{"id":5816,"date":"2013-02-04T13:51:29","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T19:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=5816"},"modified":"2013-02-04T13:51:29","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T19:51:29","slug":"i-dont-hate-responsible-gun-owners-i-hate-the-gun-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/furg\/i-dont-hate-responsible-gun-owners-i-hate-the-gun-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"I don&rsquo;t hate responsible gun owners. I hate the Gun Industry."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve never watched the Super Bowl. I loathe corporate sports. But, if you like it, I don\u2019t hate you. I don\u2019t hate you for driving a car, but I think Big Oil will destroy the earth for a profit. I don\u2019t hate you for the products you consume and enjoy, but I\u2019m certain the manufacturers would gladly poison you for more money.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t hate responsible gun owners. Several of my friends have guns. I have fired a rifle more than once and wasn\u2019t bad at target shooting, though I much prefer archery or throwing rocks.<\/p>\n<p>I believe corporations exist for one reason above all others: to make a few people rich. They make the top executives rich while screwing labor. They make the board rich, while bribing the watchdogs. Corporations pretend to serve their customers, but they actually serve a few people at the top.<\/p>\n<p>To my mind, the NRA is a corporation. Its board is the Gun Industry, which only profits by selling weapons of destruction &#8212; the more, the better. The NRA funnels vast amounts of money into a few hands. In the process, the NRA claims to represent the interests of all of its members, in theory, the interests of every single gun owner. The NRA does NOT represent the interests of reasonable people.<\/p>\n<p>If you own a gun, if you like guns, if you love guns, peace unto you. If you are a member of the NRA, kick some sense into its leadership.<\/p>\n<p>I have a rhetorical style that is less moderate than I am, taken in my entirety. I don\u2019t apologize for my passion, but I do regret that my anger puts some people off. Sometimes, I agree that \u201cif you\u2019re not angry, you\u2019re not paying attention.\u201d People are dying. Other people are growing rich off of that death &#8212; why would they try to reduce it or tolerate anyone who did try?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve never watched the Super Bowl. I loathe corporate sports. But, if you like it, I don\u2019t hate you. I don\u2019t hate you for driving a car, but I think Big Oil will destroy the earth for a profit. I don\u2019t hate you for the products you consume and enjoy, but I\u2019m certain the manufacturers &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/furg\/i-dont-hate-responsible-gun-owners-i-hate-the-gun-industry\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">I don&rsquo;t hate responsible gun owners. I hate the Gun Industry.<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-furg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}