The Chris Moeller Archives

The law abiders

This week has been a banner week in Iowa for the National Rifle Association. A story almost tailor-made for them played out in Western Iowa and it allowed the lobby group to score major points on statewide media and beyond. Rodney Long, a 38-year-old escapee from the Clarinda Correctional Facility, was shot dead by a 71-year-old retiree that he was holding hostage in a farmhouse along with the man’s wife.

In yesterday’s Des Moines Register, a representative from a group called the Iowa Firearms Coalition (an NRA-affiliated club), was quoted within the first seven paragraphs of the front page, “above-the-fold” story in response to the shooting. A spokesman said that it was “definitely a living example of why our right to keep and bear arms is important,” and he lamented that “more of these stories don’t get the media’s attention. There are people who defend themselves from criminals in their homes every day in the U.S.” Today, there’s a follow-up story online and in the print edition of the paper about the “renewed call” in Iowa for a “stand your ground” law in the wake of Long’s killing.

Now here’s the part of the same news story that nobody focuses on. The escapee Long was only armed because he broke into another farmhouse first and stole ammunition and a semi-automatic handgun. So once again we’re examining the tale of a “law-abiding” gun owner having failed to keep his or her firearms safe from the “bad guys.” Time and time again we’re told that the “good guys” need to be armed to keep us safe from criminals and then that philosophy put into practice leads to violence. The same thing happened in Newtown, Connecticut. Law-abiding citizen Nancy Lanza failed to keep her firearm out of the hands of her dangerous son, Adam, and 26 school children and educators were murdered.

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Tuff without a gun: Now, for what it’s worth, a story about a mentally-unstable would-be shooter being disarmed by human compassion.

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Here’s a fact that’s more inescapable than the Clarinda Correctional Facility: “Stand your ground” laws are racist. There was never any doubt that Sanford, Florida police were there to protect George Zimmerman, not Trayvon Martin, even though the facts of their tragedy portray a story in which Martin was the one with the moral authority to “stand his ground.” And nobody older than me can remember gun rights activists coming to the political aid of the Black Panthers when they were encouraging their members to carry guns and defend themselves against violence in the late '60s and early '70s.

posted by CM @ 8:52 PM