Truth and Meaning: Calling Bull

When I was young, we played a card game named after the defecation of a male cow. The point of the game was to lie whenever needed and to call out others when you thought they were lying. I was reminded of this child's game recently.

When John Moolenaar was in the Michigan Legislature, we exchanged a number of communications on abortion bills. His messages always touted his belief in the "sanctity of life" as his reason for wishing to make all abortions illegal.

How curious, then, when I get his response on gun control legislation before Congress, including the following. "I believe it is imperative to have an open dialogue about recent gun-related violence and how to further prevent it. It is also imperative that we strengthen the ties that bind the family, school and community. In my view, a commonsense approach can be found that helps keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and others posing serious danger, while protecting legal firearm ownership."

Sorry, Representative, but I am calling bull. Why is it that your answer to whether or not a woman should have the right to choose is to completely ban the act resulting in the termination of the pregnancy, but when it comes to mass shootings, and tens of thousands of gun deaths each year, your answer is to have an "open dialogue?"

Those of us sick and tired of the American gun culture know how to translate your language and we see through the bull. You believe in making sure that no effort to control gun sales or the types of guns one can purchase should ever be seriously discussed. You believe that guns don't kill people, only evil and deranged psychopaths kill people. And you believe that the unfettered right to own a gun matters more than anything ... ANYTHING, including life.

You posted on your campaign website last year, "I'm proud to receive the endorsement of the National Rifle Association (NRA). I believe strongly in the rights guaranteed to every American under the Second Amendment and will do everything I can to ensure that it is not weakened by efforts of liberals. I continue to believe, as I have all my life, in the rights of law abiding Americans to possess firearms." You know what, John, you can't have it both ways.

How dare you intrude on a woman's most intimate decisions, claiming a belief in the sanctity of life, when you lap up the crumbs thrown to you by the NRA to do their bidding. How dare you do nothing to help people get contraception or to teach our children about responsible sexuality, while doing everything to help those who don't hold life sacred get all the weapons of mass killing they want through gun show loopholes and Internet sales. How dare you assert that "we are endowed by our Creator with the unalienable Right to Live," while turning a blind eye to the cause of thousands of senseless and preventable murders each year.

I am an adult now, and this is no longer a card game. But I still know bull when I smell it, hear it or read it.