Isn’t that up to the Senate to decide if it’s a big deal or not?
No, I can’t be bothered to look it up for you. I’ll just accept that I was wrong and you have nothing to say about the NRA’s marketing claims. Fair enough?
It was a breath of fresh air, though, hearing a gun proponent refer to the NRA’s pronouncements as “marketing claims”. Gun owners on this board have steadfastly rejected the notion that the NRA is trying to sell guns, that it simply educates the public on gun safety and gun rights. It’s good to know that someone on their side disagrees with that.
I said nothing about gun spokesmen whether you want to be bothered to look it up or not.
The NRA isn’t in the business of selling guns. They sell lots of Chinese made tchotchkes but not guns. They are in the business of the NRA. I often hear the claims that the NRA wants all gun laws abolished. That would be bad for business. Anyone who thinks that is what they want is a fool.
Not sure how you went from “marketing claims” to “the NRA is trying to sell guns”. They’re trying to sell the NRA.
How nice of you to conclude for everyone else what is small or large potatoes. I’ll make my own judgments. What do you think is the big picture then? If anything, the largest criticism I’ve read consistently from all directions is that Garland tends to be deferential to administrative interpretation and more centralized power structures (could be a bad paraphrase there). That too is bad, but not a deal breaker IMO.
I don’t know if he’d be an ideal nominee for SCOTUS so I don’t agree. To me, an ideal nominee for SCOTUS would align with my judicial philosophy - anything less would not be ideal.
(my bold)
These two bolded sentences are contradictory. Was that intentional?
This is going off the rails, and I think it’s largely due to my snarky tone, for which I apologize. Believe it or not, I’d rather have an honest debate, not a snark contest, so I’ll try to refrain from it from now on.
Of course it is, but I didn’t say otherwise. My comments shouldn’t be taken as demands of the government.
Sorry, looks like I interpreted your comment wrong, JXJohns. My view is the NRA does promote the use of guns with its rhetoric and therefore are both salesmen and spokesmen for the industry, in practice if not explicitly. I don’t have a cite, but that’s my view.
Maybe you could clarify what you meant by “the NRA and its marketing claims” in post 94.
It isn’t fair to turn my opinion into an order. I’m also not trying to usurp Congress’s authority.
Taking into account all the cases that come before SCOTUS, gun rights/gun control must be a small minority. To me, that’s small potatoes.
My dad was an NRA member. He quit when they claimed to be all Rah! Rah! America! but sent Chinese trinkets as renewal tokens. He’s been dead for 5 years and they still send renewal packets to his address. I use a little red, blue, silver folding NRA Made in China knife they sent him as a letter opener. I don’t care for their aggressive marketing, but I feel they are more of a lobbying entity than an arms dealer.
I think as my parting tribute to the Obama administration, I’ll pick up a .308 gas piston auto.
Bueller?..Bueller?..
Bone?..Bone?..
Ditka?..Ditka?..
Johns?..Johns?..
I guess it’s settled, then: the NRA’s propaganda is an attempt to scare gun owners into thinking that Obama wants to take all yer guns, and the next thing you know, tanks will be rumbling through the streets. So go out and buy more guns, all you warriors in the battle for freedom, cause that will stop the American military in its tracks for sure.
(my bold)
Almost lasted one post.
I’m sorry I was gone for a day and unable to reply. It’s almost as though some folks have a life outside of this joint from time to time…
You originally posted this:
“Do you have anything to say about the claims made repeatedly by the NRA? And its choice for president?”
For some reason, you asked me to be the defender of the NRA at that point. Later, you incorrectly mentioned that I made comments about gun spokesmen. In answering your question regarding claims made repeatedly by the NRA, I stated that yes, they make a lot of claims.
Regarding this not snarky (?) question:
After Obama and Ms. Clinton both have praised a country for enacting sweeping bans and compulsory buy backs of entire classes of weapons, and stating that those solutions would be worth “looking at”, it isn’t a stretch to think that they would like to do the same here. It’s the words that came out of their mouths, and I just read that Clinton lies significantly less than trump so there you go. Australian style controls probably would not pass Congress anytime soon but they said what they said and the NRA ran with it.
You guys didn’t seem to be interested in the honest debate thing, so I thought I’d go back to snark and see what happened. And whadda ya know.
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, back to seriosity. Why did you insinuate that I was deciding for you what is “small potatoes”? That came right out of left field. You don’t jump to the conclusion that other posters are trying to tell you what to think, including me in all my previous posts. All of sudden, two of you think I’m the thought police or something.
I asked if you had anything to say about the NRA and its claims, as you quoted, not to defend them.
I asked because I dropped into this thread to make the point that the opinion of gun owners–some, not all–about Obama has been distorted by the over-heated rhetoric of the NRA. You responded with a post about handguns and Obama’s misguided attempts at regulations, which I thought was irrelevant to the point; hence my question.
Neither Obama nor Clinton have threatened to repeal the Second Amendment and take everyone’s guns away, as the NRA and other gun rights pundits would have us believe, and praising Australia’s gun control doesn’t come close to suggesting that. Australians are allowed to own guns. If the NRA says otherwise, they’re lying, and Clinton would be a paragon of honesty compared to them.
No, what they have said, both of them, is that they would like to look further into implementing Australian style gun control measures. That would include significant hurdles to legal gun ownership and banning and confiscation of millions of semi auto guns.
I think the major disconnect between us is that you seem to be the sort that thinks that since they don’t want to ban all guns that means to you that they don’t want to ban guns. If we can own something, the Second Amendment is still intact and we should just sit in the corner and shut the fuck up. Sound about right?
They both support an assault weapon ban. Based upon the latest AW legislation that Sen. D Feinstein introduced, pretty much all semi auto rifles and shotguns would be included in that ban either by name, build configuration, or look. I am quite sure that you don’t care as we would still be able to own bolt actions. That is a bad thing for gun owners. You get that, right? Just because they don’t want to ban everything, we are not going to be happy about the fact that once we jump through a million hoops we might be able to qualify to own a BB gun.
Are they coming for our guns? Some of them yes, but only if they get a willing Congress. Hillary supporters say that she is mostly honest. I’ll take them and her at their word.
Because of this:
Plus, ditto what JXJohns said in post #113 just above.
I’m just tuning out the side track, from this thread it looks like there really isn’t a lot of room to call them different. I realize I didn’t clarify my position at the beginning, so this may help understand where I’m coming from: I’m someone who’s very much pro-gun, but also believe in nondiscrimination and equal rights, and actually fiscally conservative (so opposed to corporate welfare, support UHC, prefer individual welfare to prison spending, etc.). In practice I pretty much always vote for either a Democrat or Libertarian, because republicans are simply awful on issues like civil rights, discrimination, abortion, and so on, while not doing anything positive for the areas they’re supposed to be good for like guns or being fiscally conservative. (See the NC legislature for a good example of this).
I’ve had people argue that the vast difference between Ds and Rs on guns should sway my opinion, but I don’t see that there really is a whole lot of difference at higher levels (and at low-levels the Republicans are just batshit, again see the NC legislature). I was wondering if I was missing something, but it really doesn’t seem like I am in looking at how little either side does even when they have a solid majority and sympathetic president.
What did Bush do for the PLCAA other than sign it? I don’t recall him putting any significant effort into campaining for it, AFAIK it was pushed in the legislature without any significant action by him. It’s not like Obama and the ACA, where you can lay the credit/blame for the law primarily on Obama since it was a major initiative for him. Obama voted against the bill, but I haven’t seen any comment that he disapproved enough to veto it if it had come up while he was president - so unless I’m missing something significant that Bush did, they seem to be a wash on this issue too.
I get that gun owners feel that way, but it’s a wholly one-sided viewpoint. An objective analyst, one who has no skin in the game either way, would also want to know why Australia instituted its gun control measures, and if they have succeeded. Are you willing to consider that, or are you just going to stick to your own guns?
I think that if they want to ban some guns, they don’t want to ban all guns, and I haven’t said otherwise. (“Never bring a preconceived notion to a gun debate.”)
If you’re so concerned about drawing illogical conclusions, how about the NRA’s conclusion that because [insert name of current Democrat bogeyman or woman] wants to ban some guns, they want to ban all guns and destroy the Second Amendment to boot? And then give you all wedgies! All of which is–pardon the language–pure applesauce and jiggery-pokery.
If Obama/Hillary responded in kind and accused the NRA of wanting to force everyone to have guns whether they want them or not, veins would be popping left and right in NRA offices. Yet the sanctimonious Defenders of Freedom blithely make up shit about them, and without any consequences. They keep at it year after year, from president to president (fingers crossed), and gun owners don’t bat an eye. Believe it or not, one of them passed it off as “marketing claims”.
Yes, except for the “sit in the corner and shut the fuck up” part. I’m not out to rescind the First Amendment, either.
You must know that we’ll have different ideas about what constitutes “bad”. That’s another dead end debate.
Hyperbole aside, will you be happy if gun deaths are substantially reduced, or does that not matter?
From that, I gather that you don’t take the NRA at its word. Now the question is, are they exempt from the ethics of honesty?
How dare JXJohns tell me what to think!
I already have considered it. Rifles and shotguns, assault variety, pump, lever action, or semi auto make up a ridiculously small percentage of the firearm murders in the US every year. I posted the numbers earlier. Remember that part earlier about handguns being the problem? If one wanted to seriously tackle the problem of gun violence, that’s what they should consider.
Hyperbole is common on both side of the debate. I haven’t seen the NRA claim that anyone wants to ban all guns. They make the claim that Obama and CLinton want to ban guns which is true. They both support a new Assault Weapon ban. I’m a member and I know the secret handshake. Perhaps you can offer a cite for me to work with from the NRA stating that they want to ban all guns.
That’s exactly what they are. Marketing claims to get more members and money. A bit of truth with a shitload of exaggeration. Both sides do it for similar reasons.
I would be thrilled if gun homicides continue to fall as they have for the last 20+ years without any significant anti gun legislation, confiscations, or licensing schemes.
Honesty in politics. That’s a good one. 
Okay, I’ll play along. Take all the time you need to go through them. No doubt it will take a while for a member of the NRA who knows the secret handshake to absorb all this new information that the NRA leadership has been saying for years.
You can’t deny the Australian measures achieved their intended purpose, to significantly reduce gun deaths, and they did it without barring Ozzies from buying guns. They did it without “ending their freedom forever” or “destroying all the freedoms and values we care about most”, without “banning every gun, destroying every magazine” or “banning your ammunition–all of it”. Neither did they “come after every bit of their freedom” nor “implement the tyranny of King George”.
If the NRA is serious about reducing gun violence as they say, you’d think they’d welcome Australian-type measures. Not only did they work, but none of the NRA’s worst fears came to pass. I’d expect to hear a collective sigh of relief from them instead of a continuing flow of fiery Doomsday rhetoric. It makes one question their real motivation, does it not? You’d almost think they’re more concerned with instilling fear into Americans so they’ll buy more guns.
If that trend continues, the U.S. will be on a par with Switzerland and Canada in about, oh, let’s say 3000, and Australia in about 4000. Keep up the good work, America!
Now you acknowledge that the NRA lies for political reasons as if you knew all along. Makes me wonder why you asked for cites.