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It’s probably not shocking that Mother Jones would find much to expose inside the National Rifle Association. What is surprising is that the Republican Party has allowed its majority in the House to do the radicalized NRA’s bidding. Specifically, in March, the House voted overwhelmingly to repeal the assault weapons ban passed in 1994.

Vice President Gore subsequently said the Republican leadership has “an IOU to the NRA,” a shorthand the National Rifle Association finds both accurate and pleasing. Accurate because in 1994 the NRA was the top PAC donor (primarily to Republicans), and is on track to double its record $5.3 million this electoral year. Pleasing because the NRA leadership can show it’s donors that their dollars count. Meanwhile, the rest of the country is treated to the spectacle of a Republican Congress calling for unlimited access to assault weapons as a prescription for personal safety.

“My wife lives alone five days a week in a rural area in upstate New York,” Rep. Gerald Solomon (R-N.Y.) yelled at Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), nephew of John and Robert, just before the vote. “She has a right to defend herself when I’m not there, son. And don’t you ever forget it. Don’t you ever forget it!”

Let’s distinguish between rhetoric and symbolism. Both Democrats and Republicans exaggerate the efficacy of the ban and the dangers posed by its repeal. Rep. Solomon and his wife already own five rifles, none of which are in danger of being confiscated. Meanwhile, many varieties of assault weapons are still easy to purchase because of limitations in the legislation. But with this vote (and similar votes, for example, to abandon environmental protection), the Republican majority has declared it no longer represents conservatives.

Conservatives of various stripes share a belief in limited government because they disdain human perfectibility. Most attempts to improve the human condition, they think, are doomed. The father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke, wrote in 1790 in his Reflections on the Revolution in France: “We have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its defects or corruptions but with due caution; that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion.”

According to Burke, the state and the status quo deserve respect because they contain the accumulated wisdom of the past. Radical liberty should be feared because individuals lacking proper respect for the past are unlikely to fulfill their obligations to the future. To Burke, society is “a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”

This fear of unbridled individualism was articulated even earlier by the philosopher to whom modern American conservatives trace their moral and political thought. In Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes theorizes that in the “state of nature,” individuals would continually engage in a “war of all against all.” They therefore pool their authority into a sovereign, whose main job is to secure “the common peace and safety.”

The assault rifle celebrates the war of all against all. So do armor-piercing bullets and nontraceable gun powder, both advocated by the NRA and its representatives in Congress. Somehow, fighting for “cop killer” armaments has become a badge of bravado. The state — and even order itself — have been transformed into the enemy. Laissez-faire has evolved into lock and load.

Of course the Republicans don’t have a monopoly on selling out their party’s deepest principles. The Democrats, in their quests for campaign cash, often render their votes unto the corporate lobbies and forget they are supposed to represent working men and women. This bipartisan abandonment of core values contributes to the creation of what progressives call “a predatory society” and what conservatives call “the mob.”

Sensible conservatives and progressives have common reasons to fear the decomposition of American society. If the middle class continues to shrink, and if the rules of behavior become increasingly survivalist, the ensuing crossfire won’t recognize political affiliations or disengaged bystanders.

The opposition to such an embattled world thus needs to be broad — drawn from the ranks of conservatives and progressives, the secular and the religious, the rich and the struggling. A healthy respect for American tradition mandates that individualism be a given, but that it can be guided. In what direction? Towards accountability.

Opening the market for assault weapons is an admission of failed accountability, and a recipe for increasing mayhem. On this basic point, marksmen, pacifists, and everyone in between can surely agree.

Let’s distinguish between rhetoric and symbolism. Both Democrats and Republicans exaggerate the efficacy of the ban and the dangers posed by its repeal. Rep. Solomon and his wife already own five rifles, none of which are in danger of being confiscated. Meanwhile, many varieties of assault weapons are still easy to purchase because of limitations in the legislation. But with this vote (and similar votes, for example, to abandon environmental protection), the Republican majority has declared it no longer represents conservatives. Conservatives of various stripes share a belief in limited government because they disdain human perfectibility. Most attempts to improve the human condition, they think, are doomed. The father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke, wrote in 1790 in his Reflections on the Revolution in France : “We have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its defects or corruptions but with due caution; that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion.”

According to Burke, the state and the status quo deserve respect because they contain the accumulated wisdom of the past. Radical liberty should be feared because individuals lacking proper respect for the past are unlikely to fulfill their obligations to the future. To Burke, society is “a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”

This fear of unbridled individualism was articulated even earlier by the philosopher to whom modern American conservatives trace their moral and political thought. In Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes theorizes that in the “state of nature,” individuals would continually engage in a “war of all against all.” They therefore pool their authority into a sovereign, whose main job is to secure “the common peace and safety.” The assault rifle celebrates the war of all against all. So do armor-piercing bullets and nontraceable gun powder, both advocated by the NRA and its representatives in Congress. Somehow, fighting for “cop killer” armaments has become a badge of bravado. The state — and even order itself — have been transformed into the enemy. Laissez-faire has evolved into lock and load.

Of course the Republicans don’t have a monopoly on selling out their party’s deepest principles. The Democrats, in their quests for campaign cash, often render their votes unto the corporate lobbies and forget they are supposed to represent working men and women. This bipartisan abandonment of core values contributes to the creation of what progressives call “a predatory society” and what conservatives call “the mob.” Sensible conservatives and progressives have common reasons to fear the decomposition of American society. If the middle class continues to shrink, and if the rules of behavior become increasingly survivalist, the ensuing crossfire won’t recognize political affiliations or disengaged bystanders. The opposition to such an embattled world thus needs to be broad — drawn from the ranks of conservatives and progressives, the secular and the religious, the rich and the struggling. A healthy respect for American tradition mandates that individualism be a given, but that it can be guided. In what direction? Towards accountability. Opening the market for assault weapons is an admission of failed accountability, and a recipe for increasing mayhem. On this basic point, marksmen, pacifists, and everyone in between can surely agree.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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