After the nation was shaken by the massacre of schoolchildren at
Sandy Hook Elementary, the NRA showed their hand on the simple
proposition of expanding background checks to all gun sales.

Though 90 percent of the nation – even those voters in Red States —
favored the plan to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, NRA
pressure led Senate Republicans to block the bipartisan measure.

After that shameful outcome, it was assumed that another item on the
gun safety agenda – tightening up laws that allowed the mentally ill and
emotionally disturbed to obtain firearms – would go through Congress.

That never happened. But in Colorado – home of Columbine and the
Aurora Theater shootings and other mass murders – state legislators took
matters into their own hands.

The Legislature, with the support of the governor, recently pushed
legislation that would clarify who is dangerous enough to be held for
mental health treatment against their will and who should be sent to
emergency psychiatric care. Of course, who is eligible to possess a
firearm also figures into this process.
Yet, even a scaled-down version of the legislation drew heavy
opposition from those who called it a “backdoor attempt at gun control”
by the government.
We apparently have the NRA and other groups defending the mentally
deranged and their Second Amendment rights — to possess a gun of any
kind, a semi-automatic pistol, or even an assault-style AR-15 rifle
that’s based on the firepower our troops used in Vietnam.
The scariest part of this scenario is that the most outspoken
opponents to the legislation are not the NRA but a group called the
Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. The Denver Post reports that the RMGO is
considered an extreme gun rights group by the NRA.

The RGMO issued an “alert” to their members that said: “The
gun-grabbers are back at it again, reintroducing an anti-gun bill under
the guise of ‘mental health.”
In a state where proposals for expanded background checks for
Colorado led to several lawmakers being recalled, one frustrated
legislator said: “Any bill that doesn’t deal with guns, but people think
it does, will have difficulties.”
As disturbing as the gun rights groups reneging on mental health
issues is, their fierce opposition to so-called smart guns may be more
telling.
A smart gun is a firearm that can only be discharged when the user
wears a special bracelet that looks similar to a watch. Initially, a
code or password is entered into the numbers on the watch so that only
the gun owner can activate the bracelet. With this technology, if the
bracelet is more than 10 inches from the gun, it will not fire.

So, the smart gun is essentially child-proof, it eventually could put
gun thieves out of business, it protects a person who has drawn their
weapon but drops it in a scuffle, and it provides protection to law
enforcement and the military.

And, of course, the NRA opposes them. As a result, the smart gun is not for sale anywhere in America.

The concept of a smart gun has existed for many years but one
legendary firearms designer has crafted a pistol known as the Armatix
iP1 that represents a breakthrough. A key reason for the design is to
prevent the thousands of deaths and injuries that take place each year
across the nation when children get their hands on a weapon.


But it turns out that police and battlefield troops also like the
idea. Law enforcement sees the smart gun as a solution to perpetrators
who grab an officer’s firearm during an arrest or altercation and start
shooting.
In an interview last week, a former Department of Defense official
who served under Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said smart guns would put an
end to the raids by insurgents on caches of U.S. weapons that the
military establishes in areas near war zones.
But the armed forces have met their match in the NRA and its rabid
followers. As MSNBC reported, gun rights supporters have successfully
bullied and intimidated two stores from selling the Armatix. They see a slippery
slope in a 2002 New Jersey law which mandates that once a smart gun goes
on sale anywhere in the country, New Jersey gun sellers have three years to take all other guns off the shelves and sell only those with smart gun technology.
The NRA-types have visions of state-by-state government takeovers
leaping around in their heads. In response, a key legislator in New
Jersey has offered a compromise: the legislature will drop the mandate
if the NRA promises not to stand in the way of the development and
free-market sale of smart weapons.

And, of course, the answer from the NRA was a big fat “no.”

The two gun shop owners who backed off from selling the Armatix after
receiving threats are located in the Los Angeles area and in New
Jersey. Imagine the backlash if a gun shop in Texas or Alabama attempted
to sell the smart gun.
The most troubling aspect of this skirmish is the story of the New
Jersey gun seller, Andy Raymond. Knowing a backlash would come, Raymond
dug in, saying that gun-rights advocates who denounce those who try to
block the sale of assault-style weapons are hypocrites for trying to ban
smart guns.
Makes sense – except in the world of the NRA, where the Second
Amendment must be expanded until ordinary citizens openly carry weapons
everywhere they go. Church? Sports stadiums? The bar? Yup.

The venom aimed at Raymond included explicit death threats, dozens of
crude comments on Facebook saying he is guilty of treason, and
countless angry phone calls. The night before the Armatix was to go on
sale, Raymond slept in his shop for fear someone would burn it down.
Then he sat down in front of his video camera and delivered a
YouTube-style declaration that he had changed his mind and would not
sell the controversial weapon.

It was quite a scene, a bit of a microcosm of America’s ugly gun culture.

There was Raymond, sitting at a desk, drinking whiskey from a large
bottle, smoking cigarettes, occasionally engaging in foul-mouthed
language aimed at those who had caused him to surrender. Behind him were
about two dozen menacing, assault-style rifles hanging on the wall.

And, of course, they were all for sale.