Last week, I mentioned how ironic it was that the Bush administration would be enforcing strict gun control policies in Iraq while simultaneously allowing our domestic ban on assault weapons to expire.
I wondered whether groups like the National Rifle Association, which tends to view unlimited access to firearms among the most important freedoms an individual can have, would “complain about the administration’s draconian gun control policies in Iraq.”
I was joking around, but the point is legitimate. The NRA takes a “purist” perspective when it comes to gun control and the right to bear arms. That’s not necessarily a criticism, just an observation. To be sure, the ACLU takes a purist approach to civil liberties, Americans United for Separation of Church and State takes a purist approach to government and religion.
But a purist perspective tends to boil down to two words — no exceptions. For a group like Americans United, that means they fight any effort to break down the church-state wall. They don’t think church and state should be separate most of the time, it’s church-state separation with no exceptions.
The NRA takes a nearly identical approach when it comes to guns — we have a right to bear arms with no exceptions. That’s exactly why the administration’s new Iraq policies offer the NRA an interesting opportunity — criticize their friends in the White House as a means of displaying ideological and intellectual consistency. If they believe gun control limits freedom, here’s their chance to say so.
This point was not lost on Slate’s Tim Noah, one of my favorites, who wrote yesterday about the NRA’s noticeable silence on this issue.
“It’s fun to imagine how the NRA would sweat its way through this question,” Noah said. “If it supported the Iraq ban, it would win points for supporting our troops overseas but lose a lot more by creating an impression that it had gone soft. If the NRA opposed the Iraq ban, it would be give greater weight to the rights of gun owners than to the lives of American soldiers, not to mention all Iraqis who aspire to a form of government more exalted than mere anarchy.”
When I started following this last week, I checked the NRA’s site several times, including at least once a day, trying to find some statement or reaction. I found nothing. Tim Noah, a better reporter than me, took the next logical step — he called them and asked for a comment. He’s been calling for a week, and each time he gets to an NRA employee, he’s told he’ll get a response. Of course, they never call back.
So Noah is going to have a little fun with this for a while. Yesterday he announced the inauguration of “The NRA Weasel Watch,” which Noah said will “document the NRA’s ongoing efforts to duck” the question of whether or not the group supports or opposes the administration’s new gun control policies in Iraq.
As of today, “The NRA Weasel Watch” is on Day 8. I’ll keep you posted as to what happens.