The gun thing. Again.

I haven't seen the NRA's ad regarding the President's daughters' Secret Service protection. I won't see it. I think the NRA stinks to high heaven, and I'm not the only one. The commentary about the NRA's ad is enough for me, and I don't think I'm burying my head in the sand about it by not listening to or watching it. Maybe I am, but I don't think so.

The following sentences sum it up for me, and I felt this way prior to the launch of their commercial:

"The NRA doesn’t give a shit about your kids. They don’t care about keeping Americans safe and despite what they say, they don’t really care about protecting the rights of gun owners. They care about protecting gun manufacturers. End of fucking file."

That paragraph came from Isobel at What a Witch. Isobel is radical and outspoken. She rants more than writes, and sometimes I can't make it through an entire post. She's wordy. She's also intelligent and thought-provoking. I'm a middle-class white woman. She's not. I read her blog to get her perspective and she's happy to throw it out there.

She goes on to accuse the NRA of being racist, and she presents a good argument for it. I've often wondered, had Hillary won the primary and election in 2008, would we – the 'United' States of America – be where we are now? We are not united, not by any stretch of anyone's imagination. It's a pretty word and a nice concept, but it's not who we are as a country.

Had Hillary won, would the Tea Party have evolved from an initial movement of sending tea bags to the White House to protest TARP to the well-funded political organization it now appears to be? Would Americans be wearing silly hats and flying flags with snakes on them and brandishing weapons at political rallies?

Would we have Sarah Palin? (Thankfully, it appears she may have run her course.)

It's a moot point, of course, because the Democratic Party powers-that-be figured a black man was more electable in 2008 than a white woman.

To be sure, the Republicans/conservatives/Tea Party have been attacking women as much as they've been attacking the President, so perhaps a Hillary presidency would have resulted in the same schism we have now.

One thing the Republicans/conservatives/Tea Party hasn't done is bring the President's children into the discussion. Presidential offspring have traditionally been off-limits, out of the picture, not up for discussion. The NRA crossed a line when they produced their vile ad suggesting the President cares more about his children than you do about yours.

The NRA is absolutely NOT interested in gun safety. It appears only to be interested in putting more guns into more Americans' hands, and insisting those Americans have the right to carry those guns wherever and whenever they like. That would make gun manufacturers very happy, indeed.

But I wonder how it makes the rank-and-file members feel, knowing the organization they've given their money to for the purpose of safety and education is now using it to question the right to protect THE PRESIDENT'S CHILDREN. I would love to see large numbers of NRA members burn their membership cards, as the Vietnam War protesters burned draft cards back in the 1960s. Hell, I'd just like to hear one or two of them say they disagree with LaPierre and his agenda.

Perhaps they are disagreeing. It might help if I watched the news.

I can't, though. I can't watch my country disintegrate. I can only do what I think is right. I can express my opinion, here, where both of you see it, and to my Congressman and my Senators, which I've done. They, of course, support gun owners and their "rights." They're Democrats in a state that is more purple than blue nowadays, and they want to keep those gun-totin' votes.

The reply I received from one of my Senators yesterday included this: "My words in recent days have not been an endorsement of an assault weapons ban …"

How could he NOT endorse an assault weapons ban? HOW COULD HE NOT? how could he not …

What's left to say?

Plenty, apparently.

I've written my Congressman and my Senators, urging them to support a ban on assault weapons. I've thanked Dianne Feinstein, who has promised to introduce such legislation on the first day of the new Congress.

Anything I begin to write here sounds shallow, and I can immediately come up with a comeback. But this I know:

• I know now is the time to speak up about the issue of gun control. We as a country should never have allowed the ban on assault weapons to expire in 2004. Ah, but we as a country don't have the influence of the NRA.

• I know the NRA doesn't have a leg to stand on, and they – by their silence since Friday's massacre – must know it, as well. They've deactivated their Facebook and Twitter accounts. They haven't even so much as expressed their condolences.

• I know the families who lost children and loved ones at Sandy Hook Elementary School will never recover completely from the horror they've experienced. Never.

• And I know there's nothing – no action, no sentiment, no petition, no meme, no prayer, even – that will help.

I hate that tragedies get turned into political issues. There should be absolutely NO ARGUMENT about semi-automatic and automatic weapons being removed from the hands of non-military citizens. There should be NO ARGUMENT about thorough background checks. There should be NO ARGUMENT about the sanctity of human life.

I also know it's not about taking God out of schools. That one makes me ill. Who in their right mind thinks 20 first-graders were slaughtered because we've systematically removed God and prayer from classrooms? Oh. Right. Mike Huckabee.

What a sorry excuse for a Christian he is (she said, judgmentally).

One of these days, sooner rather than later I hope, we will come to a place as a nation where mental health services are affordable and accessible, where early intervention offers hope and help, where prisons are not the last resort for treatment. If you haven't read this yet, you must. Be forewarned: It's not easy to read.

Read it anyway.