Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@iiandyiiii

What would make you quit the NRA, if not this (or that video they just put out), or their batshit attacks on Obama and other Democrats? Aren’t there plenty of gun-rights organizations that don’t pander to racists and wingnuts?

Becoming a life member required a one time membership fee. I don’t have to do anything to remain a life mmber and keep my right to vote in their elections. You should all become life members and vote in more moderate board members who will appoint a more moderate leadership but too many liberals don’t realize that the NRA is a membership controlled organization with an extremely low voterm participation rate. The current leadership counts on a couple hundred thousand highly active members to vote in the Ted Nugents of the world.

There are other organizations but none of them are effective at protecting second amendment rights.

[Defensive_Indifference]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Becoming a life member required a one time membership fee. I don’t have to do anything to remain a life mmber and keep my right to vote in their elections.

Is there a process to rescind your membership?

[iiandyiiii]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Becoming a life member required a one time membership fee. I don’t have to do anything to remain a life mmber and keep my right to vote in their elections. You should all become life members and vote in more moderate board members who will appoint a more moderate leadership but too many liberals don’t realize that the NRA is a membership controlled organization with an extremely low voterm participation rate. The current leadership counts on a couple hundred thousand highly active members to vote in the Ted Nugents of the world.

There are other organizations but none of them are effective at protecting second amendment rights.

I have a philosophical objection to giving money to such a scummy organization, even to try and make it better. What little good they do for gun rights seems massively outweighed by the wingnuttery they contribute to discourse.

[k9bfriender]

@iiandyiiii

I have a philosophical objection to giving money to such a scummy organization, even to try and make it better. What little good they do for gun rights seems massively outweighed by the wingnuttery they contribute to discourse.

Any benefit to promoting this group or others like it?

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Damuri_Ajashi

I don’t have to do anything to remain a life mmber and keep my right to vote in their elections. You should all become life members and vote in more moderate board members who will appoint a more moderate leadership but too many liberals don’t realize that the NRA is a membership controlled organization with an extremely low voterm participation rate. The current leadership counts on a couple hundred thousand highly active members to vote in the Ted Nugents of the world.

Given a choice between exit and voice, you choose voice. (OT, but the seminal work behind that wiki link is pretty good).

My take is that the internal discussions of the NRA are rather, shall we say, skewed so that voice is a dubious strategy. Add to that fact that LaPierre et al changed the bylaws back in the 1970s, so that a renegade faction couldn’t take over the NRA in the way that they themselves did originally.

For example, their board of directors is chosen in 3 staggered elections. That’s a routine method of protecting the status quo, which is why it is falling out of favor in among corporations susceptible to shareholder activism (of the capitalist kind).

The video is the final straw: This chilling NRA ad calls on its members to save America by fighting liberals - Vox [INDENT][INDENT]The problem with this rhetoric isn’t, again, that it’s telling people to use violence against others. It’s that it functions as a kind of anti-politics — casting the NRA’s political opponents as devious enemies who can’t be opposed through normal politics. Republicans control all three branches of government and a large majority of statehouses nationwide. There is literally zero chance that any kind of major gun control passes in America in the foreseeable future.

The threat, instead, is from a kind of liberal-cultural fifth column: People who are acting outside of legitimate political channels to upend American freedoms, through protest and violence. It’s a paranoid vision of American life that encourages the NRA’s fans to see liberals not as political opponents, but as monsters. [/INDENT][/INDENT] That’s not the sort of rhetoric that an organization uses if it cares about its membership or is open to dissenting views.

Voice makes sense in organizations that desire a wide base of support. The NRA gave up that approach some years ago. So voice is a dubious strategy in this case. Admittedly, I’m not quite ruling it out entirely: a decent exercise might be to go through the Hirschman link (@ wiki) and tally the pros and cons.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@iiandyiiii

I have a philosophical objection to giving money to such a scummy organization, even to try and make it better. What little good they do for gun rights seems massively outweighed by the wingnuttery they contribute to discourse.

I suspect that depends on how you feel about gun rights. The last time I gave them money was when thay were trying to pass an assault weapons ban after sandy hook. If the left would treat all conditional rights as well as they treated the one created in roe v wade we would have no need for the nra.

[Chimera]

I made my choice by cancelling my membership in a radical organization (the NRA) that did not represent me.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Damuri_Ajashi

I suspect that depends on how you feel about gun rights. The last time I gave them money was when thay were trying to pass an assault weapons ban after sandy hook. If the left would treat all conditional rights as well as they treated the one created in roe v wade we would have no need for the nra.

Conditional rights = constitutional rights

[Defensive_Indifference]

@Damuri_Ajashi

I suspect that depends on how you feel about gun rights. The last time I gave them money was when thay were trying to pass an assault weapons ban after sandy hook. If the left would treat all conditional rights as well as they treated the one created in roe v wade we would have no need for the nra.

I can’t speak for “the left”, because we’re not the Borg. But, as for me, my main constitutional concerns lie elsewhere. I mean, we have, what? a few hundred million guns and a few tens of thousands of gun deaths a year? I think gun rights are reasonably well ensconced in our country by now. I’m somewhat more concerned about things like equal protection for minorities. Your continued defense of the NRA, even as you criticize them for their silence on Castile, seems to suggest that you somewhat care about equal protection, but you care about guns more. Is that a fair assessment of your position?

[iiandyiiii]

@Damuri_Ajashi

I suspect that depends on how you feel about gun rights. The last time I gave them money was when thay were trying to pass an assault weapons ban after sandy hook. If the left would treat all conditional rights as well as they treated the one created in roe v wade we would have no need for the nra.

“Assault weapons” bans are dumb, but not necessarily every gun restriction (magazine size might be reasonable, for example) is dumb, IMO, and even such dumb policies are a tiny fraction as damaging to real world Americans as restrictions on abortion, gay rights, voting, etc.

If you gave money to the NRA that recently, then IMO you bear a little bit of moral responsibility for their dangerous wingnuttery since, because it started long before that.

[iiandyiiii]

Also, Damuri Ajashi, isn’t it incredibly obvious to you that the NRA’s primary focus is increasing fear to drive gun sales, rather than any rational concerns about gun rights?

[k9bfriender]

@iiandyiiii

Also, Damuri Ajashi, isn’t it incredibly obvious to you that the NRA’s primary focus is increasing fear to drive gun sales, rather than any rational concerns about gun rights?

I am pretty sure their latest ad wasn’t really targeted at their own demographic, but at us lefties.

After watching that, I thought to myself “I really need to get a gun. Apparently, they are planning to start a civil war, so I need to be armed.”

The gun nuts already have all the guns they are going to buy for now, and scaring them won’t really get them to buy more. But, scaring the lefties into thinking the righties are coming after them, that might drum up sales.

And increasing gun sales is the only objective of the NRA.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Bayard

I can’t speak for “the left”, because we’re not the Borg. But, as for me, my main constitutional concerns lie elsewhere. I mean, we have, what? a few hundred million guns and a few tens of thousands of gun deaths a year? I think gun rights are reasonably well ensconced in our country by now.

We also have a million abortions per year. Are abortion rights also reasonably well ensconced or do all the attacks and criticisms of abortion make you less confident about that right?

I’m somewhat more concerned about things like equal protection for minorities. Your continued defense of the NRA, even as you criticize them for their silence on Castile, seems to suggest that you somewhat care about equal protection, but you care about guns more. Is that a fair assessment of your position?

Just to be clear, the NRA isn’t going around voilating anyone’s rights. I am disappointed that they were not as vocal about a black man’s dean as they were about a white man’s death.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@iiandyiiii

“Assault weapons” bans are dumb, but not necessarily every gun restriction (magazine size might be reasonable, for example) is dumb, IMO, and even such dumb policies are a tiny fraction as damaging to real world Americans as restrictions on abortion, gay rights, voting, etc.

If you gave money to the NRA that recently, then IMO you bear a little bit of moral responsibility for their dangerous wingnuttery since, because it started long before that.

I fully intend to give them more money if the anti gun folks try anything like that again. Like it or not, I’m stuck with the NRA as the only effective advocate for gun rights in this country. Do you agree with everything the organizations you support do?

Btw, what dangerous wingnuttery?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@iiandyiiii

Also, Damuri Ajashi, isn’t it incredibly obvious to you that the NRA’s primary focus is increasing fear to drive gun sales, rather than any rational concerns about gun rights?

No. It’s not at all clear to me that the NRA’S primary objective is to increase gun sales. ISTM that anyone thay believes this doesn’t know much about gun culture, the gun industry or the NRA. They try to scare us into contributing money but they have organized boycotts against large gun manufacturers that they thought were undermining gun rights.

IMO they would rather have every American with one gun than a third of Americans with ten guns each.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@k9bfriender

And increasing gun sales is the only objective of the NRA.

The fact that you believe that tells me that you know little to nothing about the NRA’S activities. You might as well say that increasing abortions is the *only * objective of NARAL.

[Defensive_Indifference]

@Damuri_Ajashi

I am disappointed that they were not as vocal about a black man’s dean as they were about a white man’s death.

The NRA bills themselves as a civil rights organization. Their response to the Castile shooting proves that is a lie. They are for rights for white people. Is this the type of organization you want to be associated with? This is OK with you?

[BigT]

@Damuri_Ajashi

No. It’s not at all clear to me that the NRA’S primary objective is to increase gun sales. ISTM that anyone thay believes this doesn’t know much about gun culture, the gun industry or the NRA. They try to scare us into contributing money but they have organized boycotts against large gun manufacturers that they thought were undermining gun rights.

IMO they would rather have every American with one gun than a third of Americans with ten guns each.

In what way were gun manufacturers possibly undermining gun rights? The only things I can think of involve them selling fewer guns. So boycotting to get them to sell more guns would be increasing gun sales.

You also admit they use fear tactics to scare people into giving them money. That’s a big red flag to me. They are drumming up false scenarios to scare people into contributing. If they have a legitimate cause, they shouldn’t need to use an underhanded tactic like fear.

Gun rights is one of those rights that makes no sense to the rest of the world, so I don’t really regard them as legitimate. I think the NRA creates the concept out of the whole cloth. It doesn’t make sense in a modern world, so they have to use underhanded tactics to keep it going.

Self defense rights–those make sense. But gun rights? Specific rights for a specific type of weapon? That’s just a historical holdover, and not anything legitimate.

It’s also why I think hate speech laws are good. We’re the only country that freaks out about them. When other democracies function perfectly well without something we treat as sacrosanct, than I argue that we are wrong.

[k9bfriender]

@Damuri_Ajashi

The fact that you believe that tells me that you know little to nothing about the NRA’S activities. You might as well say that increasing abortions is the *only * objective of NARAL.

Yes, I am very aware of the NRA’s activities.

And all of their activities are in furtherance of increasing gun sales.

Sure, they do safety programs and such, but that is just in furtherance of greater gun sales. They claim to be a civil rights organization, but the only civil rights they are concerned about is to make sure that people can buy guns.

Can you really justify the latest ad as anything but an ad to get people to go out and buy guns? What public education was served by it? What gun safety was learned from watching their PSA? That ad was made because gun sales are down; they plummeted after president wtf took office because they could no longer scare people with “Obama’s going to take your guns” rhetoric. Now it’s civil war rhetoric. Anything to get those guns off the shelves.

And this is an organization that you actively support. You didn’t just give them $1,000 for a lifetime membership, but you donate money to them any time you think that there’s a chance that some little gun somewhere might be in danger of not finding its forever home, and this donation of yours comes after some gun nut goes and kills a bunch of school children and teachers. They don’t give one shit about you. They don’t give one shit about your safety, or the safety of your family. They only care that you go out and you buy as many guns as you can afford, or more. Then they use your money to scare you into giving them more money.

NARAL’s only objective is to increase the number of options for women who do not wish to continue their pregnancy, so that is a bad analogy on your part. If NARAL put out a scare ad equivalent to the NRA ad talking about how if you don’t get an abortion, the right wingers will take over the country, then I would say that they are wanting to increase abortions as well. Let me know when that happens, and then you can try playing the equivalency game again, on this analogy, your equivalency comes up…false.
And I still feel that ad was targeted towards us on the left.

Gun nut hears that civil war is coming, and he goes and stokes his arsenal and fantasizes about the day. He’s ready, he doesn’t need any more guns. (Not saying he may not buy more, but that’s just because he has a collector’s fetish, not because he actually needs more to fight this war that he dreams of.)

Normal moderate or person on the left hears that ad, and realizes that the right is planning a civil war, and he is not ready for it, he needs to go out and buy a gun or three to protect himself, his family and friends from the crazy gun nuts starting a civil war.

[RitterSport]

@BigT

In what way were gun manufacturers possibly undermining gun rights?

It’s possible the reference was to smart guns. Some states (NJ, I think?) have an existing law that says that when a usable reliable smart gun comes out, the only guns you could sell in that state are smart guns. I think one manufacturer was getting close to pulling that trigger (ha!) and the gun lobbies were all over them.

I’m not a gun person, so I may have some of the details wrong.