Is it possible to be anti-NRA and still be pro-2nd Amendment?
Sure. You can be for the rights of the elderly but not for AARP, or a believer in minority rights and freedom of speech and not a fan of the NAACP. I’m not a member of the NRA, nor am I in lock step agreement with them on all issues concerning gun rights (which is why I’m not a member).
Absolutely. Ask H.L. Richardson. As a matter of fact, he took special offense to the NRA supporting the NICS background check improvement legislation.
Though I would donate to the NRA simply because they are the biggest lobbying group for the RKBA around - I am pro 2nd amendment and not a member of the NRA. They are too moderate for me. Seriously.
I’m a member, but I feel the same way sometimes.
Is there another gun rights group you would support instead if they had the influence the NRA now has?
Same thoughts but I’m still a member.
The concept of “prohibited persons” has also already been expanded to an unreasonable level, at least here in California, along with background checks to try to keep people from having guns who are deemed unsuitable.
The idea of prohibiting violent convicted criminals from having guns doesn’t seem that unreasonable, at the surface. But we started by prohibiting all convicted felons, including those whose crimes had nothing to do with guns or violence. We’ve expanded the types of crimes that can be covered as felonies. It is at the point now, where I think it is fairly safe to say that most of us have, at least a few times in our lives, unknowingly committed acts that run afoul of felony-level laws. Have you ever improperly disposed of batteries or other “hazardous waste”? Who among us doesn’t routinely do so? Ever downloaded copyrighted music or media from a file-sharing network?
We’ve also expanded “prohibited persons” to include certain non-felony drug offenses and domestic violence offenses; and “mental health issues”.
“Mental health issues” is also a very troubling aspect. It’s easy to argue that there are some people who are so violently insane that they are truly dangerous, and need to be kept from dangerous objects. But thee vast majority of people who have diagnosed, identified mental health issues are no more inclined to dangerous, violent, or criminal behavior than those who have not been so diagnosed. And mental illness covers a lot of minor issues, such as OCD, phobias, and such. I doubt if there is any single individual alive anywhere who doesn’t have some pattern of thought or behavior that could be classified as a mental illness. Indeed, there is a long history of oppressive governments using “mental illness” as an excuse to suppress their opponents.
Giving government the power to pick and choose who it will and who it will not allow to exercise an essential Constitutional right sets a very dangerous precedent.
They’ve already abused this power to an unacceptable and unreasonable degree, and can only be expected to expand their abuse of it. It’d be no great leap from where things now stand for this power to be expanded to cover any of us.
I say that the only legitimate solution is that anyone who, either through mental illness, or criminal behavior, is adequately proven to be an unacceptable danger to free society, needs to be removed from free society until such time as he can be satisfactorily demonstrated to be otherwise. This needs to be done by a vigorous due process of law where the proof of a need and a justification for such an action can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt; and depending in the nature of the danger, the subject of such an action, on being so proven a danger, should be confined to a prison or a mental hospital (or put to death if the issue involves a sufficient level of criminality to call for it).
Anyone who is not in confinement as a result of this process is free, and ought to be allowed all of the same rights as every other free American, including the right to keep and bear arms. (I’d actually make an exception, here, for anyone who is on parole or probation; although such are “free” in the sense of not being confined in a prison, they are still under sentence for a crime, and their “freedom”, at that point is limited and subject to restrictions that would not apply to one who is genuinely free, and subject to revocation of they violate the terms of their probation or parole. I have no problem with a prohibition on possession of weapons being among these restrictions.)
[QUOTE=Dissonance]
Again, firearms are weapons, full stop. Find me one dictionary definition that does not define a firearm as a weapon. It is disingenuous to state that firearms are not weapons. Guess what? Target rifles and target pistols are weapons.
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A starter’s pistol is a firearm, it is also a weapon in the sense that a letter opener is a weapon - that is, it could just conceivable do some damage to someone if special effort was taken, but is about as effective for any real combat situation as a wet noodle. Calling it a weapon may be technically accurate, in the sense that a firearm is an armament, which is another name for weapon, but that description is vastly misleading about the capabilities of the aforementioned device.
Try walking into a bank with a BB gun that looks like a semi-auto weapon, or a realistic looking Airsoft gun. Kids have been shot for having plastic, non-projectile firing toys. Mistaking a harmless device for a threat does not mean the device is actually a weapon, it just means it is misinterpreted. Someone trying to hold up a bank with a starter’s pistol is either ignorant or hoping to use that misinterpretation to their advantage, but that doesn’t make a starter’s pistol an effective weapon, it just means it looks like a similar tool that is actually dangerous.
And again, from a legal perspective, if I try to hold up a bank by threatening with a rock, that is a weapon. That would count as armed robbery.
As I said, that is a philosophical position regarding what a “weapon” is, and dictionaries are looking for concise explanations. They get caught in circular word usage all the time. I’m sorry I got caught up in this hijack. I was attempting to explain the basis for smiling bandit’s comment, but at this point, I realize I’m not going to convince you of anything, and I’m done with this hijack.
In recent times the SAF has done a lot of work to advance the cause of gun rights advocates. I support them. There are also certain state focused groups that have a narrower focus and can target state level laws that are unfavorable to the RKBA.
I would like to see a more wide spread targeted litigation strategy to bankrupt municipalities that have overly restrictive gun laws on the books. If they keep hitting the Washington DC pinata and more money keeps falling out when they lose court cases, maybe eventually they will change their laws. Until then the pro RKBA lawyers will get rich, and deservedly so.
Here is the federal law about prohibited persons related to mental health:
Do you have any problem with that?
Here is CA law:
(I added bullets)
What specific provision of these laws are you “troubled” by? Which of the above provisions do you believe to be too restrictive? Simply being diagnosed with mental illness is not sufficient to become a prohibited person.
Cite that illegally disposing of batteries is a felony that would make you a prohibited person as you have implied?
What felonies do you believe currently cause a person to become prohibited that should not? I’m perfectly fine with felons losing their right to possess firearms. Non-violent felons should be able to have this prohibition lifted after some proscribed amount of time, but if one can not follow the law with sufficient rigor and judgment as to not be convicted of a felony, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for their right to possess firearms.
I see prohibitions based on restraining orders as a wobbler. TROs are too easy to obtain and do not have enough rigor and due process to be the cause for one to lose their right to possess firearms, IMO.
Enough inches have been given. I think we should take some back.
I’ll take that over a more reasoned fellow who can’t rally the troops. Besides, how do you know the guy isn’t reasoned, and is just doing what needs to be done to rally the troops? Anyway I didn’t have much love for the NRA, then the gun grabbers did their assault weapon ban push again and I became a life member. Problems or not the NRA fight for gun owners with more clout than anyone else.
I think it’s en vogue for anti-gunners to say they are pro-2nd Amendment.
Starting with what? What are the “inches” you most regret giving up and which should be taken back? What *serious *limitation is there that confines your liberties unreasonably? :dubious:
Does it matter to you *what *the, well, we can’t really call them “troops”, the membership then, is being rallied to do? Lately it’s been to oppose everything and cripple whatever credibility the gun-owning community used to have. Is that a good thing to you? :dubious:
So you think you need an assault weapon, to do what exactly? :dubious:
Off the top of my head I don’t think I should be denied cheap surplus ammo imported from other countries. I’m currently building a SG-57 and don’t think I should have to locate a barrel and receiver to replace the ones destroyed to allow importation of the parts kit. I also don’t think I should have to pay a $200 tax stamp for every class 3 weapon or accessory that interests me. CCW on campus, yes I think I should be able. I can go on.
Sure I think they did a great job stopping Feinstein and Obama and ousting them senators in Colorado. I don’t expect a person like you to ever have thought the gun owner community had any credibility to lose.
I’d rather have one and not need one than need one and not have one. As of yet I can’t say I have ever needed one. Heck I don’t need a lot of things I own, but I like having them, and I don’t want anyone telling me I can’t. In fact people telling me I shouldn’t have them makes me buy more of them. See, I believe in this thing called “freedom” and I figure you probably don’t understand.
Gun Owners of America and Second Amendment Foundation (I do currently support both).
I’d like to see the NFA registry reopened. No one, and I mean no one has been able to explain to me why it’s ok for me to own a full-auto weapon made in 1985, but not one made in 1987. It’s non-sensical.
Also, an area that’s near and dear to my heart, I’d like to see more colleges allow concealed carry on campus. More precisely, I’d like to see more public colleges forced to allow concealed carry on campus like those in Utah have been.
That second “Regulation” should have been “ban”.
Because one party says “NEVER!” and the other party says “ALWAYS!” and the NRA lobbys for things that help manufacturers more than it’s citizen membership. They don’t listen to an American that wants a mental health system, comprehensive background checks, and some other minor modifications to existing law.
But we can’t have reasonableness in DC, can we? Europe would have nothing to point at us and laugh about, and we can’t have that.
The good-slash-bad thing about gun owners is that they are extremely vocal about their guns. People go to regulate them, and there’s an inherent mistrust to just letting the politicians do whatever. It only escalates from there.
Honestly, i don’t care what term you use as long as it’s clear. I just thought that term was tremendously enjoyable. (I may be crazy. 
)
My point was more about pull. But I don’t think most of those even try to lobby in DC…
No offense, but why wouldn’t they ask for money? I have BOTH the DNC and RNC leaving me messages asking for money. We all know they don’t need it, but they still ask. 
By about 10,000 to nothing every year.
That also happens to be the number of deaths every year during the Iraq war. If there’s a war going on in the U.S., I’d say it’s a War on Americans.
If you have a need to carry a handgun, then it isn’t a freedom, it’s a necessity. I’m free from the need to carry one because people here don’t go around with guns. I gather that’s a freedom you and a lot of Americans don’t have.
There must be a list of firearms you’re not “free” to own. Are you oppressed because you can own most kinds of firearms but not a few others?
What does the NRA have to do with a Senate vote? Did they influence it?
That’s a very odd definition of “freedom”—not being allowed to do something, but thinking one doesn’t need to do so anyway. Most Americans think that freedom means being allowed to do something.
I guess it’s an inevitable result of the difference between a nation that was founded in violent and forceful rebellion against a horrendous tyrant, and another nation that was founded in grovelling and cowering before that same tyrant.
Who said anything about need. I’m free to choose to carry if I want to or not. That what freedom means “the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.”
You sound free to do as you’re told, which isn’t very free.
To a degree yes. I was complaining about that earlier if you didn’t notice. The bright side is the guns I want but have trouble getting are luxuries with historical rather than practical value. Like that SG-57 I mentioned.