They Came and Got His Guns

Well, it has happened. The government came and got an NRA member's guns. Twice.

An NRA official in New York has been banned from owning guns after pleading guilty to harassment charges:

Richard D’Alauro, the NRA’s field representative for the city and its suburbs, is forbidden from owning guns under an order of protection stemming from a confrontation with his wife in their Long Island home, the Daily News has learned.

Suffolk County authorities filed misdemeanor charges of assault and endangering the welfare of a child and a noncriminal charge of harassment as a result of the domestic dustup, which occurred at 1:55 a.m. on Sept. 1, 2010, records show.

He'll be able to get all his guns back in October. I'm guessing he pleaded guilty to non-criminal harassment to avoid losing at trial, which would have resulted in more serious restrictions on gun ownership. What kind of a guy is D'Alauro?

In an interview, Maribeth D’Alauro — who has multiple sclerosis and walks with a cane — declined to detail the confrontation with her former husband, but she said that assault “is an accurate description.”

She said she suffered from “years of domestic violence” but was “too afraid to ever call the police on him."  "I’m finally able to talk about things I wasn’t able to talk about,” she said.

She called her ex-husband a “bully” who acted at home with the same confrontational behavior that NRA leaders use in politics. “They are cut from the same cloth,” she said.

This exposes the real motivation for gun ownership for many. We all know who they are: guys like D'Alauro. These people don't need guns to protect themselves, but to bully others and prop up their sagging self image. It's exactly the same reason gangbangers pack heat; it's the only way they can get the respect they think they deserve. This same attitude sent David Michael Keene, the son of NRA president David Keene, to jail for a shooting during a road rage incident.

When the NRA claims anecdotally that "millions of protective uses of guns go unreported each year," what they're actually referring to is the use of guns to bully others. They don't see it that way at all, because in their self-centered universe they can never be guilty of bullying, harassment and intimidation. In their minds brandishing a gun isn't a threat, it's a natural extension of their freedom of expression, a form of constitutionally protected free speech.

But this mindset is the main reason why, as Mark recently noted, women who live in homes with guns are seven times more likely to be killed by their abusers.