Obama has made it clear what he wants to do in black and white, supported by his voting record. Eric Holder, his Attorney General, floated a trial balloon two weeks into the administration’s tenure. His principles on guns are even less ambiguous than Bork’s principles were on abortion. But straight-arming Bork was perfectly legitimate, whereas Obama is apparently beyond reproach.
Like I said, it depends on whose ox is being gored.
Do you have a cite that they claimed that? Maybe you do and I just missed it. I’ve never seen that one except from you.
I first mentioned it and cited it in post 125.
He wants to engage in a massive conspiracy to destroy the Second Amendment?
Having read the link, I do object to that. They took something, puffed it up, and made it much more than it was. Were it me I wouldn’t have said that.
I’d thank you to read what he actually said before commenting with nonsense.
Do you consider such statements to be a lie?
Yes. At best a gross exaggeration.
You didn’t link to anything for me to read. How do you even reconcile Obama’s almost total silence on gun issues during his presidency, and his ‘F’ ratings from the Brady Campaign, with your belief that he’s trying to severely limit the Second Amendment? I don’t think you can.
And that’s what we’re complaining about. If NARAL had made the argument that Bork, if appointed, would seek to smash the boundaries of church and state so that state governments could install theocracies that would end abortion, that would be akin to the claim that Obama is letting guns flow into Mexico to build a case against gun rights. It’s dishonest conspiracy theorizing.
I would be pleased to show you other lies or gross exaggerations by the NRA, but I think you are more or less advancing the point that the NRA, along with other single issue lobbying organizations, routinely use lies and distortions to advance their agenda. Setting aside the question of whether this is effective, do you believe that it is ethical?
I think most people would say that politicians, businesses, individuals, charities, and any other institution I can think of should be expected to apply a little of their own spin to the facts, but that a line ought to be drawn at repeated patterns of lies or spreading disinformation. Would you agree with that sentiment? If so, is there a reason why lobbying organizations should not be judged on the same standard as pretty much every other institution?
I think he answered that in post #135-the ends justify the means.
I linked it earlier in this page. But here you go. I’ll even quote it again:
That is a Brady campaign dream. And it’s on Obama’s website under his policy initiatives.
Except for the fact that his administration DID let guns flow into Mexico, and Eric Holder DID say that more restrictions were necessary:
The problem was of his own making. Oh, and if you read about “Fast and Furious”, you’ll find that the gun dealers in question were told to allow the purchases to be made.
I suppose it could be a fortuitous mistake that gave ammunition to gun-control advocates. I suppose.
If you truly believe that gun owners believe that the ends justify the means, then anti-gun politicians would’ve perished by lead-poisoning two, three decades ago.
Stop with the hysterical, hyper-partisan bullshit and the political “woe is me” breast-beating. The NRA under LaPierre practices many of the same political tactics as the Brady Campaign and other lefty political advocacy groups. Are we supposed to criticize the gun-rights advocates for their tactics while giving the gun-control advocates a free pass for using the exact same ones?
IOW, why do you expect your opposition to take the high road and be straight, true, and upright, when your side wallows in filth?
Una’s post cover’s everything I saw and went through in the 90’s, and I think she was too kind by half. After having put up with that, I will not go back to giving any gun-control advocate the time of day. If Sarah Brady told me that grass was green, I’d call her a liar to her face.
And she’s also right about the hypocrisy being displayed by gun-control advocates here and and inthe larger political arena. The double-standard is blatant to everyone but you.
These is no compromise. We have compromised again and again over the last four decades. And after every gun control scheme has failed to yield results, after Sarah Brady and her ilk have returned to the well again and again with outright lies about “evil gun owners” and the “gun lobby conspiracy,” after I have read the filthy bile spewed at gun owners in the lame-stream media and right here on this message board, having been called a racist, a homophobe, a sheet-wearing Klansman ready to stuff minorities and undesireables into concentration camps and ovens for nothing more than defending my Second Amendment rights, I will not engage in discourse with anyone regarding one more “reasonable gun control” measure.
Ever.
The well has been poisoned, and you can only thank people like Sarah Brady, and yourself, Czarcasm.
It isn’t a matter of belief, but a matter of fact that at least one gun owner in this thread believes that the ends justify the means-he said so.
I’m doing my best not to laugh at the earnestness of this. You cannot possibly believe that politics is about integrity, honesty, or ethics. You show me an “honest” politician and I’ll show you someone who just hasn’t been caught doing something yet.
If you want to tilt at this particular windmill, be my guest. But demanding behavior that is well above the standard demanded of anybody else involved in politics is a joke.
Regardless, the bottom line (getting back to the OP) is that the NRA is not partisan. Hell, they went after Bush more than a few times, and he was one of the most gun-friendly Presidents we’ve had in decades.
How about my thought: The NRA has flaws and some in the leadership engage in fear-mongering and deception, but overall they do more good than harm. The ends don’t justify the means, but also one should not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Also, there is a bit of a disconnect between the National Leadership of the NRA, and the local groups and members. Sort of like how the National Boy Scouts are homophobes and God-botherers, but here on the SDMB many have posted about how their local troops don’t discriminate and don’t ever bring up religion, or lack thereof.
I don’t like any group which engage in patterns of either deception or willful ignorance. If it’s bad when Sarah Brady and Charles Schumer do it, it’s bad when Wayne LaPierre does it. Everyone’s bad; spankings all around. 
Well, maybe you should define what “hunting” is first. Then we could decide whether or not a particular firearm was appropriate for that purpose.
For example, if “hunting” is “killing animals in order to eat or utilize their remains”, then clearly a RPG would not be appropriate for that purpose, as it would leave behind little to no trace of the animal that could be used for anything.
So, what is your definition of “hunt” and/or “hunting”?
Not really.
The change in NRA politics in the mid-1970s was led by people as fervent as LaPierre who were no more committed to “truth” than LaPierre is. The “assault gun” bans, (among other nonsense laws), were truly stupid, of course, but they, in turn, found support among more moderate people with no particular involvement in the dispute who reacted to some of the sillier stuff that the NRA promoted after 1977.
There is quite enough blame to go around between gun rights advocates and gun rights deniers without making a claim that only “the other guy” is responsible.
I have the same problem with Airman Door’s characterization that the NRA is just doing what all such groups do. Much like the more extreme partisans of the people protesting abortion, the NRA has chosen a specific political path. Both groups have ignored the number of pro-life Democrats and pro-gun rights Democrats, creating a situation in which they actively worked for the defeat of Democrats who were actually on their side. This has had the effect of further polarizing the debates so that they have become “Republican/Democrat” issues rather than issues fought on their own terms. The laws tend to get written as victory dances without any balance from the opposite political party, (either for or against gun rights or abortion rights), and often wind up thrown out by the courts as so much unconstitutional drivel.
I suspect that had the various lobbying groups supported legislators based on their actual positions, rather than by applying the false litmus test of “Democrat” or “Republican,” the various state and national legislatures would have been less polarized on the issues and there would have been fewer (dumb) laws enacted and those that were passed would have been more likely to be better thought out.
Of course, this sort of post tends to support ExTank’s claims. With a couple of hundred thousand years of human experience, most people, (and all people with a grasp of langauge), can pretty well figure out what hunting means and starting up a secondary argument on the topic, (one that will assuredly be perceived by gun rights advocates as some sort of “gotcha” trap), does nothing to promote a serious discussion of the topic.
Armored vests intended to stop the sort of small caliber field weapons currently employed by nearly all militaries or larger bore pistols that police might face, are not going to provide serious protection from a .30-06 rifle used to target game. Trying to outlaw any weapon that can defeat armor that was never designed to face it makes the people proposing such laws appear to be plotting something sinister that they are afraid to announce or to be too stupid to be permitted to write or support legislation of any sort.
To be really honest and truthful, the NRA was exceptionally weak during the 1980s and into the 1990s. They couldn’t stop the two biggest pieces of gun control legislation since 1968 from being passed. Back in the 1980s the NRA was an ad in the back of Boys’ Life magazine to me, I don’t remember anything silly until 1992, and after 1992 when there was a real possibility of UK-style gun bans (no exaggeration) they had to be as aggressive as possible. And it worked. Say what you will, it worked. Gun owners haven’t been in this good a position in a long time. There’s no reason to get complacent now.
There is, but gun control issues have long since reached the “no compromise” stage, and when people are so completely opposed to each other’s viewpoints all that’s left is finger pointing.
Not so. Rare is the case when the NRA opposes a gun-rights Democrat that is more in favor of gun rights than their opponent, or in the case of an incumbent, equal to. They are somewhat few and far between, I think you’ll agree. Yet there they are, all 58 of them for House seats, getting endorsements and very thoroughly pissing off the Republicans, who claim that a Democratic victory puts anti-gun Nancy Pelosi in the catbird seat to introduce and push through gun-control legislation.
The NRA does. Demonstrably.
After two days of arguing in this thread, I’m feeling kind of dirty. I said up front that I’m not a big fan of the NRA and I think Wayne LaPierre is a jerk, yet here I am defending them. Strange bedfellows, I guess. More important to me are the rights that they protect. Again, that’s the bottom line.