Gun Control thread (merged many)

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Armistead

See you're a MSNBC lover..

No, I prefer jazz, swing and classic.

I'm not a member, was years ago, but the NRA has evolved over the years as more gun control came about. They certainly turned into more of a lobbying force, but the question is why?

Lobbies are made of people defending their beliefs, that's why the supreme court says they're lawful. The problem becomes when one side gets radical, the other side gets as radical. In the end this is supposed to balance things out.

The problem isn't so much with lobbies, but people that won't stand up for what they believe, like many politicians that would sell out.

Lobbies are what renders the electorate powerless and their votes pointless. And business lobbies are not about what they believe, but about what they are being payed for by their paying customers.

They corrupt the very idea of majority decisions in a democratic context - that your court has ruled them to be legal just shows that it already is corrupted and abused itself and that your system is hijacked and has tuned the rules to serve the interests of those who have hijacked and now abuse the system.

Appearances are deceptive. Look beyond.

Originally Posted by Tchocky

The NRA are in the business of fundraising and influence-raising through incessant conspiratorial messaging.

You wouldn't take seriously anyone who talks like an NRA spokesman.


Originally Posted by Wayne LaPierre
“There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people through vicious and violent video games.”

Honestly, where do you start with somebody who talks like this?

Someone linked to the Daily Caller the other day.
One of the articles it carried that day was 5 things conservatives have got to stop saying so they don't look dumb.
That line of "reason" by LaPierre was one of the 5

I

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by August

You admire useless publicity stunts?

No.

I admire his balls.

[August]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

No.

I admire his balls.

And what exactly about joining the NRA takes balls?

The NRA will give a membership to anyone with $25 bucks. The only question they ask besides payment information is which of their monthly magazines you want them to send you.

Yeah a real gutsy move alright.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Armistead

The NRA only has 4 million members. That leaves over 100,000,000 gun owners not members. That is where the real power lies. However, the NRA is growing and will always be a force.

The number I read was closer to 50 million gun owners (gun owners not guns). But in any case, the NRA represents less than 10% of the gun owners in this country. That is something worth considering.

I have been an active gun owner for over 30 years and I have never been, nor want to be, a NRA member.

The NRA is a powerful lobby only because politicians think they are powerful. But that could be said about pretty much any lobby.

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by Platapus

The number I read was closer to 50 million gun owners (gun owners not guns). But in any case, the NRA represents less than 10% of the gun owners in this country. That is something worth considering.

I have been an active gun owner for over 30 years and I have never been, nor want to be, a NRA member.

The NRA is a powerful lobby only because politicians think they are powerful. But that could be said about pretty much any lobby.

No one really knows for sure, but most studies believe about 50% household in the US own guns. Many reports state they're about 300 million guns in the US, but in reality it's probably triple that.

The NRA is a powerful lobby, but the real power is all the gun owners. Politicians don't just think they're powerful, they are.

[Feuer Frei!]

Membership of the NRA is last rumoured to be around 4.5 million. Although the NRA has been known to inflate membership numbers.
Others are saying it's true membership number is closer to 3 million.
The NRA picked up in the month following the Newtown, Conn. shooting 250, 000 new members. Apparently.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/...0-in-one-month
Business was good for them. No matter how you slice or dice the true numbers.
It seems that everytime President Obama opens his mouth new members flock to the NRA.
A 1-year membership, normally costing $35 costs $25 and you have a choice of picking between 3 free gifts when signing up! Errm, right.
https://membership.nrahq.org/forms/s....7&hid=6137499

Reps for the NRA recently sat down with Joe Biden and stated that the administration had an "agenda to attack the Second Amendment."
The administration has since drawn criticism and concern from pro-gun advocates, who have taken Obama's declaration that he'll seek executive action on the issue of gun violence as a signal that his administration is preparing to mount a "gun grab."

I'm sure members of congress still think that negative NRA ratings and a flood of NRA money could sink their political careers faster than you could say AK-47.
But let's look at what is actually really happening. People and members of congress i'd say are waking up to the fact that there really isn't much behind the NRA's curtain of invincibility and magical aura but the voice of a special interest bully who gets his power mainly from perception rather than reality.
Officers and Lobbyists of the NRA actually representing weapons manufacturers, not gun owners, that's why they seem to refuse to support common sense restrictions military style assault weapons, magazines that hold a hundred bullets, or background checks for anyone who buys a gun.
They love to frighten law-abiding gun owners with the prospect that common sense measures to reduce gun violence put America on the "slippery slope" to end the right to bear arms and to the confiscation of your hunting rifle. Their attempts to develop paranoia about confiscation -- and about government tyranny -- are good for business; it's that simple.

Frightening gun owners with the false or phony line of confiscation.

P.S.: Some statistical data in relation to gun ownership etc

47% Percentage of Americans who say they have a gun in their home or elsewhere on their property, according to Gallup, the highest reported number in two decades
310 million Estimated number of firearms in the U.S., according to the federal government, which includes 114 million handguns, 110 million rifles, and 86 million shotguns
3,252,404 Number of firearms imported into the U.S. (529,056 shotguns, 998,072 rifles, and 1,725,276 handguns) in 2010, according to the ATF
846,619 Number of firearms imported into the U.S. in 2011 from Brazil, the leading gun importer to the U.S., according to the ATF
6,808,538 Number of background checks on firearm purchasers conducted by the FBI this year through November, an all-time record
78,211 Number of firearm purchase denials by the FBI in 2011, about 0.48% of all attempted purchases
899,099 Number of firearm purchases that have been denied by the FBI between November 30, 1998 (when the FBI began processing background checks) and December 31, 2011. Of those, 7,879 were denied because of issues relating to the would-be purchaser’s mental health
62% Percentage of private gun sellers who agreed to sell a firearm to a buyer who couldn’t pass a background check, according to an undercover investigation by New York City public officials
And....................................
$14 million Amount of money the National Rifle Association spent during the 2012 election in an attempt to defeat President Obama, according to The New York Times


SOURCE for data: http://business.time.com/2012/12/18/...y-the-numbers/

[August]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

Officers and Lobbyists of the NRA actually representing weapons manufacturers, not gun owners, that's why they seem to refuse to support common sense restrictions military style assault weapons, magazines that hold a hundred bullets, or background checks for anyone who buys a gun.

You've got the anti-gunner meme down pretty pat there Frei. Even to the use of the "common sense" term so popular among those circles these days.

But lets look at it:

"Military Style Assault Weapons" A very nebulous term. Could be applied to anything including your great grandfathers Brown Bess Musket. That's like the anti gunners previous gun ban attempts like "Saturday night specials" but I guess that's the point of the ban right? Could and would be applied to anything. Already people are finding major inconsistencies in the list as created. Functionally identical versions of a rifle finding their way onto both Feinsteins ban list as well as the accompanying hunting rifle exemption list. Apparently it only becomes dangerous to public safety if it looks scary. Duck and turkey guns qualifying as AW's because they have a pistol grip. That kind of thing.

"Magazines that hold a hundred bullets" Were they to limit their ban attempt to a magazine of such size there wouldn't be much opposition to it at all but they're talking banning over 10 bullets. In New York, their shining example of how gun control should be done, it's down to 7 with mandatory disarmament of those previously legally owned and the sky is the limit how much further it could and will be pushed.

"Background checks for everyone that buys a gun". The only reasonable proposal the left has made thus far but the devil is in the details. Privacy advocates are already indicating they will oppose any mandatory inclusion of mental health records in a Firearms no sell list so even if it's enacted it's unlikely to prevent the mass killings it's being sold as a cure for. Just another expensive federal boondoggle that will further erode our supposedly inalienable and uninfringeable constitutional rights.

[NeonSamurai]

I think that the argument that violent video games cause this, is utter rubbish, and there is absolutely zero conclusive empirical evidence (that isn't full of hundreds of confounds) supporting the argument that they do. I have played every violent video game you can think of, and it has not either increased my levels of aggression (which are pretty low) or desensitized me to real violence and death. One thing that I have a lot of difficulty doing, is watching incidents of real death. Heck my profession (clinical social worker) is all about sympathy and compassion. I play video games for fun, and I enjoy them... why? Because... they are not real, at all.

This video does a decent job of expressing the concept. Warning, the following video contains a segment where a real person kills themselves. You can skip that part (as I did), and instructions are included in the video. It also contains swearing.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...ed-to-Violence

[August]

I don't pretend to second guess the experts Neo but what I can't understand is how can a person be affected by a 30 second commercial but not be affected by a 2.5 hour long violent movie or a violent video game that goes on for hours even days.

People have died from being unable to stop playing them. Like a crack head they play until they keel over from physical exhaustion. But it doesn't have a negative effect on them mentally?

Yeah maybe you and me and nearly everyone else isn't affected but we're a nation of 300 million people. Even if it's one in a million that for whatever combination of other factors is affected it's still 300 potential would be adam lanzas being created out there. I don't like those odds.

[Feuer Frei!]

If violence in video games, movies or music 'makes' people do crazy crap, then that is not the big picture. To say otherwise is courting ignorance.
There has to have been a deep-rooted mental condition in the first place, before listening or playing games or music which includes images or words of violent conduct.
Before is the operative word.
To suggest that, even with supposed studies, and let's face it, these studies are not conclusive, never have been, never will be, then i think ignorance is a word i would use for that summation.

[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by August

I don't pretend to second guess the experts Neo but what I can't understand is how can a person be affected by a 30 second commercial but not be affected by a 2.5 hour long violent movie or a violent video game that goes on for hours even days.

People have died from being unable to stop playing them. Like a crack head they play until they keel over from physical exhaustion. But it doesn't have a negative effect on them mentally?

Yeah maybe you and me and nearly everyone else isn't affected but we're a nation of 300 million people. Even if it's one in a million that for whatever combination of other factors is affected it's still 300 potential would be adam lanzas being created out there. I don't like those odds.

Well the experts have been arguing over that point forever (kind of like gun control). Lots of experts think video games increase peoples tolerance to violence and increases aggression. There have been piles of studies, with results that go either way, and all of these studies frequently having more holes in them than a sieve (aka confounds).

Disturbed individuals who are likely to murder will go off no matter what medium they focus on (helter skelter for example). Plus like I said, everyone knows video games are not real, even at a subconscious level. Honestly I think the news media bears the biggest brunt of things as for causing these events, they are the ones that go nuts with coverage over events like this, and sometimes, what they are covering are actual events.

Also like it or not, guns (and other weapons) are what kill people in the end. That point is inescapable. There is logic in wanting to restrict the implements that make these events possible. Freedom versus a safer society... not an easy call.

Also honestly, I seriously question the effectiveness of advertising, I think its effectiveness is way overblown by the advertising industry. For myself, advertising can so enrage me that I will make it a point never to buy that product or any other products by that company ever again (like if they insult my intelligence, or endlessly bombard me).

long list there Feuer Frei
One part of it is important.

62% Percentage of private gun sellers who agreed to sell a firearm to a buyer who couldn’t pass a background check

If that number was even only 10% it would demonstrate that a significant proportion of "legal" gunsellers are criminals.
It shows why LaPierre is nothing but an idiot as he flatly refuses any measure which would affect this criminal activity.

"Background checks for everyone that buys a gun". The only reasonable proposal the left has made thus far but the devil is in the details.

That August is reasonable no matter who makes the proposal.

Privacy advocates are already indicating they will oppose any mandatory inclusion of mental health records in a Firearms no sell list so even if it's enacted it's unlikely to prevent the mass killings it's being sold as a cure for.

Do they oppose all other regular transactions which require disclosure of medical information?
If not then that is just a smoke screen.

Just another expensive federal boondoggle that will further erode our supposedly inalienable and uninfringeable constitutional rights.

Yet since you agree that they are not inalienable and unifringable you have already rejected the arguement you are once again falling back on.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

If violence in video games, movies or music 'makes' people do crazy crap, then that is not the big picture. To say otherwise is courting ignorance.
There has to have been a deep-rooted mental condition in the first place, before listening or playing games or music which includes images or words of violent conduct.
Before is the operative word.
To suggest that, even with supposed studies, and let's face it, these studies are not conclusive, never have been, never will be, then i think ignorance is a word i would use for that summation.

Precisely.

[Armistead]

"Winning"