Liberty-hating and statist politicians fuel our fear. If want to decrease the fear that makes us want to buy guns, you should convincing citizens not to elect liberty-hating and statist politicians.
I don’t know very much about the NRA - but here’s a hypothetical:
If tomorrow, anyone at all could walk into a local corner store, and purchase any kind of firearm and ammunition they desired, with no restrictions, limits, ID check or any paperwork whatsover, would the political arm of the NRA be satisfied? Is this the ultimate end game? In other words, would they continue to lobby for fewer restrictions if the only thing that the store did was check ID to see if you were over 18 (like with beer sales)? Or would they lobby politicians if the local store was not allowed to sell Anti-tank weapons or RPG’s?
I guess I"m asking, where does the political wing of the NRA draw the line?
The NRA, to its credit, has long supported the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and was in fact instrumental in its creation. The NRA has always asserted that felons and people judged to be mentally incompetent should not be permitted to acquire a firearm. The reality is that Bill Clinton made the NRA. It’s true. Had he not pushed through a ban based on nothing but window dressing the NRA would not be what they are today. The NRA really made its name fighting the Assault Weapons Ban of 1993, and the attention they garnered in a lot of ways caused the “Republican Revolution” of 1994.
The NRA would not agree with this. The NRA wants to ensure that every person legally entitled to a firearm under today’s slate of federal laws is permitted to do so if they so desire.
The NRA is not at all extreme. I’m serious about that. Take some time to see what it is that they are about. I think you’ll find that they want nothing more than the status quo, circa 2009.
Unfortunately, the language they employ is extreme. “Freedom-loving”, “rights-hating”… I guess it works, but it’s distasteful to me. The Brady Campaign is just as bad, I say let them look like the jerks and take the high road.
Aren’t you supposed to end that by shouting “Wolverines!”?
If this is true, why don’t we have background checks for private transfers at gun shows? My recollection is that the NRA does not want these transactions to require background checks. They won’t say it out loud, but if they supported it, it would be law, now. Particularly in Virginia, which has a problem with college kids and shootings, recently.
I disagree. The NRA has been a political power (IMO) since at least the 1980s. Jim Brady has been a gun control advocate since getting shot in the attack on President Reagan in the 80’s, and the NRA has always been Brady’s opposition.
Your recollection is both right and wrong. In most regions longarms (rifles, shotguns) have never required background checks for transfers. Handguns have long required such a background check. The NRA resists the idea that background checks are required on longarm transfers, largely because it would require an initial check for purchase, and then another check to transfer the longarm to a family member. Such a situation would be a rifle purchase for a child on a birthday or holiday, like a father getting a .22 for his son on Christmas.
Handguns always require a background check for transfer to this day in every jurisdiction I am aware of.
I never disputed that. But they made their name on the AWB. Until then they were notable, but much less so. They offered little to the passage of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 and no resistance to the import ban in 1989.
Well, it’d probably be cheaper than offering you psychological counseling.
Oh really? My understanding is that NICS can be circumvented pretty easily as long as it is done at a so-called gun show. I’d be a lot more impressed if the NRA advocated a law that wasn’t so easy to side-step.
That wish was granted long ago. Here’s one manifestation from April 2007:
Emphasis added. Don’t worry grandma: your guns are safe.
How about those ads that say “If you support gun control you’re in good company,” followed by pictures of Hitler, Stalin, and whatever other shitty dictators they could Google? Talk about an unfair comparison, man. Loaded statement to the Nth degree.
I was visiting my dad once when he opened up some questionnaire from the GOP and one of the questions was, “Do you support the War on Terror?” WTF kind of question is that? What is one supposed to write? “Nah, let’s have another 9/11. Bin Laden is the man!!!” :::eye roll:::
I also remember when John Ensign was running against Ed Bernstein in Nevada and he had some lame billboard that said, “Vote for Freedom! Vote Ensign!” Gimme a break…as if a ballot for the other guy was a ballot for totalitarianism. who the hell is gonna vote against freedom?
Politicians and their beholden special interest groups and PACs are so stupid. Possibly the only one of the “teabagger” protest signs that I agreed with was the one that said, “Grow your own dope! Plant a politician.”
Let’s assume that the assumptions made here have any resemblence to reality - that indeed, the UN had a power to enforce a worldwide ban on private gun ownership and the condition it used to try to control any arms trading would be for all countries to submit to that authority. Of course the notion is ridiculous (from either side of it) - but yeah, why wouldn’t that be worthy of opposition? A sweeping world-wide law that completely circumvents a basic human right codified in law in the US in order to try to target arms trading in Africa? It’s such an absurd notion that isn’t even internally logical that why wouldn’t any reasonable person oppose it?
Uh, yes, if the default democratic language about gun control works implicitly under the assumption that they’re advocating more gun control, and they are half the political system in the US, how is that not a danger to gun rights?
This is a complete, unambiguous lie. [edit: to be clear, I am not saying you’re lying - I’m saying the people who told you this - and there are a lot of them - are lying]. Nothing works any differently at gun shows. I’ve bought a gun at a gun show and went through the same background check as any other gun I’ve bought outside of gun shows.
Private sales in most states do not require a NICS check, but a person cannot go to a gun show and make a business out of private sales - I can’t remember exactly what the laws were, but there are restrictions on private sales such that if anyone were using gun shows as a sneaky way of avoiding background checks on selling a bunch of guns, the ATF would be on them and burning down their house and killing their wife and kids in no time flat.
The entire “gun show loophole” was completely invented from nothing. And the few states that have passed laws to close the “gun show loophole” actually don’t have anything to do with private sales - they just essentially ban gun shows. Which was the goal in the first place of creating the lie.
As to the rest of the thread - I am not an NRA member. It’s actually because I view them a combination of too moderate and too extreme at the same time. Politically they’re fairly moderate - the people here like to portray an extremist NRA that wants to make it mandatory to give machine guns to toddlers, but this is entirely a creation of your own hysteria and the lies of the media.
To give an example of this - during the “cop killer bullet” craze of the 1980s (which itself was entirely based on lies), there was an attempt to ban any bullet that could penetrate a certain level of bulletproof vest. Sounds reasonable, right? Who needs bullets that can pierce police vests? Well - yeah, there’s the ignorance they were exploiting. Handgun runs are extremely low powered compared to run of the mill rifle rounds, and the vast majority of bulletproof vests are only designed to stop handgun rounds from penetrating them. So if you were to use “ability to penetrate a level 1 bulletproof vest” as a criteria, you would ban pretty much every rifle round in existance. So the NRA, not wanting to see ALL RIFLES BANNED ENTIRELY, opposed this law. And the media spun this as “EXTREMIST NRA FIGHTS FOR COP KILLER BULLETS!”
The perception of the NRA as an extremist, crazy organization is almost entirely a creation of the gun control lobby, exploiting ignorance and hysteria.
Now - I also said that they are sometimes “too extreme at the same time”. I do not mean politically, I mean in their use of language and fear mongering tactics like this thread focuses on. I view the gun advocacy movement as generally the side of logic and net good. (Not wanting to start a generic gun control debate here, just explaining my view). If your side has the logic and statistics and the utilitarian arguments on your side, then you don’t need to use fearmongering and lies and ignorance. More generally - you should never use those tactics to support your position, and if you have to, then your position is not worth holding. The gun control movement - at least the real movers and shakers like the Brady Campaign, is based entirely around hysteria and lies. The NRA (and gun lobbies) in general should not respond in kind, or we’re barely better than they are. We should fight their lies with truth, and the NRA is dropping the ball on that when they do shit like this.
Unfortunately the GOA pulls this exact same shit, although they are more in line with me on the issue politically.
Gotta admire the plucky little NRA, standing up to the massive financial power of the gun control lobby…
Who know twenty-one ways to kill a man with a single petit four. And know exactly which wine goes best with execution via pastry, too. Scary bunch.
Political power is the primary issue. There are no shortage of laws proposed and passed which are invasive of gun rights. I’m sure you’d like to think of VPC and Brady and all them as useless fighting the noble fight against evil, but it’s pretty obvious that the gun control agenda has some real power.
For what it’s worth, we’re sort of in agreement - not for the same reasons, but that the democrats should drop the gun control issue entirely. It’s not winning them many votes, but it certainly is costing them. The people who believe strongly in gun rights are more likely to be politically active and have gun rights an important topic to them, whereas most gun control advocates are not nearly so enthusiastic about the issue. There is evidence that they’ve realized this since the democrats have certainly been quieter about the issue lately, but they should just go full blown and officially drop it as an issue. They’d win over some gun rights advocates who are otherwise disgusted with the republican party and just need a bit of a push to finally make the switch palatable.
Invasive of gun rights? Give me a break. There is no “human right” that says you have the right to own a gun. Read the actual text of the Second Amendment: “a well regulated militia,” which hardly any gun owner belongs to (and do those that do belong to a “militia” belong to a “well regulated” one?). What’s more, consider it in its actual historical context from 1791 and then compare it to today (taking in consideration technological advances and America’s stable security situation and secure standing in the world as compared to Colonial times) and tell me there’s such a thing guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. What a crock.
We’ve had pages and pages of threads on here countering all of your points, and there’s no reason to turn this thread into Generic Gun Control Thread #58125.
I do think self defense is obviously a basic human right, and I do think there’s a correlation between gun ownership and self defense - both in the obvious practical sense, and also in the sense that societies that tend to limit private ownership of guns (or retrict that ownership to only sporting purposes) also tend to be restrictive of the right of self defense more generally. Along with a dismissive stance on personal responsibility towards self defense often come requirements that you flee rather than fight, arresting people who killed someone in self defense, creating a society in which the expectation is that you essentially shut down and become a sheep and wait for the police to show up rather than take ultimate responsibility for your own defense.
Thank you, Airman, for your response. I do not disagree with anything you said.
I do think the “father buying .22 for his son” rationale is silly. First, heaven forbid your (presumably minor) child would have to undergo a background check as well. I don’t see that as a significant burden. Particularly since, (if it were either of my kids) I know enough about them to fill out the forms and (as their parent) could probably sign in their stead and have it all wrapped up in time for Christmas.
Alternately, I would hope for a background check to transfer a gun, even privately. “Hey, crazy-eyes, you look angry. Wanna buy my piece?” should not be a consequence-free transaction. (My apologies if there is an actual poster named “crazy-eyes”).
I oppose them just because of their hideous website design.
Push Polling is reprehensible.
And I’m aware that an occasional southern Democrat gets the NRA nod, but on a national level, they have never, to my recollection, supported a Democratic presidential candidate over his Republican opponent, and by pushing the ‘third world dictators and Hillary Clinton’ crap they’re undermining the current administration with falsehood.
Liberty-hating politicians, huh? Well, I can see why you’re in the NRA… :rolleyes:
Doors, if your organization is willing to sacrifice truth, which is a basic foundation of democracy, to achieve its goals, then it IS extreme. And if all they wanted was the status quo, they wouldn’t have push-polled me because there is no major firearms initiative rolling through Congress right now, or even under consideration.
Don’t give me that horseshit. My wife is an active member of the local Democratic Party, and I see the propaganda that they put out. They might as well ask if you’ve stopped beating your wife yet. I really loved the survey they sent her the other week. Let us not get holier-than-thou.
The NRA is not my organization. I am a member at the (very) lowest level (as in, someone gave me a gift membership because I wouldn’t give Wayne LaPierre my money) and I loathe the leadership and their tactics. I despise push polling in all of its forms.