The conspiracy behind people who think “Big Government” is trying to take away their guns
In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school shooting, President Obama is seeking legislation to ban the sale of assault rifles. He isn’t alone in that line of thinking. Many people believe military style weapons like the one used in the school massacre, should not be sold to citizens.
Adam Lanza, the killer in the murders of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, is the man responsible for a now growing public outcry to stop the purchases of weapons like the one he used to take away the lives of innocent people.
Lanza had access to his mother’s guns, including the Bushmaster rifle he used in his killing spree. From published accounts, Lanza’s mother was a gun enthusiast, collector and law abiding citizen before her son, who reportedly suffered from mental illness, got access to her assault weapons to commit his crimes and snuffing out her life.
With that scenario played out-most people would admit that the country has a problem when irresponsible people have easy access to guns. Gun enthusiasts think the opposite. Gun lovers are telling us the problem with what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School and other places where mass shootings occurred, is a result of not having prayer in schools, the overwhelming number of violent video games, violence in movies, rap music, and many other contributing factors.
To a degree, that assumption has some credence. We do we live in a culture where violence in the media is magnified and celebrated. However, these same individuals fail to mention people who have mental problems having very easy access to these deadly weapons as in the mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado and Tucson, Arizona.
The same could also be said about the recent incident in an upscale New York community in which two firefighters lost their lives to a sniper-like shooting committed by William Spengler, who used a semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle in his murderous episode.
Some gun owners have come out and admitted that the country is in need of a change in the wake of 26 innocent people losing their lives in Newtown to a madman armed with an assault weapon. Some have said we need stricter gun laws, But I am not surprised many gun lovers are clinging to their guns even more now and buying more weapons. Guns sales have gone up dramatically after the Connecticut shooting just like with every random shooting.
Many people believe the country’s gun laws should not change at all. According to a recent USA Today survey, more people are currently opposed (51% to 44%) to assault weapons being banned.
Some folks like the National Rifle Association (NRA) have said there should be armed security at all schools, even going as far as trying to suggest that principals should now be allowed to carry guns. In Salt Lake City, Utah, an 11-year old child brought a gun to school because he said his mother told him to use it for protection after the wake of the Connecticut shooting.
Gun-toting loyalists do not blame irresponsible people having easy access to guns whatsoever, but they blame everything else. There is a fear that drives these people and it’s rooted in their cultural and religious beliefs. After the last two presidential elections, which saw Barack Obama become the nation’s first African American to occupy the Oval Office as sitting president, gun sales went up.
Militia organizations and white separatist groups have grown drastically since 2008. I continually hear gun lovers say the government will eventually take away all our guns and repeal the Second Amendment. These individuals say the government wants to do this to take away the power of ordinary American citizens, to control them and grow the government.
They think our government is turning into a big, socialist country club only interested in the takeover of our constitutional rights.
This is the conspiracy theory they believe, and the one way to stop this is a well-armed militia or gun owning citizens who will fire their guns at government agents coming to take away their guns. Some of these theories are rooted in religious doctrine. Christian evangelicals do a lot of talking about the “end of times,” and the Anti-Christ’s one world government.
They believe in the near future in which there will be a one world government, an authoritarian government controlled by one man (the Anti-Christ) who will lead the world towards, war, disease, chaos, disorder and destruction. Some people think President Obama is behind this conspiracy with the growth of spending and his “big government” philosophy.
People like members of the NRA, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh and representative Darrel Issa, all fall into that category. The government’s Fast & Furious debacle only gave Issa, Limbaugh and the NRA ammunition to underhandedly suggest President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder as mastermind conspirators who want to amend the Second Amendment.
That assumption could not be further from the truth. President Obama has said nothing about guns during his first term in office. Yet there are people out there who sincerely think he will sneak in their house and take their guns away. People who believe that are nuts.
Gun loving conspiracy theorists believe the founding fathers wanted us to own assault weapons to defend ourselves against a growing big and oppressive government that may one day take away your rights. While they believe that, most sane Americans are coming up with new ideas to stop the easy access of guns to criminals and irresponsible people.
I remember a few years ago when people started bringing guns to tea party rallies all over the country. Reporters would ask these individuals why they were bringing guns to political rallies. Their response always played along the lines of making sure our government knew they were not going to mess with their right to bear arms. But who is trying to take away that right?
It’s the fear of something that only exists in their minds that’s creating a state of panic. It is because of this paranoia that they are encouraging boatload sales of assault-type weapons that can reach the hands of an irresponsible killer.
