Once upon a time the NRA was about marksmanship, a pursuit often associated with old-fashioned notions of honour and excellence.

In that story of bygone times, the Second Amendment slumbered in peaceful obscurity on the banks of the Potomac.

Then in the 60s and 70s, their paths began to converge. So that when, in the early 90s, there was talk of moving the NRA to Colorado Springs, to be closer to the Olympic training facilities — remember that sporting spirit? — the proposed initiative precipitated an NRA leadership coup.

A breeding dog near her term, not knowing where to put down her imminent burden; was so convincing that in the end her companion consented to lend the pregnant dog her hut. Where the dog shut herself in.

After some time her companion came back. The breeding dog asked for another fortnight. Her little ones were barely walking yet, she said. Long story short, she got the extension in the hut.

This second stay ran out and the other asked for her house, her bedroom and her bed back again.

The breeder bared her teeth this time and said:

I’m ready to leave with all my young, if you can manage to evict us.

Her young were already strong.

We always regret what we give to the mean ones. We have to wrench back what we lend them. We have to come to blows, plead, fight. Let them get one foot in your door, and soon they’ll have put all four.

When the NRA didn’t move to Colorado Springs, the organization got mean.

Imagine for a moment if it had taken the path of Olympic spirit. Imagine if all the NRA members had become cross-country ski biathletes, instead of from-my-cold-dead-hands zealots?

Instead, new leadership took control of the house, teeth bared and growling to protect its new baby, a resuscitated Second Amendment. But the NRA is not the original mean dog. The meanness runs deep into the country’s founding principles. The very spirit of the Second Amendment enshrines the ideal of violence in the Constitution. A true democracy cannot stand on a cornerstone of violence.

From the beginning, the mean dog has had its foot in the door. If we hope to wrench back democracy, we need to remove the bad leg it stands on and repeal the Second Amendment.

Previous Three Part Series on Second Amendment:

Part I: Wondering Why The Second Amendment Still Stands? Look To An Old French Fable

Part II: Still Wondering Why The Second Amendment Persists? — A 17th Century Fable Explains

Part III: I Dreamed the Second Amendment Was Repealed

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Fable en Français