Well gee, starting with the law in 68, states and the Federal government have been working to ban firearms. Feinstein said that she would have banned all handguns if she could get the votes. Bush the elder tried to shut down large swaths of rifles. California has done ban lists as well. New York City has its own bans, as does Chicago.
Every time there has been a movement to write another ban, the NRA has been there supporting pro gun candidates, spending large amounts of money supporting them, and also funding legal cases when possible. I don’t know what type of a control study would be necessary, and given the advantage that US citizens have thanks to our Constitutional rights it is tough to compare to other nations.
For some data, you can check out how much they pour into campaigns:
And so the NRA carefully considered every one of these and decided that it was an unacceptable reduction in liberty and made a rational decision to oppose it on that basis? Or was it just a knee-jerk reactionary thing?
In other words, is there any sort of gun control that could be considered acceptable? I’m pretty sure if the answer is no, then we’re in the realm of “hyper-partisan anathema to rational thought”.
The NRA backed the instant background check system for gun purchases. They have also backed ensuring that the database is maintained with current felony and mental illness data as well.
You do realize that Molesworth 2 wasn’t actually arguing about whether or not U.S. citizens would have lost their right to keep and bear arms without the NRA; rather, he was arguing that U.S. citizens ought to lose their right to keep and bear arms–that it’s not a right worth having in the first place. Which does not actually help the argument at all that the NRA (or some group like it) is not needed for Americans to retain their right to keep and bear arms. Of course, if you think gun rights are a bad thing, you might agree that the NRA is substantially responsible for American citizens retaining their right to keep and bear arms, and that therefore the NRA is a bad thing and you would like to see its political agenda defeated.
Note, though, that if you accept the premise that the right to keep and bear arms is a good thing and worth defending, a reluctance to compromise on restrictions on that right–at least partially on the grounds that such restrictions may lead by way of a “slippery slope” to more sweeping gun bans–is not actually irrational. (After all, just about every single gun thread in the history of this forum has wound up with someone questioning that premise and arguing that guns should, in fact, be essentially banned in a civilized society.) Perhaps the premise itself is irrational; or perhaps the premise itself, while rational, is simply wrong. But you can’t argue that opponents of a banning guns are irrational because they oppose policies that could lead to a ban on guns.
From your link: “The National Rifle Association goes to great lengths (and spends a huge sum of money) to defend the right to bear arms. It is opposed to virtually every form of gun control, including restrictions on owning assault weapons, background checks for gun owners, and registration of firearms.” Emphasis mine. Apparently one of you is wrong. I don’t know which.
There’s a reason the slippery slope is a logical fallacy. Accepting reasonable restrictions now doesn’t prevent us from rejecting unreasonable restrictions later. Opposing any restrictions, no matter how reasonable is irrational behavior. In particular, it’s self-defeating since it could lead to stricter regulation as the public becomes frustrated with the reactionary response to any minor, straight forward regulation.
Also, as I’m sure you are aware, the NRA does support many restrictions on weapon ownership. They’re not advocating private ownership of nuclear weapons as far as I know, even though that’s a position that follows from the same logic of gun rights activists. So they’ve acknowledged the need for some restrictions, i.e., they’ve agreed there needs to be a line somewhere. And now they’re opposing moving that line at all. Even if we accept there is a right to own weapons, what that actual means is not black and white and needs to be negotiated in a democratic society. The NRA and other guns rights activists aren’t participating in that negotiation in good faith.
I do have opinions on what would be “reasonable”, but since I’m a gun-rights advocate it’s not for me to make your case. You may do so at your leisure. Until then you’re tilting at windmills. We’re not reasonable because we’re not willing to do the legwork to slit our own throats? How silly.
You claim the 2nd Amendment is “completely irrelevant”. the Supremes recently made a few rulings that make it very relevant. There’s nothing “hyper-partisan” about telling you that, nor am I “projecting irrational fears” by telling you that.
There is absolutely nothing silly about expecting people to make coherent arguments in defense of their beliefs.
I did not claim the 2nd amendment is completely irrelevant. I said the original intent of it was completely irrelevant. Unless you honestly believe the British may invade some time soon, you are projecting irrational fears on me.
Youa re the one making claims here, and being remarkably hostile as well. You are the one who has to prove your case. We don’t. We can accept the status quo under the Constitution, and do so as a moral right. All we have to do is show you are wrong, if you are so.
Thus far, it appears you have vague and emotional beliefs, and are covering for a lack of good argument by questioning others with no real response.
It has become the shelter for racist social attitudes that support the killing of inner city – see: minority – people, for the benefit and ego gratification of middle class whites.
That’s why they are aligned so well with Republican politics and conservative ideology.
Since I haven’t been hostile at all, much less remarkably so, nor have I expressed anything remotely resembling “vague and emotional beliefs”, we’re done here. I can’t have a discussion with people who aren’t willing to participate in good faith.
Much like the NRA is unwilling to participate in the discussion of gun rights in good faith.
You are so unbelievably low to bring that racial shit into this debate. It has nothing to do with any of this. You seriously ought to be ashamed of yourself for playing that cheap underhanded card.
Mother of God. I provide a cite and everything, and you can’t see past your straight-arming of the NRA to trouble yourself to read it. Here, let me quote it for you:
Want to know why there’s such a disparity? That’s right, because Democrats support gun control. They support the Democrats that support gun rights. It would be stupid of them to do otherwise.
You have not yet expressed anything but your contempt for the NRA. What, precisely, do they oppose that you advocate? Take a position other than your belief that the NRA sucks.
It is not their responsibility to provide the rope to hang themselves with. They oppose restrictions. That is what they do. They do not negotiate, any more than NARAL would negotiate away abortion rights. They have a single goal and nothing more.
The NRA does not support the right of an individual to own anti-tank weapons or anti-air-flying-things weapons or heavy duty weapons used in war.
Why?
Because they’re comfortable with these kinds of bans since no inner city people – see: minorities – will ever get their hands on them.
I know this too:
When the NRA is opposing measures that many State and Federal Law Enforcement agencies want to implement in the last several decades – bullet id, gun id, gun show sale restrictions, etc – to make their job easier to track down and identify criminals, then I have to consider why the NRA wants to have a vast number of handguns unidentified.
The NRA has vehemently opposed any straw purchase laws ever proposed – laws that would try to control a person buying several dozen guns from a no-law state or county with the purpose of re-selling them to gangsters in inner cities later.
They have succeeded in blocking straw-purchase laws by paying off whoring politicians – most of them Republicans, in the last couple of decades. Why?
The reason is that they want handguns to be as easy to get as possible so some groups of society can get them and use them to kill each other, to the enjoyment and satisfaction of the NRA.
Do you think the NRA has a big meeting around a giant table in an oak paneled boardroom with big pitchers of water for everyone and discusses their strategies for ensuring that inner-city minorities annihilate each other?
But by voting as their president a moronic insane actor like Heston, who made that well known paranoid claim about his dead cold hands, is proof enough.
It’s ironic, then, that the Congress of Racial Equality supports gun rights because “discretionary firearms licensing laws were an incident of slavery”.
I’ll bet they had no idea that they were assisting in the genocide of their own people, facilitated in large part by the NRA.
Or, perhaps, such an assertion is patently absurd. That is the truth of it, of course, but in these debates it’s never important to let the truth get in the way of silliness, abject falsehoods, and outright lies.