The following is an edited version a comment that reader Mort left under an earlier post:
Post-shooting lawsuits like the one filed by the Parkland parents against gun makers are the result of antigun media-driven agitprop, the delusionally snarky idea that firearms are analogous to tobacco and that the Big Gun Lobby can be “defeated” by following the same legal playbook the plaintiff bar used against “Big Tobacco.”
If you want to see for yourself, go undercover. Hop on some forums and discussion groups and pose as an anti-gunner. You’ll quickly discover just how marvelous these nutty people believe this idea is. It’s hot, it’s trendy, it’s the latest “promised land” in the fight against civilian firearms ownership. They believe they will destroy the Big Gun just as they vanquished Big Tobacco.
Except they didn’t. Anyone can still walk into any gas station, convenient store, or department/grocery store and buy any one of dozens of brands of cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars, chew, dip, and snuff. More than they ever could before. They can then freely light up in solidarity with tens of thousands of fellow users suffering and dying of emphysema, cancer, and heart disease. Sure, they’re discriminated against, but boohoo, life’s unfair. Very little has changed, substantively.
Firearm ownership and the American gun culture around it are Constitutionally protected civil rights, but in many ways, they’re similar to the use of a traditional leisure drug that people willingly consume despite well-documented and well-known health risks. Right?
Yeah, no. The two have literally nothing in common, but it’s revealing as to how anti-gun people perceive the right to keep and bear arms and what they believe about firearms and gun culture. They see guns as something inherently dangerous that Americans are lured by and addicted to. They think firearms have a similar net value as tobacco, making the user feel “cool and sophisticated,” while providing a relatively useless, extremely dirty and suicidally hazardous benefit to their owners.
These kinds of lawsuits will succeed only if anti-gun propaganda eventually succeeds in convincing enough Americans that firearm ownership is analogous to tobacco use. That’s why steps should be taken to dispel this fraudulent impression, pronto.
We need to emphasize the lives saved by firearms, and correctly categorize the lives lost. “Gun violence” is not monolithic. Gun deaths are not all created equal. Suicide is not crime, is not police shootings, is not home defense, is not negligence, is not mass shootings, etc. All of these must continually be parsed, separated, and compartmentalized as wholly unrelated and demonstrably different that the effects of lawful firearms use in America.
Healthy mocking must be applied to ignorant anti-gun mouthpieces who shovel the “Big Guns equals Big Tobacco” narrative. A firearm is a tool, and you can’t eat a hammer, nor can you smoke it. It must be pointed out, relentlessly, that the supermajority of American gun owners expect and receive nothing but positive benefits from ownership of these tools when the behavior of the gun owners is healthy and sane.
Misuse of firearms is categorically rare, proportionate to the huge number of guns and owners, even when all types of gun-related crimes are considered as one uniform mass…which they can’t be, unless you’re ignorant, intolerant, and bigoted against ordinary gun owners.
That’s the most important kind of rebuttal we can make to this tack taken against gun ownership. We need to serve up the innate philosophical hypocrisy ever-present in anti-gun hysterics’ arguments. Are not they fighting for a more inclusive, more tolerant, more compassionate world? Are not they champions of civil rights, civil liberties, and equality? How can the lowly person who wishes to defend themselves against the injustices of bullying and hate, be treated so intolerantly by anti-gun bigots?
How can they discriminate against someone merely for standing up for oneself and one’s identity? How is it inclusive to deny equality to people who carry a gun to protect their families by discriminating against them, treating them like sub-humans? How is it sensible to want an obviously racist, fascist, bullying government as we have today to seize a monopoly on the use of violence? How can they expect people to relinquish our only reasonable means of protection from such a government, only to then sheepishly call men with guns when we’re assaulted and mistreated by criminals? What would MLK think? How is this empowering through equality? How is it not egregious hypocrisy in violation of everything they stand for?
There’s a ton to unpack there, but the point is that we must take a consistent tack, circling the wagons around our constitutionally protected guaranteed civil rights, and their equal access by all Americans. This is not a schoolkids-and-lollipops-from-Joe Camel issue. Hardly. It’s the last great struggle for civil rights and equality in a country that craves such fights and lionizes such ideals as essential to our history and identity.
Right now, the anti-gunners are doing it slightly better than we are. How did you like MLK’s descendant fusing the legacy of fighting to secure civil rights to a movement intended to erode, destroy, and subjugate a civil right?
Like it or not, this struggle won’t be won with a lack of creativity. Lazy grunts of disgust at “DemoncRATs,” “libtards” and “mentally ill lefties” is us-against-them divisive nonsense. We already know they won’t be swayed by rah-rah Second Amendment appeals. We know the only people who that galvanizes it us.
The 2A fight will be won when it becomes a universal, noble struggle that attracts a solid majority because it feels like the right thing to do…whether or not they grasp the nuances of why the Second Amendment rights matter to their freedom. Yep…it’s the feelz. Using the facts and being right only gets you so far, especially in the face of a steady parade of murdered children.
That’s why anti-gun zealots have about as much respect for your right to self-defense as they do for an obnoxious, stinky smoker hacking it up in “designated smoking section,” 100 yards away from normal, decent people who are smart enough to want to teach their kids activities that don’t make them sick or dead.
Yeah, I know. But I’m telling you, I’m around people who reflect that kind of thinking all the time. They DO want to take your guns, and they DO believe that their kids are inherently unsafe because you own an AR-15. It’s pretty nutty. It’s also hard to take seriously. But if they do, we must.
“They DO want to take your guns, and they DO believe that their kids are inherently unsafe because you own an AR-15. It’s pretty nutty. It’s also hard to take seriously. But if they do, we must.”
An entity must, must fight the war the opposition is fighting, or force the opposition to fight the battle the entity wants to fight.
It seems pro-2a people are fighting a European style land war, while the opposition is fighting as insurgents. We have seen how that works out.
Actually it is the gun control lobby that is fighting old school and conventional war. They are outspending NRA at near 20:1
What the main phenomena everyone is missing is, is that the Democrats have figured out a way to get hundreds and hundred of millions contributed to partisan advocacy with fully partisan effect on election politics -as 501(c)3 tax deductible funding.
Foundations that can only give to charities, companies and politically active individuals get full tax write offs by giving to the gun control lobby “charity” behemoth.
There is actually a gun control charity whose only activity is helping other gun control lobby fronts maximize their c3 status, maximize c3 spending.
there is actually another a single “charity” whose sole activity is ending all corporate affiliation with NRA.
Look at this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_NRA_boycott
Notice something? No mention in that huge article, no mention at all, that this 100% astroturf is not an organic phenomena but fully run by a firm which is incidentally a “charity”) led by two DNC professionals, including a guy who was a high level paid employee of Obama and Hillary campaigns and several other Democratic campaigns.
“Charity” running this whole thing: https://gunsdownamerica.org/
“Foundation” paying for this “non political” work: https://kendedafund.org/our-programs/gun-violence-prevention.
The anti-gunners are fighting the war they want. Pro-gun supporters are still in conventional mode. All that “honor” and “rules” and “procedures” and “politeness”. Pro-gun people want to have the moral high ground in a fight to the death. Honorable dead individual rights are still dead.
I point out the fallacies in their thinking and move on. The stupid might rub off!
Tread lightly – I guess even visiting a website can count as “going undercover” these days. 😂
#slacktivism
“Gun violence” is not monolithic. Gun deaths are not all created equal
Every time you use nonsensical phrases like “gun violence” or “gun deaths” you’re conceded too much ground straight away.
Exactly.
We need to ridicule every idiot (and that includes alleged gun rights writers) who can utter the phrase ‘gun violence’ with a straight face.
Precisely. Language matters. If you adopt the phrases your adversary has coined, you’ve already lost. If you don’t believe this, ask a liberal how enthusiastic he/she is to describe him/herself as a “liberal”.
“Precisely. Language matters. If you adopt the phrases your adversary has coined, you’ve already lost.”
Not actually so. How do you think the leftists were able to corrupt the language? The appropriated words, then warped them to their advantage. Appropriate the language of the left, then shove it down their throats. Besides…..
Using words the opposition does not care about avails nothing. The world does not care if “assault rifle” is a media fiction, and has not technical support. We can laugh about the ignorance of anti-gun people about firearms, but that “ignorance” has served then pretty well. Oh yeah, those unicorn “undecideds” about “gun rights” do not use pro-gun terms. Guess which language they fully understand.
They define the terms and the press abets, now calling gun ban lobby “gun safety organizations” without a single gun safety class or program.
Gun violence is a key language win by the gun ban lobby.
1) The “violence” element of the phrase allows them to use “32,000” without separating suicide, homicide and accident.,
This allows them to divert from the fact that firearm homicide and accident rates have plunged long term.
2) the “gun” element allows them to aggregate gun suicide (about 2/3 of gun death) plus homicide and compare us to other countries without noting that TOTAL lethal violence (suicide plus homicide by all means) is higher in quite a few countries, for example s. Korea and Japan, and the US is +/- 20% of scores of developed democracies and not at all the outlier they claim.
Counting just gun homicide and suicides is braze disinformation. As if jumping in from a building, in front of a train, or chocking to death on your own vomit from an intentional self poisoning or drug overdose, or slashing someone to death with a knife is “non violent”??
The term lets them set the debate. I have no problem with PR flacks in the gun control lobby coming up with it, but the press just getting on its knees and swallowing it is the problem.
I like the socratic strategy, but I don’t think talking to the general public about this will be useful.
I have two main responses. The first is that eliminating personal, ideological hypocrisy should be a goal of every human being. The main tool available to us to eliminate hypocrisy is debate. I am going to recommend you read the May 8th article on Slate Star Codex, and leave it at that. TL;DR: Honest debates include both parties working together towards a mutual goal of finding the truth.
Do you believe that right now, in America, we are all looking for the Truth? Or are some of us interested in advancing our own agendas?
The second is that I’m not sure the Joe Schmoe anti-gunner on the street should be the target of this discussion you’re proposing. A slew of studies of political polarization in the U.S. has shown that, especially on topics like this, polarization is a result of top-down “sorting”. Political Elite (activists, donors, politicians) are taking hardline stances and pushing those views on an increasingly moderate electorate who feel unrepresented by political parties. 42% of U.S. voters are independents. Further complicating the issue is the fact that there were 235 million eligible voters in 2016. Of those, only 40% did not vote. That means if you’re talking to someone on the street about their political views, the likelihood that they are bitching about something they’re not willing to *vote* to change is 4/10. Likely higher, given the amount of undocumented immigrants. Given these facts, and my questions in my first response, it’s not entirely clear to me that an honest debate is possible with the majority of the U.S. Electorate. It makes much more sense to take our discussions out of narrow (albeit exciting) media forums like TTAG, and into the stomping grounds of the political elite. I think your strategy is spot on, *if* it’s executed in the correct way. I think we’ll see real change if we use this socratic method in a public arena (mainstream media) to engage political elite. NRA is not doing this work well, I might add. They’re aimed in the different directions (towards legislators and towards their association members) and because of that, people doing great media coverage of the positive effects of firearm ownership are not getting the platform they need to generate real debate or change. (Sources for stats above, see Morris Fiorina’s research out of the Hoover Institute, and Shanto Iyengar out of Stanford University).
I like your thoughts about how to engage in debate. However….
The “Socratic” method requires something completely lacking in over half the population over 10yrs: mental acuity, and the willingness to re-evaluate personal totems. We are at the point where “nothing you can say will move me from my position on guns”.
The most difficult personal adventure one can embark on is to admit being wrong about personal beliefs about self.
Even if there are a substantial number of “undecideds” (meaning having no firm opinion of guns), the number is not sufficient, even if all of them could be counted on as pro-gun tomorrow, to put the anti-gun proponents in permanent electoral banishment. Evil never quits (“Rust never sleeps”, reported someone here).
This nation is too divided to permit an honest “search for truth” because “truth” is what the beholder says it is; facts and reason be damned. The notion that 2 + 2 can never be 5 has been obliterated by the leftists/statists/liberals/Dimowits. The “problem” with America is that a hefty chunk of people do believe 2 + 2 can be 5, if it feels right at the moment. There is little beyond acknowledging everyone needs to eat that we can all come together about. Hence the prescience embodied in Cooper’s dictum.
“I am going to recommend you read the May 8th article on Slate Star Codex, and leave it at that.”
Link, please?
(Yeah, I *could* look it up, but not every reader here is as skilled as I. So, for them, could ya, please?)
http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/05/08/varieties-of-argumentative-experience/
My wife has surveyed her students, (and they are grad students) a couple of years now.
80% think US gun murder rate is up the past generation. Another 12% think it is about flat. It is down about 60%.
Now i agree that deep ignorance of statistical analysis, and deeper ignorance of patent logical fallacies deployed by the gun control lobby are part of the problem.
But in this case there is something more basic than cognitive issues in individuals or cohorts of based on political belief/filters — in this case the press is simply not even reporting the core metric and people don’t know it. the press is also simply not reporting that a dozen peer reviewed studies have shown the rare but newsworthy mass school shootings are copycat events, also abetted by the press making shooters famous.
The press doesn’t not either report that gun ownership numbers by GSS are profound under-counts. i read in the Washington post expert wonkblog that GSS is the “gold standard” for determining gun ownership — yet I also read that GSS is widely inaccurate under-counts when it comes to who is gay, who has smoked dop, or any private issue, because half or more people will not self report in surveys directly asking high confidentiality questions. I read the press that pew, Gallup and especially GSS,are also seeing increased resistance to truthfully any privacy related matter among younger people especially due to knowledge of how the databases are being hacked, and increased fear of being judged by pollster as US polticla divide gets sharper. yet nowhere in the press does one read any challenge of GSS self reported gun ownership asserted as actual accurate numbers
Nor does the press accurately report trends in public attitudes on substantive new gun control. They always report — and prominently — temporary spikes up after an event and never report the long term trend which is decidedly down. Reuters ipsos polls showed support for gun control fell this week to pre parkland levels, and the blue wave is also faltering — yet virtually no play for that
The fact is the main issue is wit the press simply omitting the core facts.
“The Press”, The Press”, “The Press”….so what?
“The power of the press belongs to he who owns one”*
Want to overcome the liberal press? Start a new one. Make it say what you want. “The Press” owes no one “objectivity”, or even “equal treatment”.
In political fundraising what is called free media is the golden ticket. NRA doesn’t have a billion dollars to buy a serous press outlet.
“Are not they fighting for a more inclusive, more tolerant, more compassionate world?”
Dude, you’re behind the times; even they aren’t playing at that game any longer. They have moved on to nakedly *celebrating* only those groups who have chosen to hitch their wagons to communism and/or the destruction of what was once the US culture, and actively restricting & punishing those they disagree with (or hitting them with bike locks)
They are not using the big tobacco tactic. They have brushed off the old Anti-Apartheid book and expect the same result.
Finally, someone understands that the PR aspect is how you keep or lose RKBA!
Have some 30 second memes ready and put it on Facebook, social media, anything else social so that it goes viral. Use it over and over.
Agree with you but the social medias platforms are beginning their own censorship of anything they do not think in politically correct. This has already been dine on television and in many schools. The indoctrinators do not want their brainwashed masses to hear a different point of view . I think this is the origin of the polarization of society, or “divide and conquer” strategy. This censorship is what makes it difficult to have a civil discourse anymore. I do not have the answers, just observations. Truth should be the antidote to this disease of socialism if we can just get it out to the “ill”.
You can use social media to cleverly ridicule anti-gunners or point out their fallacy without saying anything pro-gun at all. Like:
“I demand the Kardashian’s stand up for their moral convictions and hire British bobbies with billy clubs instead of pistol packing bodyguards”.
Or “I wish that Oklahoma outlawed guns so that Good Samaritan did not shoot the cafe shooter and would be forced to tackle and detain the bad guy until the cops arrived.”
Points like this make anti-gunners inconsistency look stupid
“The 2A fight will be won when it becomes a universal, noble struggle”
So we should throw out the NRA that (at best) only cares about the money to be made off it?
I am convinced by your posts that you are part of the gun ban lobby.
NRA has run 55% to 58% approvals among all Americans. it is outspent 20:1 by the gun ban lobby and is under unprecedented attack. They are starving for money compared to the gun ban lobby. Why the fk should they not be asking for money? Every advocacy group in the country does. why are you erecting a double standard against the NRA?
I get solicitations for money continually from American Red Cross, and a dozen other charity or civil liberties groups I belong to. maybe you just don’t give to anything important and are shocked at how it works.
It isn’t the fundraising that is troublesome. It is fundraising by a “pro-gun” lobby group that is not absolutist about infringement of the second amendment.
NRA is not too different from the Republicrat establishment – “Vote for us because we aren’t as bad as the other party.” (rough rendering of the broadcast motto over the last 18yrs). NRA seems to be saying, “We aren’t fighting every impairment of your second amendment right, but as least we slow down the erosion.”
oh, bull5hit.
there is no other second amendment advocacy group if any reach, relevance or note.
EVERY advocacy group on any issue tests runs some things some members consider a sell out. How do you know a majority of NRA members don’t support bump stock limits?
You and I maybe absolutists, but that does not mean every NRA member is.
“You and I maybe absolutists, but that does not mean every NRA member is”.
I agree. But then, what is the point of joining “the oldest civil rights organization in the country” if they are only going to slow the erosion of the Second Amendment?
People here talk loud and long about how a rag tag, unorganized militia is going to overthrow a trained and well armed standing army and a tyrannical government (just like all those insurgents in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba). If that is a winning strategy, why is it that NRA cannot be the junk yard dog of “gun rights”?
Sam, I am: The people will defeat any political group by going after its leaders and assassinating them. If it gets bad enough, that there is war in the streets, the leaders of these groups will have to have their heads on swivels – that is how and why they want our guns now. Even if they got 95% of the guns in the citizens’ hands, they would still be at great risk.
Not sure how assassinations got in here, but the question on the table was the incessant fund-raising by NRA being objectionable. The response was that fund-raising for NRA to merely slow 2A erosion was the objection. That was followed by a commentary that too many want to excuse NRA as being too small to really fight off gun grabbers. My response was that if insurgents in poor countries, and a disorganized militia in this country were sufficient to overthrow an entire government, then why should NRA get a pass on failing because NRA is too small?
@Sam I Am: “If that is a winning strategy, why is it that NRA cannot be the junk yard dog of “gun rights”?”
I am NOT writing (here) to defend the NRA. (I’ll do that elsewhere.) Instead, I want to offer you my opinion as to a likely answer to your question.
No one organization can realistically try to represent the heart-felt sentiments of all it’s members. The larger its constituency, the less realistic this goal would prove to be. NRA represents 5 million members out of a pool of 75 – 100 million potential members. Clearly, NRA is trying to satisfy 5 million distinct sentiments and hope to double it’s membership by appealing to the sentiments of another 5 out of 75 – 100 million.
When doing the work of the Lord, certain tactics are incompatible with other complimentary tactics. NRA has built a reputation of wielding far more clout in Congress per $-million spent than any other lobbying organization. That’s a valuable tactic, I think, just in keeping the gun-control bills whittled-down to the smallest number that get out-of-committee. To continue its effectiveness in this respect, NRA can’t go about publicly casting aspersions on the virtue of the mothers of Congress-critters. Some level of decorum must be maintained.
Relatively speaking, the NRA could publish nasty statements about selected judges. Since the NRA pursues judicial cases somewhat sparingly, they need not worry as much about offending the delicate sensibilities of Federal Judges.
Now, consider the position of the Second Amendment Foundation which is devoted entirely to pursuing judicial cases. SAF needs to remain constantly vigilant to the prospects of finding themselves a plaintiff seeking relief from a judge whom it might have disparaged in some press release years before. SAF is free to disparage Congress-critters, but not judges.
NAGR might be nominated as the leading contender to represent the most belligerent of 2A defenders. They can disparage anyone and everyone. In so doing, they serve to remind the gun-controllers that there is some truth to what they say about all gun owners.
The Liberal Gun Club, represents the opposite wing. Those who will quote Karl Marx on the necessity for the proletariat to remain well armed.
None of us will comfortably find fellowship under all of these small tents. Yet, it wouldn’t hurt for all of us to count ourselves among the membership of as many of these tents as conscience would permit. There is strength in numbers and the more formidable the count of adult citizens, the more likely politicians are to take the threat of the ballot box seriously.
You commentary is respectfully presented (thank you), but appears to be a version of “the incrementalism of defeat”.
“No one organization can realistically try to represent the heart-felt sentiments of all it’s members. The larger its constituency, the less realistic this goal would prove to be.”
– This is something one would expect of the Republicrat Party, or The Elks Club, or the Rotary. It is not what one expects from an organization advertising it is the premier lobbying group for supporting the constitutionally protected civil right of gun ownership, as in no restrictions on same. Might it not be more truthful for NRA to go back to training rifle marksmanship and safety?
“NRA represents 5 million members out of a pool of 75 – 100 million potential members.”
– Isn’t it odd that the membership numbers do not climb into the tens of millions of gun owners? Is the NRA suffering from confusion of mission, keeping the majority of gun owners on the sidelines? if NRA is not going to be “absolutist” (or nearly) about the RTKBA, stop sucking all the oxygen out of the room, and let a more focused group gain prominence.
“NRA has built a reputation of wielding far more clout in Congress per $-million spent than any other lobbying organization.”
– This is why the left fears the NRA so, however….if your enemy thinks you are the junkyard dog, why not act like it?
“…just in keeping the gun-control bills whittled-down to the smallest number…”
– This might be legitimate if NRA did not also endorse (or help write) the gun control laws that do get passed.
“NRA can’t go about publicly casting aspersions on the virtue of the mothers of Congress-critters. Some level of decorum must be maintained.”
– Doesn’t this sound like leftists – symbolism over substance? When you life is on the line, farting in the punch bowl is a valid tactic. “The emperor has no clothes”, and all that sort of thing.
“Relatively speaking, the NRA could publish nasty statements about selected judges.”
There is a serious differential between “nasty” and “unmovable”, “committed”, “purposeful”, “direct”, unyeilding. When a child is playing in the street, with cars passing by, one does not use comforting language to save the child’s life. At this point, it is probably appropriate to introduce the old adage, “Winners love pleasing results; losers love pleasant methods.”
“SAF needs to remain constantly vigilant to the prospects of finding themselves a plaintiff seeking relief from a judge whom it might have disparaged in some press release years before.”
– “disparaging” and disagreement are not synonymous (well, maybe these days it is).
“There is strength in numbers and the more formidable the count of adult citizens, the more likely politicians are to take the threat of the ballot box seriously.”
– And the numbers are against stalwart defense of the second amendment (and that included gun owners who don’t care if someone else’s guns are forbidden). Which is why the leadership and the clarion call need to be strong, loud, distinct and clear. (“For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?”, 1Cor,14:8)
Why does NOT ONE of you ever mention the Gun Owners of America, GOA ? Why, when they/we are the ONLY NO COMPROMISE gun lobby in America? What’s the issue?
I think GOA is a fine organization. It should be a favorite. The conundrum is GOA is too small to have the clout NRA supposes, but if GOA doesn’t get more supporters, it can never wield the influence NRA sometimes presents. GOA (and some others) suffer from the “third political party” syndrome.
“NRA has run 55% to 58% approvals among all Americans.”
A product of ignorance. If the American people knew how much the NRA’s senior leadership cared for the Constitution (they don’t), public support would drop off a cliff. There’s a reason for all the supposed hatred liberals fling at the NRA, they never say anything of substance, just name calling. They could win any argument instantly just by asking Wayne “You support a ban on fully automatic firearms. Why are semi-automatic firearms protected by the Constitution when those are not?”, but they won’t because they know the NRA is their best ally for reducing the American people to serfdom and removing them would leave someone EFFECTIVE in charge.
” They are starving for money compared to the gun ban lobby”
Not so starving the executives that have OPENLY ADMITTED to working against the second amendment get a pay cut though.
“Why are you erecting a double standard against the NRA?”
I don’t. I have one standard for government behavior: Consent of the governed and the Constitution it has spawned. The NRA seeks to tear down and force upon the people a deprivation of liberty they did not agree to, just as long they are the ones who decide where the arbitrary line is drawn.
See here where CEO Wayne LaPierre admits he actually supported a ban on civilian ownership of the most common type of firearm in the world, and actually lied when he said he’d fight it in court
https://youtu.be/2pk2LqqqtDs?t=4m9s (go to 4:09)
Then see here where he openly supports gun free zones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXl4p02EaTk
And gun registration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvJ2kHpbC1g
As CEO he also endorsed the LEOPA (ban on arbitrary types of ammo) and undetectable firearms act (he claimed it wouldn’t effect existing firearms, then IMMEDIATELY pushed for renewal when the 3D printed liberator, that had to include a weight to comply with this law, made the headlines). I believe the Mulford act endorsement (no open carry in California) was also under his watch.
Don’t forget Chris Cox, who also makes a ton of money off betraying the Second.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOZ72aSgGIY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sNiklO506A
Can’t forget the NRA’s historical treason either. The NFA, a defacto ban on the most common type of firearm, was endorsed with their head openly, before congress, opposing baring arms. The GCA, which banned a quarter of the population from purchasing a firearm or ammo from dealers and banned them from owning a handgun was also endorsed. I paid 45 dollars in fees on my last gun purchase because of this law, and that was more than an 8th of the total cost, and that’s not including the fees the seller paid that had to get added to the gun’s cost. It also doesn’t include my time, gas or car depreciation it cost me.
You are repeating tired anti gun talking points. Please feel free to compare the NRA’s spending on lobbying with say Bloombergs.
Actually, with respect to tobacco, one thing has definitely changed: progressive states have taxed it to the point that smuggling cigarettes from NC to NY is lucrative for organized crime. Illegal cigarettes are huge business in NYC: http://abc7ny.com/news/exclusive-illegal-cigarettes-are-big-business-in-nyc/2094159/
Exactly the guy who became a “victim” of police choke hold had 30 arrests, many of them violent crimes he committed for what the media tells us was benign “selling some single cigarettes.” As if the guy was the equivalent of someone selling individual candy on the streets — instead of the multiple billion dollar major organized crime gang operation to which that guy belonged. An operation that has been associated with 80 gang murders in NY in the past few years, including several shootings of state troopers and local cops stopping the 18 wheeler run by these gangs.
You could read 20 press stories about Eric Garner without seeing any reporting of his known organized crime membership — or the simple fact that the reason the selling them as singles is specifically illegal because it is the mode of distribution of a multi billion dollar a major organized crime gang operation due to tax stamp being on the full pack
{2A rights acceptance}
“It’s the last great struggle for civil rights and equality in a country that craves such fights and lionizes such ideals as essential to our history and identity.”
We had better treat it like the right that it is, and *demand* that it be respected.
And if they go “Ewwwww! guns!”, remind them many ignorant people thought the same thing about sitting next to Blacks on a bus, or with accepting homosexuality.
When a right becomes respected, acceptance will follow, except by the bigoted.
And we must loudly call them out on that bigotry…
Gun control in the State I reside in means hitting your target. If you live in an anti Constitutional State that wants to control you, vote the “powers that be” out. If the majority of that state wants gunz banned, I guess your fucked. But the Constitution says,,, yeah no shit, a piece of paper, “they” don’t care what that piece of paper declares. Stomp your feet n cry “it ain’t fair” all you want.
I understand this rational: ‘Slaves, free thyselves!” However, it is exceedingly short-sighted.
Look at the structure of our Federal form of government and our 50 State governments. Understand the math and the mechanics. Now, look at the migration patterns of failing Blue States and economically successful Red States.
Progressives will pick-up stakes and migrate from their hopeless Blue States to Red States where they will join their predecessors in building up the voting rolls of the Red urban centers. A Red State that was once 55%-pro-gun/45%-gun-control can easily reverse with a 6% swing in the adult population. Red-State gun-owners don’t feel threatened because districting of the constituency for legislative seats leaves the rural areas in substantial control of the legislature. Gun rights in such a State can survive a long time; but, eventually, these too will erode.
It’s harder to maintain control over a Red State’s Congressional representatives, still harder to maintain control over its 2 Federal Senators. Yet, the survival of the 2A turns on EVERY Red State doing its best to make gun-rights the 3’rd rail in its Senatorial elections. Assume 41 Right-to-Carry States. If we can elect just 41 out of 82 Senators from such States who will stand for the 2A against all pressure this number can filibuster every gun-control bill. If we can elect just 51 out of 82, these Senators can stop ANY bill they decide to oppose. It is perfectly realistic for gun owners in 42 Right-to-Carry States to achieve a lock on 41 to 51 Senate seats.
Just 41 to 51 Senators can’t, by themselves, pass any bill; nor make it into law. They can only stop gun-control bills. They can stop most judicial appointments; they can push-through most judicial appointments. Therefore, they can influence the judiciary to stand-up for enforcing the 2A.
When gun-owners represent 5% – 15% of a Blue State’s population they can’t accomplish anything politically; not the least measure. Even if they could politic with their neighbors to double their number, they would remain a small minority.
Voters in one State can’t do much to influence the laws of their sister States. The 2A won’t breath it’s last breath until Alaska gives up the fight as the last State to defend the RKBA. But Federal law, and SCOTUS, will nevertheless move the tide either “in” or “out”. Therefore, gun-voters in Red States must not be sanguine; their rights will be lost in Washington DC by their failure to insist on electing ONLY gun-rights dedicated Senators.
“Therefore, gun-voters in Red States must not be sanguine; their rights will be lost in Washington DC by their failure to insist on electing ONLY gun-rights dedicated Senators.”
Do you see the application of your declaration as being germane to the disillusionment of the NRA? Especially the phrase, “….ONLY gun-rights dedicated Senators”? “Dedicated”, as used in your statement cannot mean “slowing the erosion”. Not in common use of the language.
Here is the question that stops the gun-grabbers cold.
At 4m26s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a76JMYH6KvQ&t=4m26s
If the anti-gunner ultimately win, which is a distinct possibility, it will be because they have shut off the debate by refusing to allow the other side any voice. When only one side gets to tell their story then that side automatically wins in the end. And what is going on right now? Facebook is automatically hostile to any conservative or libertarian voices. Companies are lining up against the NRA. Banks are refusing to deal with gun distributers. Remember these words and never forget them, when only one side gets to tell their story then that side automatically wins in the end. Either we find a way to deal with this assault on our rights or we perish.
“These kinds of lawsuits will succeed only if anti-gun propaganda eventually succeeds in convincing enough Americans that firearm ownership is analogous to tobacco use. That’s why steps should be taken to dispel this fraudulent impression, pronto.”
We have Hollywood on our side, then.
Hollywood is *addicted* to the money a gun movie makes. James Bond, John Wick, and all the others show guns being used to save the day, right a wrong ,and shows the bad guy ‘”getting what they deserve”.
The same applies to the video game industry.
Oh, yeah, and when the hero gets the girl.
That’s powerful programming for impressionable young brains.
That’s their cultural ‘Achilles Heel’, so to speak…
This idea has been around for a long time. About 20 years ago I was reading a copy of The New Yorker magazine in the doctors office. The story was about the gun manufactures going the same way as the cigarette companies. It never happened. I knew it was bull.
This is all very nice, but you can’t reason with the unreasonable.
This is a great article!
The left has become anti-civil right, intolerant bigots. It is not just the second amendment they are attacking. They are anti-freedom of speech, anti-religionanti-free and fair elections, etc…
They are winning the propaganda war on all fronts with lies and half truths. They have become social terrorists.
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