It’s a never-ending cycle when, like Coulter, one constantly says incredibly stupid things online.
A constant mystery.
What you don’t want to see on a food package: “Don’t worry, we’ve stuck these up our arses!”
(Now I’m imagining an “Arse Safe” sticker like the one for organic products…)
Not so much “pushback” as laws - the NRA has effectively created laws that prevent anyone who receives federal funds (i.e. almost all researchers) from researching the dynamics of gun violence, its impacts, etc., and preventing doctors from discussing the health risks of owning guns with patients.
The whole irony of the NRA telling doctors to “stay in their lane” when they’ve been so successful at forcing experts out of their lane entirely on this issue is compounded by Coulter claiming doctors also aren’t experts on… medical issues.
Honestly, sometimes I wonder why the US military even bothers with the rifles.
Seems like such a waste of resources to spend so much time teaching soldiers to use guns when they could just train new recruits to have violent intent, which is clearly just as deadly on its own.
Well, the most important thing is that the NRA shouldn’t be making legislation. Legislators should be doing that.
When publicly elected officials make legislation they should attempt to consult widely to ensure that they understand the impacts of the legislation and that they make legislation that represents the people who they were elected to represent.
So, yes, people making legislation should definitely ask consult doctors, criminologists and many other groups (including the NRA) when making legislation. The NRA doesn’t have to consult doctors in advocating their position, nor do doctors have to consult the NRA in stating theirs.
Of course, in practice, I think the NRA has written legislation. But that’s not an argument about gun control, that’s just corruption.
It depends what you mean by “has substance”. Like, her words have actual content and intended meaning. It is an argument. I’d say the same about “All rabbits are animals therefore all animals are rabbits”. It’s false, but it is an argument.
If you mean “has substance” as in “is worthy of more than a moment of consideration” then I don’t agree at all.
First, the idea that doctors shouldn’t voice their opinion, even if it is ill-informed, on an issue of public policy is anti-democratic.
Second, if doctors were pulling cue balls out of orifices every day; if they were watching people die from cue ball insertion regularly; if there had been public message after public message saying, “Stop putting cue balls into your orifices!” but people just kept doing it; if nearly 1.5% of deaths in America in 2016 were related to cue balls (38,658 out of 2,712,630); then yes doctors would be publishing articles about how something had to be done about cue balls. Their interest is in fewer people dying.
Oh, most definitely. Though we don’t call it “corruption” here. Having lobyists write legislation is “just how things are done,” I’m afraid.
I’m just wondering if it’s the NRA’s position that, whenever they do something, they need to consult people who, you know, actually know something about the issues.
But that’s not fair. Really, what the NRA is saying is that doctors need to consult gun marketers when talking about gun violence. So fair play would be the NRA having to get input from doctors about gun violence when marketing guns. Not unreasonable, actually. Guns could be like cigarettes, where they detail the impact the use of the product has on human bodies as an intrinsic part of the advertising/packaging…
Hell, it doesn’t even need to go that far. If a doctor is dealing with things up people’s butts, for example, then they’re experts on those things (vis-a-vis people’s butts, of course). If some objects are problematic in that usage to the point of requiring intervention (even if ultimately harmless), then it’s completely within their area of expertise to talk about it. (And they do.) It just becomes hugely more important that they do so - and loudly - when people are actually getting hurt. It’s quite normal for products to be entirely banned as a result.
Coulter took an obviously dumb NRA statement and really doubled down on the stupid.
Yeah, our notion of corruption has become extremely narrow. Midnight meeting in the parking lot involving a burlap sack with a dollar sign painted on the side = corruption. Enacting legislation that hurts your constituents because some company that profited off of it will put you on their board after you have done your time in the legislature = fair game.
With the NRA, it’s worse than that. It’s the bribe of campaign money (especially dark money that doesn’t ever touch your campaign’s books), the golden parachute you highlight, and the threat of being primaried if you don’t toe the line. They really need to invest more in pinky rings and lesiure suits if they want to look the part.
Which brings up the curious converse of guns don’t kill people. If guns don’t kill people, why do NAMGLA members (thank you RickMycroft) need guns for defense? If guns don’t kill people, they don’t defend people either. So no need for guns at all!
