No.
I was talking about the motives only of the NRA. I have no idea of the motives of those issuing death threats.
AFAIK the NRA has not called for anyone to be killed for selling gun ID bracelets.
Regards,
Shodan
So you are betting that I can neither find historical cases of government disarming its populace nor doing things like rounding sub-populations up and having them exterminated?
The Romans had a Republican government for several centuries. But after a certain amount of time, they had an emperor nominating horses to the Senate. I don’t know that you should trust that things and sentiments will remain as they are today. The people preferred Julius Caesar to Republican government. The group who assassinated Caesar were Republicans. The people quickly took them out of power and instantiated the Empire, because emperors tend to be more black and white and quick-to-respond than deliberative bodies, and people like speed and simplicity. See also Russia and a variety of nations in South America.
but they are trying to prevent the manufacture of such items. So they are in essense doing what they accuse the govt of doing; telling gun owners what they can and cant own.
mc
I didn’t see in your article that the NRA opposes the voluntary use of gun ID bracelets.
Emphasis added.
The NRA opposes it if it is mandatory, as the New Jersey example shows could happen.
Regards,
Shodan
Nope. I am betting that you will find no future cases of the same thing happening here in the United States of America.
I don’t think the NRA says that people shouldn’t be able to if they want, just that it shouldn’t be mandatory. They may be worried about this leading to mandatory enforcement, which is not the same as outright opposition.
Above you mention threats; I don’t think the NRA should be responsible for internet fuckwads.
A safe is cheaper and more effective.
According to Suetonius, who was a muckraking yellow journalist of the time. Entertaining, though.
I pick beer by how cool the label looks 
Is this a real question? In the article that you linked, the answer is given:
You may disagree, but there is the answer. At least two states have enacted laws that are triggered when sale of these types of devices takes place. Those laws ban sales of all other firearms (of certain kinds, like handguns() that do not contain this tech that doesn’t actually work. That’s bad. In other words, if NJ sells that type of firearm, then 100% of the residents of CA would not be banned from purchasing firearms that didn’t contain that tech after some statutory period of time.
The NRA has no power to restrict the sale of something if there is a market for it. What they can do is try to influence their members and supporters that a particular course of action is undesirable. Your characterization is wrong.
I’m pretty opposed to asset forfeiture laws too. If there is any incremental movement towards greater forfeiture I’ll be right with anyone else who wants to oppose them. Generally I think public sentiment is coming around such that there isn’t an active lobby trying to increase the scope of asset forfeiture in the same way there is for gun control.
[ol]
[li]Background checks can impact you. To the extent that more and more people join the group that is considered prohibited from purchase and possession, implementing Universal Background Checks (UBC) will serve as a way to prohibit more and more people. A recent example include trying to put people on the no-fly list and terrorist watch list on the NICS list of prohibited persons. Also the effort to add SSA and VA people who are on Rep Payee status to the NICS list. UBC can be a way to increase the umbrella of influence in an attempt to prohibit more people. If there were UBC, I wouldn’t be surprised if people who were convicted of DUI, or even moving violations to be added to NICS. [/li]
[li]Waiting periods for people who already own firearms is silly. Other things tangentially related are a limit to the number of guns that can be purchased in a given time period. In CA, it’s 1 gun per month which is not a huge barrier, but really makes no sense. If I see something I like, I should be able to buy it. Saying I can buy it in 30 days but now that’s just too dangerous is nonsensical. Opposition to this is based on the idea that the limits are unsupportable and that they could be extended to restrict purchase even further.[/li]
[li]This has been well covered, but essentially AW is whatever a lawmaker decides. And even then, when a state legislature defines what they think an AW is, sometimes law enforcement can decide to just change that definition and enforce their own, like MA attorney general Healey.[/li]
[li]Fingerprint trigger locks, or “smart guns” for lack of a better term, don’t work currently. The Obama Administration has issued guidelines on what would be acceptable for law enforcement in terms of features and reliability and to date there are no firearms that come even close to meeting these standards. Yet as above, states have passed laws that require all firearms to have this magical non-working technology and prohibited the sale of any new guns that don’t aren’t powered by unicorns.[/li][/ol]
I wouldn’t say it’s being gullible or dense or brainwashing. I’d say it’s a reasonable response to the hostility towards gun owners and the attempts to curtail their rights. I in fact do believe that governments can pass laws that would confiscate some guns and gun related items. It just happened in CA. A total ban and repeal of the 2nd amendment isn’t the only thing to resist and it would be silly to overlook the incremental infringements that are short of a total ban.
Because second amendment rights don’t require your understanding or agreement. HTH
Haven’t read thread yet but to answer your questions:
- Background checks: It is already a crime to sell, transfer or otherwise give a gun to someone who is legally prohibited from owning one. But currently only professional gun dealers are actually required by the terms of their federal firearm license (FFL) to conduct a background check ahead of time. They have the facilities to do so- a guy selling a couple of guns he doesn’t want anymore, not so much. Calling private sales at gun shows a “loophole” implies that the government banned most sales without a background check, which isn’t the case. It certainly wasn’t how the FFL requirement was sold at the time of the 1968 Gun Control Act- “Oh no, we aren’t banning all gun sales that aren’t vetted by the government; this is just a commercial regulation, that’s all”.
OK, but nonetheless, why not background checks? Primarily because a universal background check requirement is de facto a universal gun registry. One may insist that the information will never be available to the government (<cough> NSA <cough>). And one may insist a universal registry will never, ever be used as a confiscation list. But gun owners feel a lot more secure if the temptation to misuse such information isn’t there in the first place. A gun registry, de facto or de jure, is seen as a canary in a coal mine; it would be necessary, if not sufficient, for a gun ban and subsequent confiscation.
Opponents of gun control also complain that this step wouldn’t be necessary if sales to unqualified recipients were prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
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Waiting periods: how many gun crimes, especially mass shootings, are committed by previously unarmed people who bought them for the purpose? How many acts of insurrection are immediately proceeded by acquiring arsenals? I don’t know; some maybe, but I doubt it’s a substantial number. Waiting periods are of dubious utility, at the cost of restricting lawful gun buying.
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Assault Rifles: what is and what is not considered an assault rifle is infamously subjective, and the subject of some truly imbecilic rules. Critics of such bans call them “scary-looking gun” bans. And assuming for the sake of argument that a gun may be said to be optimized for shooting people (a semi-automatic with a removable magazine, firing .223 or 7.62x39, and some tactical features like a foregrip or a recoil compensator), then two things: First, such a gun is NOT a Slaughtermatic- 5000™, orders of magnitude deadlier than a deer rifle. The (mostly illegal) full-auto versions maybe, not the ones commercially available. And secondly, on thankfully rare occasions, killing someone is the right thing to do; guns are not just for hunting. If your concern is “at what point is a gun too dangerous to be allowed in civil society?”, then I have to at what point is freedom of speech, or religion or of the press too dangerous? And if they’re that dangerous, why is it ok for servants of the government to be entrusted with them, when governments have historically killed far more people than criminals and terrorists ever have?
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Safety Measures: Show me a 99.99% reliable technology and we’ll discuss it. Otherwise, most of the proposed safety technology is a way for a gun to potentially fail and be unusable by its legitimate owner.
If it’s unthinkable that gun confiscation could ever happen, it’s primarily because of the never-ending vigilance and opposition of gun owners and the NRA.
You’ve already had many good answers so I’ll just add little snippets.
Because that could be used to discriminate against people, as it was with voting. And heaven forfend that those checks suddenly take years to complete.
Because a reasonable waiting period might get turned into a waiting period of years. Thin end of the wedge & all that.
Or defend yourself against them. You’re on an isolated farm and the local thugs roll up…
Because they can’t be guaranteed to work in the field.
ISTM what you need to do is deliberately take the worst-case scenarios. Think about how power and bureaucracy have been abused.
It’s not only applied to the Second Amendment. It’s applied to any wedge issue.
Despite all the vitriol, the major political factions in the US believe in basically the same things on most issues. Those issues do not see a whole lot of debate or political energy applied.
The issues they disagree on, they fight over every inch, because the base is not interested in a compromise. Proposed compromises aren’t considered on their merits, just on how far they move the status quo, because both sides know that a given proposal is just a small part of a much larger struggle.
Abortion is another pretty solid example. When the pro-life side proposes a law that requires, say, someone seeking an abortion to be informed about adoption options, no one on the pro-choice side thinks “Well, I guess it’s fine if you make abortion-providers hand out adoption pamphlets”. They think “Ok, today it’s a pamphlet. Tomorrow it’s a weekend seminar. Three years from now you’ll have to write an apology letter to your unborn fetus…”
Similarly, when gun control groups advocate for a relatively small restriction that, on its own, might make a lot of sense to many people, it’s not evaluated on its own. It’s just the first brick in the wall of complete and total abolition of private gun ownership.
And in both cases they’re meant as such.
Their reason is that any step puts them closer to a complete ban so every step must be fought tooth and nail for no matter how much sense it makes.
This is false. The NRA supported the expanded NICS system in place today.
I don’t think any of us are against making sure deranged people are prevented from acquiring firearms.
The NRA is against taking things that did not help and making them even harder for/on those who are not doing wrong things, or possibly using them as a foothold to circumvent the 2nd amendment.
And they are not without a point unless we are simply dishonest with ourselves.
Well, to be honest, you could hunt with many “Assault” rifles, and probably do very well as long as the caliber and power is sufficient.
And the definition is kind of ambiguous depending on where you are and who is in charge.
What is my M1 Garand? or M1 Carbine? or M1918?
My GEW88 actually is an assault rifle, if it matters.
Those hunt very well, except for the carbine, not enough power.
The 15 shot manual action .22 vermin rifle that looks like an M4 with flash suppressor and lots of attachment points, yea it gets considered an assault rifle in some places depending on who is deciding things.
So, it’s too vague and open to what ever interpretation one might want to apply to it.
It also does not exactly solve anything, because there is a market with plenty of buyers
that dont care for laws that isn’t much affected by any bans.
They are not opposed to the devices, that is not true.
They are opposed to making the device mandatory, when it isn’t always reliable.
Ever try to get one of those bastards off when it decides it isn’t going to work?
Not exactly fun.
As for Lanza, honestly you dont think any kind of lock would have stopped that defective POS?
A preemptive bullet to the head maybe, that moron was studying and planning for this, he was doing this even if he had to invent the means.
There’s no difference at all. Beer advertising is designed to promote a particular brand because that’s what beer companies pay for. Budweiser doesn’t want to promote beer drinking in general; they want promote Budweiser sales.
The exact same techniques that promote commercial brands are also used to promote political agendas. Do you think lobbying groups are stupid? They can see those techniques work so they use them.
Almost two hundred billion dollars are spent on advertising in the United States each year. Businesses wouldn’t spend that much money if they weren’t getting results from it.
Your figures are wrong. Here’s a cite: How The Gun Industry Funnels Tens Of Millions Of Dollars To The NRA.
- I cannot believe that someone was actually paid to edit this article. A 2 second Google is hard!
- Cabala’s? Do they sell sporting goods and numerology?
- Sturm Rugar & Co? Sturm**,** Ruger & Co.
- Midway is now a firearms company? They don’t sell firearms, only accessories. So does Amazon.
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If I’m not mistaken, this link gives the exact same percentages that I do. Except they conveniently fail to mention a couple lines up with member dues etc. dwarfing that figure. I also looked at the link and also a more recent Form 990.
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Here’s a pretty neutral source: FactCheck. Well, not according to some conservative sites who say they’re biased against Republicans…
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Also do note the difference between NRA Foundation, NRA-ILA, and NRA-PVF.
Something that is almost always overlooked in this subject area, and seems to have been missed here as well, is that there is a VERY big and important difference between
“actual arguments and motivations of the people talking about it”
and
“purely fact and logic-based arguments pro and con.”
The vast majority of even the most SEEMINGLY well thought arguments posted above, still repeatedly do things such as mixing in artificial and unsupported assumptions about opponents. Anyone who declares something about the unspoken intentions behind a given proposal, is doing exactly that, and that’s dishonest.
It’s also important to note how often arguments both for and against, are almost transparently about entirely other concerns, but no one involved points it out or admits it.
Many of the “say no to all gun control” arguments I’ve seen, are actually arguments against particular groups of ANTI gun people, who the person making the pro argument, fears or hates for unrelated reasons. Essentially, the REAL “slippery slope” that they fear, isn’t the one about gun ownership, it’s about something else entirely, such as race concerns, gender bias concerns, etc.
One of the biggest reasons why many people DO refuse to admit that they aren’t arguing honestly, is because they don’t realize that slippery slopes are NOT MAGIC. You CAN admit that you supported a given idea in the recent past that was nonsense, without having to let your opponent declare that therefore everything you’ve ever said has been proven wrong. But lots of people so fear that they are in a win or lose all situation in this, that they will shout lies louder every time THEY realize that they are lying.
For fucks sake. Really? You’re going to pull this one out here?
You’re right, you got us. I really don’t care about gun rights or anything. I’m afraid of women and non-whites and somehow that translates into gun rights advocacy. Pack up the whole operation guys, he got us.