I can’t get past the idea that the solution to the gun problem is more guns. That’s straight out of the republican playbook. I feel like someone is trying to gaslight someone.
Colion Noir is the token black spokesperson that the NRA calls upon whenever they need to pretend the organization isn’t disproportionally white and racist. So they let him get the occasional soundbyte on their streaming video channel while the organization as a whole stands by in silence as black men are regularly gunned down by police who even suspect them of carrying guns.
Yes, there have been racially driven calls for gun control laws including the Black Panther-inspired panic cited above. But if you look at where the nation’s avowed racists stand on gun control in 2018, you’ll find a lot more of them in the “MOAR GUNS!!” camp than in the “let’s enact some reasonable restrictions on private firearm ownership” camp.
Black Lives Matter, ACLU, Emily’s List, NAACP, Human Rights Campaign, PETA, The American Library Association, Planned Parenthood, Democratic Socialists of America, the American Communist Party, MoveOn.Org, Southern Poverty Law Center, Mother Jones Magazine, Pacifica Radio, Alternet, Earth First!, Michael Moore, Paul Krugman, Stephen Colbert and Natalie Portman should all become NRA voting members and change what the organization is telling the politicians in their pocket to vote. Massive infiltration and subversion.
The Russians beat us to it.
There may be more folks on the liberal side of this debate that are already arming up. There have been 11 million background checks thus far in 2018, which I believe is higher than 2008 (when folks thought Obama was going to take away their guns) or 2016 (ditto for Hillary). I think it is likely many of those 11 million are not Trump supporters.
A Constitutional Convention probably won’t go the way you would like it go. Is everyone ready for that can of worms to be opened?
Of all the gun laws we have at the national, state, and local levels, which are the ones that are un-sensible? And what are these ‘sensible’ gun laws that you all want?
The recreation firearms industry in America is a billion dollar industry. They would love nothing more than everyone owning a gun.
I am sure the NRA would welcome the support.
The Constitutional right to bear arms has never, in the entire history of the United States, been more explicit, been more detailed, or been stronger. The last three SC cases have made it very clear that the right to bear arms is a right of individual people, not just militias or States. That the 2nd Amendment gives people the right to buy, to own, to carry, and to use firearms for their own protection. And it gets fairly specific about what sorts of weapons are protected - semiauto handguns, rifles, shotguns. In fact, there is also discussion about how the popularity of certain types of weapons makes them more protected. Semiautomatic so-called “assault” weapons - because of their very popularity and semiautomatic nature are not going to be easy to ban.
Agree with you, though, about reasonable gun control measures - even Scalia explicitly supported that.
While it’s always fun to use incidents like the backlash against the Black Panthers open-carrying to point out that the NRA is a hypocritical extreme right organisation that panders to bigots to attract its sucker members (as opposed to its real clients, firearms manufacturers), “moar gunz” isn’t the means to getting sensible gun control laws.
“The logic of desperation” perhaps.
There are all kinds of legal restrictions on what Americans can do with their ripped music and video files.
There are all kinds of legal restrictions on what Americans can do with hemp plants.
There used to be all kinds of legal restrictions on what Americans could do with fermented grapes and grain.
Like any of them made any difference.
And before anyone counters with YEA BUT GUNZ KILL PEEPUL AND THAT OTHER STUFF DONT KILL PEEPUL, I know that. That;s not the point.
The point is that once the number of citizens who think they have a right to possess a thing reaches a certain tipping point, no amount of laws will be able to stop them from possessing it, unless we go all-out Gestapo or NKVD.
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The shift to a more hard rights stance was AFTER the laws enacted to counter armed leftists (Except the laws that one still consider “common sense” of course. Those are fine.)
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The idea that gun rights should be a left vs right thing doesn’t make any logical sense, even though that has slowly been the result.
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Many people have suggested 1 Million of X group to join the NRA. Go for it. It’s a great idea. If one feels your group isn’t being represented as well as one would like, you can be elected to the board of directors easily with a large base like that. That is how any grassroots org changes is through membership and changing of directors. Which is what happened in the 70s.
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I think one underestimates the willingness for many 2nd Amendments advocates to over look differences in people they normally may disagree when they vehemently agree with them on this issue.
If gun laws don’t have any significant impact on gun deaths then why don’t any other culturally & economically comparable countries have gun death rates on par with the United States?
Yes, it’s possible for a criminal in the UK or Australia or Germany or wherever to get their hands on a glock or an AR-15, but it’s not a trivial matter to do so. It turns out that putting up barriers to private firearm ownership still makes a big difference even if those barriers aren’t absolutely foolproof.
The modern NRA was created from a well-organized and small group of people who effectively took it over and made it what it is today.
I have often said, the gun issue should not be a left vs right issue. The right to bear arms is necessary to protect all the rest of the constitution.
If you fight against the second amendment, you don’t give a shit about the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and all the rest.
I and a few freak friends have talked about joining the NRA to stir up shit and argue about why they don’t protect black gun owners at meetings. A black and Muslim NRA membership drive would be awesome.
Personally I think the question on the form you fill out to buy a gun asking whether you are a drug user is blatantly unconstitutional, since it takes away a constitutionally guaranteed right without conviction or due process. The NRA ought to be fighting against this.
Forcing you to reveal your race on this form to buy a gun is also pretty iffy.
Viable citation needed for that assumption.
I’ll bite. Can you provide an example of a time when private gun ownership proved to be a critical factor in protecting any of those other Amendments? (Not counting colonial-era militias since their role has more or less been taken up by a standing army.)
(@Melz2 JINX)
