Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/08/nra-opposes-red-flag-gun-r.html
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Guess which finger I am holding up right now Wayne.
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Colorado passed a “red flag” law, and it has prompted recall efforts and statements from sheriff’s offices saying that they aren’t going to enforce it. It’s been really interesting hearing the idea thrown around in the National debate recently. I have zero faith it will gain any federal traction.
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I try to believe the arc bends towards justice. I just wish it’s path through time were a tad bit more acute (and maybe travelled right through McConnel, LaPierre, Trump, and few hundred other morally bankrupt turd bucket’s eyes).
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Gun owners often complain, sometimes accurately, that gun control laws are frequently written by people who have little if any experience using guns.
This is why.
If gun owners can’t come to the table with any serious suggestions after Columbine or Sandy Hook or Las Vegas or El Paso or a thousand other mass shootings then they don’t get to complain when the rest of us try to find solutions without them.
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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
hey Wayne, the NRA, and every ammosexual out there…notice which word comes first in there regarding unalienable rights.
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“Worse, they would make millions of law abiding Americans less safe and less able to defend themselves and their loved ones.”
Fear speak. They do it because it works.
Slight derailment: It’s interesting how quick people who oppose gun control laws can also pivot to opposing affordable/socialized healthcare, which really would help keep more Americans safe. Especially if they get shot at one of these 2nd Amendment exercises.
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Challenge accepted. Lets ban all guns.
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“Can’t do that! 2nd Amendment!! BLAH BLAH BLAH etc” - Quote the Ammosexual!
Instead, ban all bullets! 
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Before I say anything else, know that I hate the NRA and LaPierre. They have turned into a bowl of crazy, and supported Russian lobbying, etc.
But a couple things-
Putin WOULD want gun control laws, private gun ownership is illegal in russia last I heard. Am I wrong? I’m just not ok with bending the truth because we hate Putin and the NRA.
Second, but more importantly, I do want to see Universal background checks for all firearms and several other sensible laws, but someone needs to say it- this constant writing in the media for years now and especially the last few of “assault style” guns, it has absolutely no bearing on lethality.
This kind of argument of banning “assault style” guns, and calling this out as if it is something more lethal, is constantly pushed by people who do not understand the most fundamental facts of how a gun actually works.
The common and very very popular AR-15 in America is no more lethal then a standard hunting rifle that would take the same clips.
This is because both are semi-automatic weapons of which the majority of pistols and most firearms sold are.
What the weapon looks like has no bearing on how many people it will kill and I am really exhausted by the stupidity of perfectly sensible people who continue to go down this path and make their arguments look stupid to anyone who owns or has ever used a gun and has a brain.
For the record, just since this basic stupidity seems to exist, as a former hunter (grew up a deer hunter), and NON gun owner, and someone who understands the most simple facts of gun mechanics, things that make a gun more lethal are:
#1:clip/magazine capacity (drum magazines of 100s of rounds should not be legal! If you claim to need more than 7 bullets to hunt- you have no business holding a hunting license)
#2: rate of fire- full auto (most lethal potential), semi auto (slightly less lethal potential, you must pull the trigger for every shot, unless mechanical workarounds like bump stocks), single action/double action revolvers (6 shots max generally, least lethal based on time to reload)
#3 Concealability/size (smaller is more lethal, only due to easier to hide until its too late)
#4 Caliber (bullet size and charge, bigger is generally more lethal, though not always, depends on many factors of design)
#5 Accuracy- most mass shootings do not involve someone acting as a sniper, rather, it’s usually someone trying to spray as many bullets at a crowd as possible, mass shooters usually don’t get to hide for long and pick people off for hours in very large numbers, so while in war a sniper is very lethal, for the purposes of mass shootings, scopes don’t add a lot to the lethality of the firearm for practical purposes
We are never going to be able to prevent all of these shootings, but a total ban on high-capacity magazines, universal background checks for every firearm, and basic red flag laws- those three things could be rationalized and passed with the support of gun owners and have nothing to do with what the gun looks like because that doesn’t do a goddamn thing.
Passing those issues will actually amount to saving a lot of lives.
PLEASE- learn how firearms work if you want people who actually own them to take you seriously.
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I am not a hunter, but I understand you may want a larger magazine for wild boar/feral hogs. No, not 30-50 of them, but potentially a single bigun. It’s a bit of a corner case.
I actually want real change.
I posted that in hopes that people here who do not own firearms, and do not want to but want to make some immediate change, can look at what parts of the argument they can make real sense to quickly, both to intelligent gun owners, as well as the ammosexual idiots.
I realize it’s a lot to read but this is really important to me if we want real change to happen fast we need to make valid and logical arguments to push past the dam of crazy gun owners into getting normal ones on our side
I think most people who post on boing boing are probably for gun control and I am certainly one of them.
I don’t own any guns and I am not going to defend people who have an irrational emotional attachment to them over human life
But I have seen too many times as I said otherwise very intelligent people who make the same mistakes with basic facts when it comes to guns because they hate them so much, they make arguments based on legislating them without understanding them at even a basic level
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I made this exact point in a prior topic. If weapons reform happens without weapons owners and the weapons lobby, it will be because they refused to participate. There’s a reckoning about to happen I think, and the years and years of stonewalling are going to come back to bite everyone right in the magazine.
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Yes there instances like this that exist, but the majority of people who claim to be Hunters are hunting a single animal not an entire herd of them.
I come from a perspective of a former deer hunter, who gave up guns.
Your point is valid and it’s something to think about
You know, my background is ardently pro-gun, and I’m in a gun-friendly industry, and I agree with you entirely. There are so many smart ways to tackle these problems and put a real dent in all shootings, and it would make a lot of sense for the NRA to take the lead. But they won’t, and the shooting industry is on the ropes such that the NRA is now struggling to put guns in the hands of the least qualified, least competent owners. The attitude is literally that it is our responsibility as Americans to own firearms, and if we can’t do it responsibly, well that’s kind of too bad, but we should still do it.
As an aside, I’m kind of fascinated how this will play out. 25% of the population is fanatically devoted to Trump and fanatically devoted to gun ownership. When Trump supports something like the Red Flag laws, I wonder how these people process it. Probably they have a narrative about how he’s doing this under duress, and you can tell by some random gesture he made when talking about it.
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My take on Xeni’s comment there was that state actors would want a destabilized, armed enemy, to vastly increase the chances of violence erupting, leading to further destabilization. It’s not about what’s available in the “home country”.
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Your point is kind of the antithesis of what I was trying to argue for above, but I think I agree with your statement.
I would hope that people still try to make intelligent arguments to win over people who are gun owners, but at this point I think inaction on that side may very well result in what you describe, and I think it would be understandable at this point.
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I can see that interpretation, ok
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NRA = Terrorist Organization
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