The carefully timed out period of respect and mourning. The engaging in dialogue. It’s all a bullet-ridden fucking smokescreen to buy time until the news cycle moves on and they get to do what they always do- control the US Senate and House with the leverage bought and paid for.
Dumdum bullets to donuts the N.R.A.'d have been first in line to pay the kid’s legal bills had the gun been loaded with the ammo found in his backpack.
Un FUCKING Real.
All you gun-toting, Sig Heil .667 packin’ bad-asses, take that next step ! Don’t let Utah show you up ! Don’t be a pussy, send your elementary school kid off to school packin’ heat !
How can you blame the NRA? They have a very clear and transparent agenda. In this country, you’re allowed to believe whatever you want and raise money to further your cause.
The issue is that lobbying has turned into legalized and institutionalized corruption. We’ve allowed lobbyists, from the energy mafia to the NRA, to basically buy Washington. If legislators were above being influenced by money, why else would it matter that the NRA outspent another lobby group? We all know that money talks and that money corrupts. And yet, we all sit and watch while powerful lobby groups dictate policy.
Do you know what will change the minds of our Congressmen? If their constituents put enough pressure on them to change their vote. Because if there’s one thing more important to them than personally enriching themselves, it is winning the next election.
If this is very important to you, and you haven’t written an email to your Congressmen, then don’t be surprised if nothing changes.
I can blame the NRA because their clear and transparent agenda is bullshit and sucks.
I have called, written to (in the real mail!) and emailed all of my congressmen. I will keep doing so. I also donated to the Brady Campaign. I still think the NRA is bullshit.
The NRA seems to me one of the best examples of the “every movement eventually devolves into a racket” principle. Nowadays the NRA seems to exist primarily to financially enrich Wayne LaPierre and other such NRA bigwigs, and it does this by engendering (unwarranted, obviously) fear of Obama and the Democrats.
Every two years, we elect the entire 435 members of the House. I assume, if enough people felt as you did, the NRA would be powerless to resist.
But I don’t think that’s the case, and I’ll tell you why. On many issues, I am one of a very few conservative voices on this board. I am constantly outnumbered, and constantly fighting a rearguard action with respect to the issue du jour.
On this issue, in contrast, there are plenty of pro-Second Amendment voices here on the SDMB. I am a secondary, supporting voice here, not for lack of conviction but lack of need.
If that’s true here, a place which usually leans reliably left, I suspect it’s equally if not more so true for the general political realm of the country. In other words, the jibes from our European friends on this issue have a kernel of truth: we have a gun culture here. And that translate to enough people who hunt, target shoot, and have guns for personal and home protection that you simply won’t find the political muscle necessary to accomplish the banning and confiscation so near to your heart.
It’s not the NRA – the NRA is a consequence, not the cause. WE are the cause. Voters.
Bullshit. The common man does not drive or influence the NRA in any way-business does. Business pours money into the NRA’s coffers, the NRA buys votes and influences people’s attitudes through heavy propaganda and advertising, and the result is what we have today.
The NRA’s power does not come from money. There are plenty of lobbying groups that spend as much or more than they do. (Hollywood, Big Oil, etc.)
The NRA’s power comes from the fact that they have dedicated members who are passionate about this issue and are members of both parties. They listen to the NRA and can and will swing an election based on this issue.
That seems to have been changing of late as far as a fair number of Democratic members of Congress are concerned, and it may cost them. Very interesting story in today’s Post headlined “Even before Newtown tragedy, NRA was losing Democratic support” – that is, among the elected representatives.
Why? According to the story, the NRA used to be seen as a single-issue lobby group, and as such more or less bipartisan. But they’ve been branching out and taking stands opposing Democrats on issues that are only marginally related at best to guns or gun control. The two things specifically mentioned was that the NRA backing the Republicans on the attempted beat down of AG Eric Holder over the Mexican gun-program-gone-bad Fast & Furious (I had no idea the NRA was involved in this), and apparently were also lobbying very heavily against the Supreme Court nominee Sonya Sotomayor. And then there was (and still is) all the scare-mongering against President Obama, who has done (so far) nothing at all to warrant any of their attacks.
So a lot of Dems have begun to believe that the NRA is now another adjunct of the Republican Party, or maybe vice versa. And they are not feeling as beholden as they were before.