Anytime I want to read something insightful, I can check Stinque.com to see if nojo has anything to contribute to the cause.
Someone recently posted on Facebook a goofy sort of defense of the NRA.
Millions of NRA members and not one has shot up a school.
That’s a fact!
This was a bit much for nojo, who shot back:
Their money, along with that of weapons manufacturers, is funneled into politicians who work tirelessly to do nothing — or worse — to solve a problem that has killed 1.5 million Americans since 1968.
They are all accessories to murder.
We know of no other way to explain it.
Comrade Misfit was having none of it. I’ve been reading our favorite earthbound misfit for years. She’s a fun read, generally creative, and knows everything, everything, about planes, trains, warfare, and firearms. She’s a gun enthusiast, an expert on the subject.
I’m an NRA member. If you want to brand me as “an accessory to murder” or “a member of a terrorist organization”, then there is nothing to discuss. There are millions, if not over ten million, rifles out there that are patterned on Eugene Stoner’s design. Are you going to pay for every one of them?
Beyond that, be careful of using the “my right to life trumps your right to own a gun” argument. That’s exactly the argument used to ban abortion.
I dunno. It’s not a bad analogy. Not perfect, but no analogy is, really. I think a somewhat closer analogy might be a debate over whether we should allow a privately owned missile launcher, ready to fire, to be parked on the roadside next to an airport.
Ryan appreciates Comrade Misfit’s point but regards her argument as weak.
While I don’t agree that members of the NRA are terrorists or accessories to murder, the organization absolutely deserves condemnation for its particular brand of propaganda (especially constant fearmongering), tactics (including blocking gun research), ridiculous arguments, opposition to reasonable and popular gun control measures, and association with and influence over the GOP and conspiracy theorists. One shouldn’t have to be pro-gun control to recognize this.
“That’s exactly the argument used to ban abortion.”
The arguments are different in at least one meaningful way: we have not established that the fetus does have a right to life. Even if we did, which right trumps the other is a values question that by no means dictates our position on the right to life vs. the right to own a gun.
Nevertheless, it is indeed a poor argument. Having a right to life does not mean that the government is obligated to protect it absolutely in every way, including from gun-owning fellow citizens with no intention of harming anyone. That would have all sorts of undesirable implications and consequences. For the same reason, of course, gun owners should neither regard their second amendment freedom as limitless nor fight for it to be. There is indeed a point at which reason and safety should trump freedom. We are simply fighting over what that point is.
Dave Dubya of Freedom Rants is not known for mincing words.
“my right to life trumps your right to own a gun”
There’s no need to conflate abortion into this issue. And it’s more like, “My right to own a gun trumps your right to life and liberty” that has become the NRA creed. Freedom, life, and liberty end at the point of a rifle.
I’m from the Great North Woods and hunted from a young age. I get it.
I never needed an AR15 to hunt, nor for self defense. Sport or no sport, they were designed to kill human beings. Now I’m attacked for agreeing with Reagan that we don’t need 30 round mags in public. I still have a few guns, but I’ll be damned if I give a dime to the NRA. In the past they were very much about education and safety, but now they are primarily a political organization.
The indisputable bottom lines are these:
The more weapons in circulation, the more humans will die from them. As with the cholera epidemic, shut down the pump and more will live.
Despite the hollow platitudes about “freedom”, the NRA now exists solely to funnel wealth to weapons merchants and to empower the Republican Party. The NRA is virtually an arm of the Republican Party.
That means NRA money goes straight to the Party of Trump. There’s blood money flowing. It’s as if human sacrifice is accepted in the name of the Militia Amendment. For this we have thousands killed and millions living in fear, not freedom.
Stephanie Ruhle breaks down how much money the NRA has given to Republicans who talk about their “thoughts and prayers” — The thoughts and prayers are with the victims. The dollars and cents are another story.”
https://www.facebook.com/Mediamatters/videos/10155322144601167/
The NRA spent $21 Million on supporting Trump and attacking Hillary.
Thanks for the “freedom”, boys. Putin thanks you too, as he laughs his ass off.
My own view is that what started as a firearms safety organization has devolved. It is now mostly funded and run by gun manufacturers, who strike me as a cold-blooded group.
I suspect most NRA members would support common sense limits, if they were not drowned out by industry mouthpieces. I have known a few members, one at worship, a couple at work, one from long ago at another job. We haven’t had much cause to talk about the issue, but they all wear shoes and talk without drooling.
Aside from those who have surrendered to movement extremists, we all are for reasoned debate. I don’t hear or read much argument for confiscation of all guns or regulation for its own sake.
But it’s hard to argue for murder or for death by careless accident. And nobody likes to be bullied.
Have a safe weekend. Let’s be real careful out there.