Exclusive: The defeat of a modest gun-safety bill in the Senate is further vindication of Orwell’s cynical observation that “who controls the past controls the future” since the American Right has persuaded millions of Americans that a false narrative about the Second Amendment is true, says Robert Parry.
Exclusive: Just a few months after 20 first-graders were mowed down by a deranged killer wielding an assault rifle, the prospects of restraining this gun madness are fading. A major factor is the Right’s success in promulgating a bogus history of what the Framers were doing with the Second Amendment, writes Robert Parry.
Even as Democratic leaders propose gun-safety laws – after the slaughter of 20 first-graders in Newtown – they try to sound “reasonable” by genuflecting to the myth of Second Amendment “rights.” But this acceptance of right-wing propaganda is dooming these life-saving initiatives, says Beverly Bandler.
Exclusive: For years as a police officer and Navy reservist, Christopher Dorner was what the NRA would call “a good guy with a gun,” but something snapped when he was fired from the LAPD, transforming him into “a bad guy with a gun,” an important new argument for gun control, says Robert Parry.
President Obama’s Second Inaugural Address surprised some pundits with his strong messages on climate change, immigration reform, gun safety and other social issues. But whether real action follows will depend on a shift in public consciousness, says Robert F. Dodge.
Exclusive: Elements of the American Right are suggesting that Barack Obama, the twice-elected President of the United States, is a tyrant whose gun-control plans should be resisted by force, a gross and dangerous distortion of why the Framers wrote the Second Amendment, says Robert Parry.
As America prepares for the Second Inaugural of its first African-American president – and as demands grow for some commonsense gun control after a horrific school massacre – the Right is arming itself amid hysterical rhetoric about the need to “shoot tyrants,” ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.
Easy civilian access to powerful weapons is a recipe for greater domestic violence, just as an over-emphasis on military force leads to more wars, a conundrum that requires a greater commitment to both arms control and systems for resolving disputes peacefully, observes Lawrence S. Wittner.
Much as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once opined that the sanctions-related deaths of Iraqi children was “worth it,” many Americans seem to believe that the periodic slaughter of children at home is just the price for their “liberty” to own lots of guns, a throwback to frontier days, says Lawrence Davidson.
Exclusive: A big obstacle to commonsense gun control is the Right’s false historical narrative that the Founders wanted an armed American public that could fight its own government. The truth is that George Washington looked to citizens militias to put down revolts and maintain order, says Robert Parry.
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