ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE GUNS

I, Oliver Laurence North, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

That is  the oath that Oliver North swore both verbally and in writing when he entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland and, indeed except for a change of name, the oath which every Federal employee swears upon joining Federal service. Please note that those swearing this oath are swearing their allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. No one swears allegiance to a president, a flag, a senator, congressperson, or even Congress. Much less is there any reference to any religion or philosophy or political party. It is the Constitution of the United States to which we swear our allegiance, pledges to the flag not withstanding.

Yes, Oliver North swore that oath and then violated it. It is why Oliver Laurence North, the new president of the National Rifle Association is a traitor and a criminal, the very outlaw that the NRA for decades claimed to oppose having guns. By electing Oliver North to the presidency of the NRA that organization has finally acknowledged that their current management has no regard for the Constitution of the United States, the laws and traditions of the nation or anything but gun manufacturers' profits and neo-Fascist politics.

Let's look back at North's career to understand why he is a criminal and a traitor.

Before he left the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland North had already killed a fellow classmate in an auto accident. North served as a Second Lieutenant during the Vietnam War and received a number of decorations. He also appeared at the trial of Lance Corporal Randall Herrod four other soldiers accused in the murder of sixteen Vietnamese civilians in the village of San Thang. Thanks in part to North's efforts Herrod and one of the other private soldiers were acquitted of murder though three of the four under Herrod's command on that day were convicted.

Once his tour in Vietnam was over North became an instructor at the Marine training facility at Quantico, Virginia. With its proximity to Washington, D. C. and frequent visits by major political figures as well as his contacts with fellow Annapolis classmates and rabid anti-communism, North parlayed his career as an instructor into an appointment to the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan.

It was at the NSC that North received his appointment as Lieutenant Colonel and reached the infamous height of his career. Under National Security Advisors Robert McFarlane and John Poindexter and with the cooperation of CIA Director William Casey, North managed the secret and unlawful sale of arms to the Iranian government and appropriation of the cash proceeds to finance that vicious Contras of Nicaragua and the spill over of that conflict into El Salvador. North was famously a friend of Panamanian Dictator and drug smuggler, Manuel Noriega, who spent most of the time from his capture in 1991 until his death in 2017 in U. S., French and Panamanian jails for a variety of crimes including drug smuggling, fraud and various human rights violations including murder.

North escaped prison for his treason, obstruction of justice and documented lying to Congress through the aid of his many ultra-right wing and neo-Fascist pals as well as the good offices of the American Civil Liberties Union. He's gone on to attempt a political career and then settled down to live off the largess of Rupert Murdock and those other alt-right pals alluded to above. And now he's the president of the NRA. Is there any wonder that the NRA is now tainted by Russian Spy Maria Butina and questionable money flowing into the NRA's coffers and thence out to the political campaigns of a lot of neo-Fascist candidates including one Donald J. Trump? It seems that once a traitor, always a traitor. Once a funneler of dark money, always a crook. The fact that the outlaw North is the figurehead for the organization making sure that outlaws have guns is just too ironic and delicious to let pass without comment.

This fanatic ideologue, North, who betrayed his oath of office, betrayed the Constitution and his nation has no criminal conviction on his record yet the absence of a conviction does not expunge the crimes against the United States that he committed. Thousands of people nationwide now have the voting rights withheld because they were convicted of felonies of infinitely less consequence than the treasonous acts of Oliver North but North, having escaped prison on a technicality is a darling of the neo-Fascist right and is now the president of the National Rifle Association. It seems perfectly consonant with the election of North, no fan of American democracy, that the NRA is now being investigated for ties to the Russian government and its attempts to undermine American democracy.

I am not opposed to firearms ownership. I was once a member of the National Rifle Association. I joined in the early 1970s. I was a gun owner with a small collection of replica black powder and more modern cartridge weapons.In 1977 when the neo-fascist lunatics led by Wayne LaPierre among others took over the NRA I dropped my membership rather than be associated with their misinterpretation of the Second Amendment and ultra-right wing politics. The idea that even my small annual dues might finance a legislative program and a political philosophy that was anathema to me was something I could not brook.

Let me be clear here. I believe that there is a right to keep and bear arms...for self-protection, for hunting, target shooting, trap (clay target) shooting and similar sports. I believe that the National Guard and similar official units such as police forces have a right to keep and bear military style weapons but I think that the weapons available for personal protection and those used by sport shooter and those used by the military and police are and should be different. The former group has no need of weapons similar to the AR-15 or AK-47 designed for military use and that, in fact, those weapons are completely unsuitable for home defense or hunting. The NRA, on the other hand, shilling for the gun manufacturing industry, promotes such weapons despite their unsuitability.

Let's consider that issue of suitability for home defense and hunting for a moment. Following the murder  of twenty-seven very young children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012 Vice-President Joe Biden was roundly derided for suggesting that a shotgun was a preferable weapon for home defense to any assault rifle. No one managed to point out that pre-1977 articles in the NRA's magazine, The American Rifleman, and other gun sports magazines had promoted shotguns as the optimal home defense weapon. I have written in detail about this in a now lost post so let me briefly explain the logic here again.

We have all heard of children and adults wounded or killed inside a home during a drive-by shooting whose target was someone out on a sidewalk in front of the home. People inside a house get killed or wounded as collateral damage because the high energy bullets from an assault rifle or high-powered handgun penetrate the siding, insulation and interior wallboard of the house with enough energy to kill or wound. Most shotgun pellets, on the other hand, have significantly lower energy and are more easily stopped or slowed to less lethal force by intervening obstacles. So let's consider a home owner roused in the night by the noise of an invader in his or her home. The homeowner wakes, bleary, uncertain of time or what's going on. This homeowner may have to find glasses, decide whether or not to turn on a light (don't) and then retrieve a weapon. In the dim light and uncertain situation the homeowner is as likely to shoot a child up for a drink of water as a violent intruder. Still, we will suppose that the children are still in bed across the hall.

So the homeowner is awakened by an intruder in the house. He hears through his sleep some odd sound and is suddenly awake. First let's consider "suddenly awake". I have been awakened by odd noises in the night. I have to fumble for my glasses, put them on and blink a few times or wipe my eyes to get anything like clear vision. I have to get out of bed. If there's an intruder on the stairs or in the hall I need to be as quiet as possible. I don't want to turn on a light because my eyes, adjusted now to the darkness, are going to be momentarily blinded by any light source, a light source that could signal the intruder to either flee or take some violent action. I will not know which until one or the other actually happens so keeping the light off gives me something of an advantage.

If I have a handgun or an assault rifle, I need to be sure of my target but can I be in the darkness and confusion of my sudden waking? Have I managed to get my glasses on or my vision cleared when a figure looms in the bedroom doorway? If I aim and miss the high energy bullet from my handgun or rifle is going to travel until it hits something substantial enough to stop it's flight. In most homes built since the 1950s the walls are going to be wood or metal framing covered with sheet rock and filled with insulation of one sort or another. Unless the bullet hits a wood or metal frame member, it is unlikely to lose enough energy to stop or even be significantly slowed. You have a significant chance of killing the child or other relative sleeping in the room across the hall with your miss with that single bullet. In a worst case scenario your stray bullet might even manage to kill or wound a neighbor in the next house.

Now you may say, "I'm an excellent shot. I keep my cool in stressful situations. I'll get the bad guy." I'm sure that you think so but we are not in an ideal situation and, given all the deficits in the scenario, all your preparation and composure may be insufficient. So let's consider an alternative.

Let's say that you have a shotgun and let's suppose that you have loaded it using some foresight. The first shell to fire is full of number 6 bird shot and the second shell contains 00 Buckshot. You see the intruder and fire the first barrel or shell and the 394 .106 diameter #6 pellets from your 1¼ ounce load in your 3 inch shot shell. Those pellets spread out rapidly forming a wide wall many of which will hit your intruder unless your estimate of your aiming skills are exceptionally overrated. Your chance of 1 of 394 pellets hitting your target is greatly increased as is the likelihood of many pellets hitting the intruder. Unless this person is seriously trying to kill you or insane, the intruder is likely to think better of this intrusion and get the hell out of your home at this point. However, if he doesn't leave you have a second shell loaded with 10 .33 diameter 00 (pronounced Double Ought) Buckshot pellets, a blast that is likely to rip your intruder apart.

But aren't a lot of those many pellets going to miss and go flying across the hall? Many of them will miss, especially the #6 pellets but the energy of those pellets is low enough that they are likely to be stopped by 2 or 3 layers of sheet rock plus insulation. Your family members or guests in your home are far less likely to be killed or injured by lower energy shotgun pellets than by high energy bullets from rifles or handguns. Even the much higher energy buckshot is likely to be stopped or rendered relatively harmless by all the intervening materials through which the pellets would pass before reaching someone in another room.

So why does the NRA promote assault rifles for home defense if they are not ideal and liable to kill or injure unintended targets? Because the NRA was taken over in 1977 by a group financed by ultra-right wing gun manufacturers who were primarily interested in promoting their weapons. In 1977 the Vietnam War was lost. The demand for assault rifles was very low but manufacturers had lots of factory space committed to making parts for and assembling such rifles. Convincing the gun owning population that these were appropriate weapons for hunting and home defense meant that the assembly lines for AR-15s and the like could remain active. Editing out the reference to a "well-regulated militia" in the Second Amendment was also key to this nefarious plan. These fanatics knew that no one in the general population would bother to read the documents from the 1790s relative to the adoption to that amendment.

Corporations have the best lawyers that money can buy. Gun Manufacturing corporations like, Colt, Ruger, Remington and Winchester amongst others have the best and most craven lawyers that money can buy.  Of course those corporations don't have to buy the worst and most craven lawyers directly. They can funnel money through the NRA, Gun Owners of America, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the Second Amendment Foundation, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the National Association for Gun Rights. They can even buy members of The Federalist Society and Judges like the late, but not late enough, In-Justice Antonin Scalia and current Supreme Court In-Justices like Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.These bought and paid for shills for the firearms industry have managed to twist an amendment created in 1790 to protect the rights of states to maintain militias as a counter to excesses by a Federal standing army into an individual right to keep and bear arms which was never intended when the Bill of Rights was drafted.

For decades the NRA has promoted the bumper sticker slogan, "If guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns." Perhaps we now need a new bumper sticker. It should have a photo of North and the NRA seal with the slogan, "Guns aren't outlawed and now an outlaw has the NRA." Maybe throw in an image of Vladimir Putin applauding North too.