If you want to go after the NRA for corruption and bribery, I could go for that, because buying elections subverts the democratic process, even though it’s traditional. Extortion will be a hard case to make. Political pressure isn’t construed the same way as blackmail, which is really what extortion is, on a larger scale. Politicians only need to grow a spine to stand up to pressure. Now, if there’s proof of blackmail, terroristic threats (as opposed to ordinary threats), or libel, that’s another whole ball game.

I’m sorry if you thought what I said about hate was patronizing. It wasn’t my intent. If you look at the way this argument has shaped up, it does look like people who own guns are the focus of a lot of rage that they really don’t deserve. It really is impossible to say that gun ownership is evil without passing the evil on to the people who own the guns. Guns themselves have no more inherent moral value than an earthquake: potentially lethal, but incapable of forming an intention, and so morally neutral. Humans are the ones who form intent. That’s the way I judge evil: by intent, not by effect.

I projected my way of dealing with evil on to you (sorry), for, you see, I do hate evil, so I’m very careful about identifying it and its vessels. They say it’s not good for a person, but hey, the women in my family live into their 90s, and if harboring strong feelings were an Olympic sport…

Then you have tributary evil, the kind that, in one way or another, makes the primary evil possible. At this level you seem to have some reservations, but perhaps that’s only because they don’t fall into the clear primary category. But evil is not a black-and-white concept.

Is the NRA evil for creating an environment in which guns are plentiful and easy to acquire? Yes. The fact that they (NRA officials like Sith Lord LaPierre) didn’t pull the trigger means they aren’t in the first rank of evil, but they enable primary evil. The NRA leadership may be stupid, but stupidity that leads to mayhem is still evil.

BTW, one of purposes of the RICO act is to make sure that people who order a murder can be held as responsible as the flunkies who actually pull the trigger. The law recognizes contributory evil, too. I think the NRA could well be vulnerable to a RICO prosecution, not so much for indirect murder, but for bribery and extortion of public officials. Upon a little research, their machinations at the Federal level are as nothing compared to the havoc they’re wreaking in the states.

But I digress. You listed a great many examples of evil and shot many of them down, as if I’m “throwing the word ‘evil’ around” casually. But those are your examples, not mine. Nor is labeling evil equivalent to hate. Your comment “Please decide what you hate. If it’s fellow citizens who never did anyone an injury, please reconsider.” is a bit patronizing, Mary Anne. Accusing me of blind hatred is a tactic I associate more with a wookie like Tom, not with you.

It sort of makes me uncomfortable to fight with you, too, but sorta not, because I respect your toughness. But I have to say that it really creeps me out when you begin a subject line with “We are saying…”. Who’s this “we”, kemosabe?

Murder=evil. Yes.

Murder of children=evil. Yes+

NRA/NRA=evil. If and only if stupid=evil, in which case we’re all in trouble. The leaders of the organization are really more mouth and money than anything. The organization has so many members who roll their eyes (yes, really) at the leadership but stick with it because they feel the need to be defended by somebody loud while under attack for being, um, evil gun owners, enablers of child murder and generally bloodthirsty beasts. If that sense of being under siege themselves were lifted, who knows whether the NRA would retain its grip? Which leads us to the next category…

Owning guns=evil. Not in my experience, because I’ve never known any gun owner who’s shot another human being in civilian life.

Being careless with the guns you own=evil. Not as clear. More like “very very bad”. But I grew up Catholic, and we learned to score these things for points in confession.

Shooting people with guns=evil. Yes, if unprovoked, but No if in defense of self or others. Defense is defined here as “preventing imminent injury or death”.

Owning particular kinds of guns to be decided by committee=evil. Well, no. More like “dangerous”, which is what opens the door for discussion and negotiation. Risk assessment, like that. All parties should have reps on said committee.

Throwing the word “evil” around robs it of its meaning. Please decide what you hate. If it’s fellow citizens who never did anyone an injury, please reconsider.

Every day I work in what the NRA, in its tone-deaf splendor, calls a target-rich environment. I’ve been aware of the possibility of being murdered since a girl my age in my city, different school, was murdered in the woods 300 yards from her house. They never caught whoever did it. I’ve understood about mass murder since the Richard Speck murders in 1966, when I was almost 12. Sure, I’d read about the Holocaust by then — I read everything I could get my hands on — but those kinds of numbers are hard for a child to get her head around. Those student nurses, well, I knew they could have been me, a little older.

These little things have made me very aware of escape routes and evaculation plans, which I develop on my own for work, home, and for any public building I spend time in. Just today at the library, we talked about this and I gave everyone my opinion of the way to clear the building. They were amazed, because no one else had considered such an event. I was amazed that no one realized that all the exits except one are on the same side of the building.

I have the good sense to be scared of the possibility of an armed attack; I’ve thought about how to respond, right down to thinking about something I hate to energize me and turn the fear into something I can use. But I’m not willing to jump into calling people evil because they own potentially lethal machines. I’ll save that adjective for the person who has the will to use one on an innocent fellow human, especially one in my little target-rich environment.

For the record, it makes me very uncomfortable to fight with you, and with some of the others, because I know you have a good heart. I can’t agree, and I won’t lie. So love me for myself, or not at all, but at least you know you have the real deal. *sigh*

Grasping at seemingly simple solutions is what the comparison alludes.