and skeet shooters for whom guns were a hobby. But that was not the intent of the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment was placed in the Bill of Rights to maintain a pool of men who could be called upon in times of emergency to fight off foreign invaders and those inside who threatened tyranny. The Second Amendment anticipated the right of self-defense as an ancillary part of its intended mission. The framers also clearly anticipated technological improvements to "arms" which is why that term was used and not "single shot muzzle loading muskets." So, why then did not the NRA, claiming to speak for the 2A community, tell our Congressmen "not no but hell no" to "compromises" to our Second Amendment rights? Had the NRA fought harder, perhaps we wouldn't today have that abortion known as the Gun Control Act of 1968 and subsequent "compromises." Has any "gun control" legislation actually accomplished its purported purposes? For those who are wondering, the answer is "No! None have worked as advertised, to reduce crime, but all have burdened the exercise of the Second Amendment."

I am sorry to have to say this, but the NRA has failed in its fundamental mission. And a great deal of that can be laid at the feet of Wayne LaPierre. Good riddance. Now, maybe the NRA can resolve its legal issues and become the no compromise organization gun owners deserve.