ManicDDaily

Suspect with Loaded Lawyer

I’ve always found the age-old male/Freudian question “what do women want?”  irritating.   I don’t particularly like the way it lumps women together.  But what really annoys me is the undercurrent of exasperation–the idea that the answer to the question is just too irrational or illogical to be discoverable.

Even though I don’t care much for this formulation, but a variation seems appropriate for tonight’s post:  what do Congressional Republicans want?   What, especially, when it comes to reconciling issues of anti-terrorism and gun control?   Here’s a place where the undertone of illogic and irrationality seems appropriate.

(Sorry, to any of you who thought this post was going to be about women.  Or Freud.  You’re stuck with Lindsay Graham.)

On the one hand, the Republicans in Congress, as exemplified by Graham, are very upset at the idea of offering suspected terrorists access to lawyers (as in Miranda rights); on the other, they are perfectly willing to grant such suspects access to automatic weapons of all types and calibers.   As Gail Collins describes in a wonderful Op-Ed piece in the May 6 New York Times, “I think you’re going too far here,” said Graham, in opposition to a bill that would keep people on the F.B.I. terrorist watch list from buying guns and explosives.

Distrust of governmental intervention and power are a watchword with many congressional Republicans.   Except when it comes to torture.  Many urge the government to take on that power–as long as people who are water boarded have a right to purchase a handgun before submergence.

Part of the problem, of course, is limited imagination and memory.  Many can’t seem to conceive of someone who may be labeled “right-wing” being arrested for terrorist activities; they don’t seem to remember names like McVeigh and Hutaree.

What they do seem certain of (whether rightly or wrongly) is the power of the NRA.  Which, as Gail Collins notes, gives one answer to my question—what do Congressional Republicans want?  To get a 100% score in the NRA grading system.

Call me naïve.  Call me (those of you who know I’m an attorney) biased.   Even call me a woman who knows at least some of what she wants.   If I have to be confronted, I would rather face a terrorist armed with a lawyer, than an AK-47.