Off Topic: Gun Hypocrisy

Just a quick note to record my reaction to the announcement by the National Rifle Association that no one will be able to carry a gun into the auditorium when Vice President Mike Pence is giving his address to this year’s convention.

This is from the same group that advocates the possession of guns as the only true answer to violence. According to the NRA the presence of guns radically reduces, if not eliminates, the threat of mayhem. They, for instance, argue that arming teachers is the best way to prevent more school shootings of the kind we recently witnessed in Parkland Florida.

So it comes as something of a shock to hear that this prescription does not apply to the Vice President.

Why not?

Do we not want him to be safe?

Do we want to expose him to greater risks than those we feel appropriate for school children?

Surely, by extension of NRA logic, we ought to arm everyone in the audience, perhaps doubly so, in order to protect such a high ranking official.

Surely, if we are told that arming teachers to the teeth is the way to cure ourselves of the school shooting epidemic, and if the only way to stop “a bad guy with a gun” is a “good guy with a gun” as the NRA repeatedly tells us, then not making this incredible service available to Mike Pence is a gross dereliction of duty.

So what’s going on?

Is it that the NRA is spewing rank hypocrisy?

Surely not!