The celebrity consensus is that the National Rifle Association is a terrorist organization.

This is rich, given that the relation between the NRA and terrorist attacks remains at zero, but that’s not the kind of logic the narrative requires. For mainstream purposes, the NRA is guilty of every tragic occurrence that happens in America, be it a mass shooting or pro-right Kanye tweet.

But celebrity musician John Legend decided he’d chime in to solidify his celebrity bonafides by taking a pot-shot at the NRA.

I wonder what makes life more difficult for police. That we have so many guns per capita in America or me being upset when cops get away with murder. The NRA is a danger to this nation and to the police. https://t.co/dn1NfFLhIP

— John Legend (@johnlegend) April 27, 2018

And like most poorly aimed shots, it went wide and struck America in the nerve that causes it to roll its eyes and groan.

Legend should understand that America has no gun problem. There can logically be no such thing as the gun is not responsible for the shootings.  Yes, it’s the tool that is used to accomplish the task, but the gun isn’t convincing anyone to pick it up and shoot people. It has no reasoning skills, and no means of communication.

It is, in fact, an inanimate object.

Furthermore, in the absence of a firearm, people will look to other weapons in order to carry out assaults and murders. London has surpassed New York in murders, and the vast majority of these murders were done with knives. Odd that the place with more guns is the one with fewer murders than the one with knives.

What’s more, it’s the places where there are no guns that people tend to die the most. Over 98 percent of mass shootings have happened where guns were forbidden here in America.

Meanwhile, we see time and again a gun stopping what could develop into a major catastrophe. The school shooter in Maryland was suddenly halted due to the appearance of a resource officer with a firearm. The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School could have been stopped as well, but the officer who was set to guard the school failed to show up with his own gun.

The point is that you cannot ban evil, as it will always find a way to do what it does with or without a gun. However, owning a gun does make it easier for the good guy to overcome evil. It’s why important government locations are made hard targets with the presence of guns. It’s why police are meant to carry them. It’s all about good guys having the best chance to overcome evil.

And that, John Legend, is where the NRA comes in.

Despite the best efforts of politicians, media networks, and activist groups, guns are not going anywhere and this is with much help from the NRA. But here’s the kicker.

The NRA isn’t so successful at what they do because they’re a powerful political organization. They’re so successful because the organization is backed by millions of Americans who wish to see their 2nd Amendment right continue on without being alienated.

As I’ve written before, America is a gun culture and attempts to turn it into something completely opposite grates on the majority of the American citizenry like a guy running his hand the wrong way up a porcupine’s back. We want our guns in the event we need to protect our home, or we want to have fun at the range.

We don’t all get to have armed security, police escorts, and all the benefits many of the elite in Hollywood and politics have. We have to fend for ourselves. No organization understands that better than the NRA. We give them our money and our support, and in turn, they do what they do best, which is make sure gun grabbers aren’t able to take our guns.

The NRA is the wall which the armed American citizenry stands on to keep the proverbial wolves in the hills. Be it criminals, or overbearing governments, much of America is kept safe and free due to the presence of gun owners who are more than willing to shoot at bad guys should they get rowdy.

Legend benefits from this. It’s hard to assault, rob, or worse to Legend when guns are there to help protect him. What Legend is doing is bashing the entity that helps him continue to be safe.

The NRA goes, Legend’s bodyguards are going to have a hard time protecting him due to the NRA not being there to fight for his security detail to have them.

But Legend brings up something else in his tweet that I feel should be addressed, and it’s something he further highlighted earlier in a tweet, and that’s the relationship between the police and the black community.

Please stop calling the police on black people who are just trying to live. Please. Stop. Police shoot us for no fucking reason at all. Please. Stop. https://t.co/HOqZ6t76ca

— John Legend (@johnlegend) April 23, 2018

I agree that people shouldn’t call the police to come remove black people if they aren’t doing anything wrong. However, to say that police are just out there all the time shooting black people for no reason is a well-fabricated lie. While I do think there are instances where police acted wrongly, very rarely do they ever get away with it.

Police aren’t murderers, and more often than not have a very good reason for drawing their firearm. The vast majority of the instances where a black person had been shot in mainstream news were proven to have done so with good reason. If Legend truly wanted to get into deaths within the black community, he should look past the police, look past the gun, and examine the societal conditions with which many young black men die every day.

Hint: It’s not about the gun.