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Comment by microcolonel | Hacker News Reader

I can't really tell what they're trying to say here.

The repression involved in the implementation of alcohol prohibition had an effect of pushing a common and integral part of society into the black market.

The NRA is promoting the right to bear arms, and actually it would seem that the effect they're seeking should be the exact opposite.

Effectively, as prohibition pushed a polite leisure into the black market. The NRA's goal appears to be the exact opposite: that is, to keep a polite leisure out of the black market.

I don't think German understands the irony of this, because I get the impression that they want to compare the moral status of the prohibition movement to the moral status of the NRA.

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Here's the part of the article that explains it:

> The Anti-Saloon League knew that if you controlled the margins, you could win legislative majorities and even supermajorities. In any given district, they'd say, Look, 45 percent of the people are for the Democrat, and 45 percent of the people are for the Republican. Who controls the 10 percent of the middle? And that's what they fought for — those 10 percent who would vote for whomever the ASL told them to vote for. By picking only one issue and not caring what legislative candidates — state or federal — cared about in terms of other issues, they were able to have an enormous effect. It's a practice that's been copied to the letter — I don't know whether by design — by the NRA.

The NRA didn't get overtly political until after the 1977 Cincinnati (annual meeting) Revolt. From my readings of the participants in that and the following efforts, the most commonly presented principle, by Neal Knox, was "When I feel the heat, I see the light." As in credibly threaten them with the prospect of spending more time with their families, and enough of them will adjust. Or be replaced, perforce. Ask the shade of Tom Foley, first Speaker of the House to lose reelection since before the Civil War.

It helps that we're freaking huge, the NRA has 5 million dues paying members now, and influences 100 million plus gun owners.

That's not how I understand it. I read it as saying the Anti-Saloon League worked by creating a large block of single issue voters, which is similar to the NRA's policy of only caring about gun control laws.

Daniel Okrent answers it in the first question. It has nothing to do with morality or similar organizations. He's saying the tactics are the same: find the minority of voters who feel strongly about your issue and get them to vote your way, and don't worry at all about their personal politics or morals.

Other organizations get too wrapped up in trying to coddle people with a certain political leaning. There may be plenty of anti-abortion Democrats, but because they are Democrats they don't really get much attention from anti-abortion activists.

That's a very good point about the NRA: it's a single issue organization, all things related to guns. It did, of course, support Citizens United (http://www.cuvfec.com/documents/case-08-205/Supplemental_Que...), since McCain-Feingold presented an existential threat in getting it's word out (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10403936 for specific actual examples), but that was just a means to the end of "all things guns". Marksmanship, safety, and of course being allowed to practice the former, which events and a '77 membership revolt forced them into.

We have "no enemies to the Left" or Right, political party, sexual orientation (http://www.pinkpistols.org/), you name it, as long as you're not plotting to violently overthrow the government.

I'm not sure I understood your comment correctly, but I hardly think either group thinks a large black market would be good for their cause.

The difference I see is that the anti-saloon league obviously underestimated how large the black market would be for alcohol.

I would not be surprised (in fact, it seems to be a talking point) if the NRA is purposefully overestimating the size of a potential black market for firearms. But I'm totally speculating here.

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