Emphasizing different details than what you’d emphasize does not make something “bunk”.
Your analogy only makes sense if I’m condemning them for not being hardline enough. Which I’m not, so this is irrelevant.
You’re giving them a lot of credibility on the basis of transparent tokenism. If the NRA made a whole lot of ads that featured black people as “the bad guy” (we all acknowledge the good guy/bad guy dichotomy played up by the NRA is ridiculous and childish, right?) then they would be marginalized and they’re trying to avoid that.
So like the entire Republican party, they rely on dog whistles instead.
I don’t know exactly what you mean by “promotes”, but I suspect it is something like “if there is any whiff of plausible deniability then I will continue to stubbornly insist the NRA does not play on the fears of racist whites to help sell guns”. And there will always be at least a whiff of plausible deniability because the NRA has the money they need to spend on PR flaks to keep them out of media trouble.
Even then they can’t seem to deal with their Ted Nugent problem. Why can’t they just fire him? What possible political pressures would prevent them from firing a brazenly racist guy who says brazenly racist things from their board?
Are they saying that because they want guns to be more available to black people in particular, or are they using it because it’s a rhetorically useful point that can be used to support their overall goals?
It’s like saying “Hillary says she’s against the TPP”. Yeah, she says that. That doesn’t really tell me much about her intentions or likely actions.
That woman is a hero for taking the initiative to stream it live. It became more than just another headline. You can’t get much closer to the reality than that.
While the national discussion in regards to gun control focuses on citizens it seems that the most irresponsible uses of firearms we hear about often involves the police deciding to murder someone out of an abundance of fear and a lack of any real policing skill.
Let’s disarm the police until they can demonstrate a more mature and reasoned approach to policing the citizenry from which their power to police is derived. As it stands now, I don’t think they can be entrusted with such a powerful, immediate, and permanent tool.
Again - it doesn’t restrict research. Go read it. Here it is: “Provided further, that none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” That’s it. They can present their data all they want. The problem was they were taking a biased stance to begin with, not doing objective research. That is what prompted the law.
It is very specific. If it is an obstacle, it is a very mild one. I just gave you proof they still research gun violence. NOTHING is stopping any other agency from researching it. I am sure there are probably better agencies who deal with crime on a regular basis who should take charge.
Furthermore, in every other thing in life we also rely on and trust non-governmental research. Private research isn’t beholden to the whims of congress. A quick search shows many third party orgs looking into it. Feel free to send them money.
WHY are we acting like this one, specific law is the insurmountable obstacle and we can’t possible know anything because of it? It reminds me of all those videos of soccer players getting barely touched and then flailing on ground…
Yup, irrational and wild-eyed fear. If cops are going to believe all black men are a millimeter muscle twitch away from producing a loaded weapon aimed directly at them (even when fully subdued and/or restrained), then they need to (as Jesse Williams so eloquently tweeted), make these separate ‘black man’ rules widely known, so people being accosted by police know how to stay alive. If you are stopped by the police, make no mistake, your life is in grave peril. If you are a black man stopped by the police, a single twitch, no matter how inadvertant or innocuous, can cause fatal violent reaction.
This changes rather fast. The immigration is used as argument to fast-track the setup of less trained police units. Normally the training takes 3 years, including lots of legal matters (like civil rights) and psychology (e.g. deescalation strategies). The auxiliary policemen will get a training of about 3 months and will be armed - so more like the US police training.
I am not happy, but our conservative politicians love it.
It’s bunk because it tells half the story to push it’s narrative. It lacks integrity.
It makes perfect sense because the time lines are very similar.
The NRA supported racist laws in the 60s.
The Democrats supported racist laws in the 60s.
2016 the NRA doesn’t support racist laws.
2016 the Democrats don’t support racist laws.
I was talking private company advertisements, not the NRA. I can’t recall every seen an NRA ad with a “bad guy”, but it’s possible one exists. Generally their adds appeal to protecting rights, though they do get annoying/redundatn with the threat of “sky is falling” legislation all the time.
Yeah, so basically, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, the NRA doesn’t really want blacks to own guns, because gun rights activists are primarily racists (even though you have no actual evidence the NRA has a racist platform, it is just a known known). Is that the gist, of your opinion, or are you saying just enough to plausibly deny making that statement?
Actually I completely agree with you on that.
This was brought up before. I don’t think it is solely used a pawn. But - let’s just say it is. Are you saying you would support racist legislation (such as the no-fly/no-buy) just because the entity you disagree with happens to be right in this one case?
It’s a response to an NRA press release that does the exact same thing. By this same argument, the NRA lacks integrity. (Note that I’m not making that argument, I’m just applying your argument consistently.)
No written or spoken account of a historical incident can be comprehensive. Every account will necessarily emphasize some details and not emphasize others. You’re assuming this was done in bad faith, but that is an assumption on your part. I could make the same assumptions about your “half truths” if I was being uncharitable.
The time lines are irrelevant. Your analogy fails because I’m criticizing the NRA for being racist, not for not being hardline enough. Your comparison would make sense if I had been criticizing the NRA for not being hardline enough, but I wasn’t, so your analogy is not applicable. It’s not that it doesn’t make sense – I understand all the words you are using. But you are comparing racist apples to hardline oranges.
So your comment was…completely irrelevant? Not sure I understand.
Nope, that’s a complete misinterpretation. Not sure how you got that at all.
The NRA doesn’t care if blacks own guns. In fact, if blacks owning guns makes white people scared enough to go buy even more guns then that would probably be great from the NRA perspective! I’m not claiming that the NRA is racist for the sake of being racist. I explicitly argued that the NRA is racist for the sake of selling more guns.
I don’t think I said anything that would even remotely suggest that.
The NRA isn’t a new agency, or trying to be one. No, I would not take a “press release” from them or any entity at face value with out verification.
Let me try one more time. Your criticism of the NRA circa 1960 as being racists could have some merit, because of the laws they backed.
In 2016 you can’t claim the NRA is racist because of the laws they back nor their policies. There is no evidence of it. You can’t condemn an organization for it’s views 50+ years ago. They are not the same organization now as they were then. You are lacking evidence that the NRA supports racism now.
I disagree, but I understand your position better. Though I don’t understand how even if this were true it makes them “racists”. They are supporting equal rights across the board. Your theory that they want whites to be afraid of blacks to sell more guns (which they don’t directly even profit from) is - uh - pure speculation.
Fair enough. But then can I get acknowledgement that the idea of “the NRA is racist” doesn’t quite line up with their real world advocacy, as in my example, that law was primarily targeted at minorities and Muslims. A racist org would be like, “Well, that is just common sense, and we can agree on that (as it doesn’t affect our core members in the slightest.)”
Setting aside all else about this clusterfuck, it may be that one of the brakelights was out and these are just the rear tail lights. Different things.
And the article in the NR was an op-ed, not a news article. So you retract your criticism?
Well, I’m not accusing them of being racist. I’m accusing them of playing up the fears of racist whites to promote gun sales.
That’s like the third time I’ve stated this. Can you acknowledge what I’m actually arguing instead of putting words in my mouth, please?
They support Ted Nugent.
If by “pure speculation” you mean “plausible inference based on their words and deeds” ,that would be correct. The fact that they don’t “directly” profit from gun sales is irrelevant. Lobbying firms for oil companies don’t directly profit from selling oil, but taking that as evidence that they don’t fight against oil drilling regulations would be what some might call “the stupidest fucking thing I ever heard.”
The NRA itself is an organization and cannot, strictly speaking, be accused of attitudes like racism. The NRA is, in that sense, not racist. They have many racist members, and some of their leadership are brazenly racist, and I suspect other members of their leadership are quietly racist. However, they go to great pains to avoid having their public image tainted by accusations of racism.
What are you doing here, talking about the details of the murder of Philando Castile, in a thread for a post that’s about the murder of Philando Castile?
Can’t you see that this thread has been taken over by yet another tedious debate about guns? Jeez dude, get with the proverbial program!
Militarism of the police is at least partly to blame. Instead of being trained that they are citizens, working among fellow citizens, only a few of whom are bad, cops these days are trained that they are soldiers fighting a war on the streets, and that anybody not in a police uniform may be their enemy. Police recruiters actually look for and encourage bullies and control freaks, instead of weeding them out as the potential psychopaths that they are.
Thanks to the way they were raised many of these guys have a gung-ho, gun-bunny attitude, regardless of whether or not they ever served in the military.
And they know that if they ever do get into trouble, their union will strong-arm the local leadership into compliance, and the taxpayer will cover all legal bills and damage claims.
