If the better approach is to focus on the "who", why does the NRA oppose background checks?
If background checks were more limited in the kind of background they checked for, say only restricting people who had injured someone using a firearm, then there might be fewer objections.
And felons who want to buy a gun for nefarious purposes are either smart enough to pay up and get an unregistered one on the black market (so you're not targeting them with background checks) or dumb enough to get one at a local gun store. But the dumb ones are still felons, which means they likely have criminal connections, and if they need a gun they probably can find another way to get one. So by stopping them from buying a firearm legally, they're more likely to end up with unregistered weapon, which makes the DoJ's job harder. I concede that a fair number of them might be inconvenienced enough to just not buy a gun, but then many of them will just go on to stab people instead of shooting them. The number of actual lives saved by background checks is probably much lower than people think.
Further, background checks are notoriously unreliable, turning up plenty of hard-to-resolve false-positives and dangerous false-negatives.
And then there's restrictions on mental health conditions. The problem with these is that people like guns, and if someone who likes guns thinks they might have a mental health disorder like bipolar or schizophrenia that would perclude them from owning one, they won't see a doctor. The result is that they won't get treatment and are more likely to hurt themselves, and indeed, others. Shootings and violent crime have been declining for decades, but the lives of the mentally ill have not been improving. I find the mental health problem much more important than the gun control issues to the proper functioning of our society, it's just that gun violence is more visible. This is a hard problem, and there will have to be compromises but it has to be part of the debate.
I don't know why the NRA opposes background checks, but there are good reasons to.
On a hypothetical level, even if I did support the current laws barring convicted felons of certain rights in perpetuity, I would still have a problem with the way this is being administered today. I’ve read some pretty damning reports on some of the discriminatory practices that continue at the institutional level within the broader criminal justice system which seem to primarily affect certain segments of our population. Poor people, particularly minorities and specifically black males, face some very specific challenges when it comes to things like selective enforcement, pretrial plea bargains, rates of conviction and length of sentencing. At this point I can’t really describe our justice system as anything but blatantly discriminatory.
Even in a more equitable and just system, I personally wouldn’t support the taking away of rights in perpetuity, and I certainly don’t support it when it seems to have such a deliberate and specific impact on certain groups.
A possible alternative I thought and have always wondered why it doesn't get used would be some sort of private public key cryptography where the seller would get a signed certificate proving they ran a background check and it's result, but the government wouldn't store anything.
Bingo, and the imposition of a registry would inevitably spark our next hot civil war. Best to avoid that....
where the seller would get a signed certificate proving they ran a background check and it's result, but the government wouldn't store anything
Unfortunately, a lot of people are really really bad about keeping records. It would also be open to abuse by the government seizing and disappearing the certificate of someone they wanted to persecute. Heck, the government sucks here, the BATFE's machine gun etc. registry is in horrible shape, and they sometimes abuse that.
And it's not just smartphones, all will at minimum triangulate to the nears cell towers while on.
We gun owners know our 20th Century history.
Note we're talking about a nation wide gun registry, you're a criminal if all your guns are not listed on it.
And we're talking about a registry, not a conspiracy to secretly make all gun-owners criminals. If you insist they're the same, that's your problem.
And since they serve no good purpose, and are promoted by people who are not shy about signaling their ill will towards us, we're allowed to take the imposition of one as a solid signal what what's to come.
You say "And we're talking about a registry, not a conspiracy to secretly make all gun-owners criminals."? Prove it.
And let's be clear, in this putative Civil War 2.0, we're threatening to kill gun-grabbers wholesale and retail, with guns being one of the least effective means when compared to tactics like killing Blue cities. People kill other people, guns are inanimate objects.
But if you think our contingent threat is rhetorical, you're a fool. If you live in a fragile Blue city like San Francisco, you're doubly a fool (did they get around to closing the last power plant in SF, or was it on the peninsula? I remember Willie Brown commenting, after a major localized blackout, that maybe that wasn't such a good idea...).
There are probably a good deal of people who wouldn't mind amending the Constitution to rid it of the Second Amendment but who still view the 4th Amendment favorably. It would be very difficult to enforce a policy of mass confiscation without the aid of a national registry that wouldn't be a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Last time I checked, which was decades ago, the national ACLU, which has no respect for the 2nd Amendment at all, did have such a 4th Amendment objection.
This idea of the NRA as a manufacturer-driven astroturf organization seems to have been made up out of whole cloth over the last 5 years or so and is only sustainable to the extent that its proponents avoid actually talking to any gun owners.
This cartoon does a great job of explaining the average NRA members view of what it means to meet the gun control lobby "halfway" on an issue:
http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/11/08/cake-and-comprom...
I'll link another piece I wrote on this topic, which is way too long and incoherent and should have gotten edits but didn't:
http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/11/12/why-fake-moderate-gun-o...
For discussion of the evolution of the NRA into a hard-line, no-compromise lobbying group, see the last section, "NRA: The Original Moderate Pro-Gun Group".
Also, the parallels with how legislators cluelessly approach the adoption of any new technology were painfully clear.
Never mind belligerent crazy people, I can't remember a single TV show or movie in the last thirty years that depicted responsible gun owners, i.e. the vast majority of gun owners, in any positive light. Can you? Every time I see a gun on TV it's either used by a police officer or used in a crime of some sort. Test me on this next time you see a gun shown on TV or in a movie that comes out Hollywood.
This sort of thing was dropped from the dramatization of a novel by a totally PC woman black? author, I could probably find a reference if anyone is interested.
At minimum this is part of a wide spectrum culture war which these gun-grabbing politicians are on one side of, at worst, well, we gun owners know our 20th Century history (see above).
I fail to see how the gender or sex of the author has anything to do with anything, but it's good to know where your own biases lie.
Putting that aside, you seem to be under the impression that there's some kind of Hollywood conspiracy, when in fact when you're adapting a novel you usually leave out a bunch of stuff. You stick with what's important. Despite what you might think, Schindler's List is not meant to be read as a story where the gun is the hero. You would be rather missing the point of it to take that view.
What would they get in return? The absolutist/fundamentalist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment does not admit of compromise, and sets up a world view in which compromises and "reasonable middles" cannot exist; from that stance one either wins completely or loses completely, which is not coincidentally the rhetoric often used to work supporters up into a frenzy.
The right to own new machine guns made after 1986, and aren't additions before that that are not already in the pool of 200,000 forbidden?
Nationwide concealed carry reciprocity, like with drivers licenses.
Related to the above, enforcing shall issue concealed carry on the entire nation.
Removing the many state restrictions on magazine size, and against "assault weapons", which the Congress has explicit, original Constitutional power to do, forget about the 2nd Amendment.
Removing post-Reconstruction laws like the sheriff's permit to buy a handgun in North Carolina.
In general, there's a host of "flypaper" laws that are designed to make it harder and more dangerous to keep and bear arms, and only serve such purposes, that clearing away a bunch of them would be a big thing for us.
Reform the BATFE.
That's just off the top of my head in 2 minutes.
Example: an individual may own an AR-15 lower receiver, or even machine one themselves. If, however, they drill one 5/32" hole too many in that receiver, they are guilty of a felony. If they own a pistol based on the AR-15 platform and disassemble it at the same time and in the same space that they're disassembling and cleaning an AR-15 rifle, they are committing a felony. These examples are thanks to complex rules based on "compromises".
Gun owners have given up rights time and again, to zero gain of their own. That's not a compromise. A compromise is your asking me to give you half of my cake in return for half of your pie.
My question is simply: what is the thing they would like to gain? The NRA's modern reinterpretation of the Second Amendment (and make no mistake: they are pushing a modern invention, not a historical understanding) does not appear to allow the possibility that any compromise would be reasonable. Hence anything which is not a complete and utter victory is immediately spun as a complete and utter defeat.
It appears you choose to categorically reject returns in the same space as losses; what do you wish, that we exchange something trite like steaks and sexual favors in return for all firearms? Do you believe firearm rights are somehow perfectly fungible? If so, it would appear you yourself are insisting on complete, utter victory.
I cannot begin to speak for others, but ask not for complete victory. Rather, I wish we would make steps back in what gun owners regard as a positive direction. The seven options hga gave above are not a linked list, they are several options. Even one would be regarded as a victory.
So, given the lack of support for a guaranteed individual right, what exactly do you feel is being infringed? If there really is a possibility of compromise, then why is even the tiniest hint of the possibility of a suggestion of perhaps trying to implement a sensible background-check and registration system guaranteed to stir up such disgusting rhetoric from the allegedly "reasonable" people who oppose it? It's gone far beyond just basic hyperbole like claiming that any regulation actually consists of outlawing and confiscating all guns from all people (though that's still a popular one), and well off the deep end into suggesting that the murders of children have been faked by paid actor "parents" in order to give support to the gun-confiscating plan.
Again: it's very very clear what the proposal from those folks is, and it's all-or-nothing with no compromise possible.
The problem is that you keep talking about compromise and an all-or-nothing attitude, but ignore the fact that gun owners have bent over backwards over the past century and you offer nothing but more limitations. How, exactly, is that compromise? Imagine this conversation:
Lion: I want to eat you
Gnu: No
Lion: Fine, let me bite you
Gnu: No
Lion: Be reasonable, compromise with me here - let me nibble one of your legs, you have four.
Gnu: You've already eaten my cousin and sister, and I like all four of my legs just the way they are, thank you.
Lion: Being alive provides no guarantee whatsoever of a right to four legs. Your four legs make me feel unsafe, you could kick me. I insist you let me have one.
Gnu: No, I'm just fine the way I am.
Lion: You just have an all-or-nothing attitude, all I'm trying to do is be sensible here. I need to eat so I can hunt you next week.
...
As far as "sensible background checks" go, they already exist. You already cannot own a firearm if you fit a fairly broad list of disqualifiers, and attempting to buy a weapon at a licensed dealership and undergoing the already compulsory (if inaccurate and problematic) check will result in your wasting $20 and going home empty-handed. The "sensible" most people seem to be attempting to espouse today is reaching into private activities. If my father wishes to give me a gun that has been inherited over 3 generations, why must we go to the gun shop and pay them $20 to tell him he can? Why would I agree to risk a felony charge by loaning my brother a rifle for his two-week hunting trip without a $20 visit to the gun store?
"But the gun show loophole" you might say - if a licensed dealer sells an individual a firearm without undertaking the proper background check, they should lose their license. That's my opinion. If a private citizen sells another private citizen a firearm without undergoing a background check, nothing has changed or will change that. All you're doing is putting already extraordinarily lawful citizens in yet greater jeopardy of committing a felony.
Other than our fundamental disagreement about the Second Amendment, I perceive a core issue here: gun control advocates fail to take criminals into account. Criminals don't buy guns at gun shops that run background checks, they don't register them (ask California and Chicago), and they illegally modify guns (removing serials and shortening weapons). No proposed measures (even complete disarmament) would put even a dent in that, and criminally-owned guns are disproportionately represented in firearm crime.
So what, exactly, do you propose registration and further background checks would solve, and what assurance can you offer that civilian disarmament is not the end goal of all involved?
My interpretation of the Second Amendment is the only logical conclusion one can reach following a review of commentaries on it, and on the general view toward and position of firearms in the United States at the time of the drafting of the Constitution. Since that doesn't match the interpretation preferred by the NRA and its fans in the present day, the onus is on them to demonstrate how or why a genuinely new absolute individual right should be introduced and protected, and what we could gain from it.
Since most people I speak with that advocate gun control also advocate eventual complete disarmament as the end goal, why would I believe something different would happen?
Plenty of countries have strong regulation and much lower murder rates than we do, and haven't felt the need to move to complete disarmament. Nor have I advocated for it. You have, however, precisely as I predicted someone would, jumped immediately to that particular hyperbole in an attempt to cover up the fact that you can't refute the reality of successful gun control existing in the world. Same for the insipid "only outlaws will have guns" objection. Gun control works, has worked and continues to work in many free countries, and you're still trying to deny it by parroting tired old memes. All that's missing from what you presumably thought was a smashing knock-down reply is the Navy SEAL leading the class in the Pledge of Allegiance and the bald eagle swooping in to shed a tear as the liberal atheist professor runs from the classroom.
If you wish to discuss success of gun control elsewhere in the world, so be it. Please point us to appropriate research literature that identifies a causative link between gun control and proportionately reduced crime rates. I particularly enjoyed slatestarcodex' writing on the matter, but even he with good numbers and well-considered statistics is not as confident as you. Sweden and Norway, for example - rather strict gun control, reasonably low crime, but if you've spent time in-country you know there's a significant cultural factor there. Rather than gun control causing their relatively low crime rate, I'd assert that their culture has actually dictated both the crime rate and the gun control, but that's anecdata. Let's have some real discussion with real numbers and not hand-wavy statements about free countries.
Thus far, the Supreme Court disagrees with your interpretation of the 2A, and likely my own as well. I expect they come to a far more reasoned and logical analysis of it than either of us can, but for most of US history they have been on the individual-freedom side of its interpretation.
And how am I to do so? You have literally been acting out a predictable, tired pattern of sound-bite arguments which neither prove nor refute anything, and you've yet to actually answer the question I originally posed: what would be, in your eyes, a "reasonable compromise" on guns? If you adopt the logical consequence of your own statements on the Second Amendment, the only possibility you can offer is that no compromise whatsoever is possible; after all, who could countenance "compromise" with the sort of vicious disarming tyrant I must obviously be (or be paving the way for), in your eyes? Who could accept any "compromise" with a government over something alleged to be the sole protection from that government?
And since you've literally acted out a stereotype, why shouldn't I just say that's what you've done and leave it at that?
I don't know why you keep insisting I propose some nebulous "reasonable compromise" so you can batter down that strawman, I'm hardly the average "NRA type". If, however, that's what it takes for you to engage in civil discourse I'll again point out hga's list above.
Take, for example, nationwide reciprocity - this could actually further your apparent goal of universal registration and background checks, but appears to acknowledge some right to gun ownership which you also appear to vehemently oppose. "Shall issue" also falls into this category.
Allowing new machine guns is also inherently palatable to universal registration and background checks. Those weapons already require stringent registration and checks, and allowing manufacture of new ones would not change that, it would just stop artificially limiting the pool and accordingly the price. Long guns are already a minuscule part of crime rates and increasing the market without changing the registration requirements would not likely change the crime rate.
Repealing silly state-level ankle-biting laws regarding mostly cosmetic features that make it more dangerous for the law-abiding to keep and bear arms would have a positive effect on national standardization, which could also lead to an improved case for universal registration.
Reforming the BATFE would go a long way toward not continuing to alienate the gun-owning public with arcane, cryptic rules that place one at the risk of felony for simple acts, and would again be easy to align to a case for registration and checks. Streamline, simplify, control.
What do _you_ view as a "reasonable compromise"? This entire conversation has been one-sided, I've formed and expressed opinions, attempted to discuss what you wish to discuss, and you keep moving the goalposts. Seriously, let's get on with discussion of successful gun control in other countries. I've actually been seriously considering moving to a Scandinavian country and have, of course, been carefully reviewing the relevant statistics and requirements. I'd actually be able to take most of my guns.
Finally, ignore my assertions of what I think registration and checks are about. Tell me what they're about - how will they benefit us, what is the expected result, and so on? What's great about them? Why should we take another step toward the "you have zero rights" end of the spectrum?
Well, I think that's true. But you jumped straight from that to universal disarming, which doesn't follow. Not having a right to a thing does not automatically ban the thing; it simply means the thing becomes a privilege to be granted or withheld/revoked. A driver's license works the same way: you don't have an automatic inherent right to a driver's license, but that doesn't in any way imply an agenda to revoke all licenses and ban driving.
Take, for example, nationwide reciprocity
Does nationwide reciprocity actually make sense? Plenty of things require re-licensing or re-certification when switching states, and yet we still manage to maintain quite good records on those things. So this:
could actually further your apparent goal of universal registration and background checks
does not follow from reciprocity. All reciprocity does is let the least-restrictive state set the rules for all states, and that's not going to help with making registration or background checks work.
Allowing new machine guns is also inherently palatable to universal registration and background checks.
Why do people need machine guns? With driver licensing there's a good argument to be made that in most areas of the country a car is basically a necessity of holding a job, being able to obtain basic goods like food, etc., and there are still a bunch of requirements a vehicle has to meet to be driven on the public roadways and a bunch of modifications that can make a car no longer legal. So what positive good is served by people owning machine guns, or the modded guns you keep bringing up? You've argued no logical connection between making these things legal and increasing the effectiveness of registration systems; that's on you to demonstrate.
Repealing silly state-level ankle-biting laws regarding mostly cosmetic features that make it more dangerous for the law-abiding to keep and bear arms would have a positive effect on national standardization, which could also lead to an improved case for universal registration.
Reforming the BATFE would go a long way toward not continuing to alienate the gun-owning public with arcane, cryptic rules that place one at the risk of felony for simple acts, and would again be easy to align to a case for registration and checks. Streamline, simplify, control.
Let's stick to cars for a moment because this hits an actual important point. We already live in a society in which strictly-enforced but largely arbitrary laws regarding cars, their registration, upkeep requirements and traffic rules are routinely used to put people into permanent life-ruining revolving doors of debt and incarceration.
And there's the rub: guns are not unique in this respect. Cars aren't unique in this respect. There are lots of these bits of awfulness which are used to selectively make peoples' lives hell, in all sorts of areas. So if you want to simplify complex codes that primarily get used for selective prosecution, or attack selective prosecution from another angle, then by all means do so. Just don't treat it as something unique to guns, and don't push it only in the context of guns. Because frankly, I'd much rather work to get a poor person out of endless fines, fees and jailings over a traffic stop than work to get you a machine gun. It might turn out getting that person out of fines/fees/etc. ends up getting you the machine gun you want, but I want to see evidence of you on board with the plan for a reason other than your own desire for the machine gun before I'll trust you on the matter.
What do _you_ view as a "reasonable compromise"?
First: giving up on the idea of militias rising against the federal government. If it ever became necessary, and if the military stayed on the government side, well, we're getting really good at taking out resistance from the safety and comfort of a control room hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the action. Some dudes with camo and rifles aren't gonna cut it. And if the military doesn't stay on the government side, well, the arms are gonna be available. So that one's right out, and I'd argue for repealing the Second Amendment entirely to make it crystal-clear.
Then: registered and tracked ownership of firearms, sale and possession heavily taxed along with tax on ammunition, no sales permitted without full strict documented background check, immediate confiscation after any incident indicating unfitness to own, mandatory requirements for secure unloaded storage at all times the gun is not in use, ownership limited to well-defined types of firearms, ownership solely for the purpose of collectibility/historical value or for sport, use restricted to areas explicitly designated for such purposes. No open carry, no concealed carry, and anyone who wants a gun for the purpose of shooting other people (and self-defense is "for the purpose of shooting other people") automatically forbidden to ever have one.
Worried that criminals will still illegally get guns? Well, we're already busy starting to decriminalize drugs, so let's find another use for that enforcement money and prison space and devote the same bloated budgets, paramilitary tactics and crushing mandatory sentences to going after illegal guns. Make illegal use or possession truly carry the kind of penalties drugs carry right now. Forget multi-strike or "career armed criminal" laws. Make any crime committed with, or while carrying/brandishing, a gun into a "hard 50" or even just life sentence, first offense. Harsh prohibition hasn't worked with drugs because they're addictive and lucrative and large numbers of people will work to get them no matter what. Imposing these kinds of rules on guns would still allow the "fun" people want them for (owning a cool collection, shooting down at the range, going on a hunting/camping trip, etc.), which is the typical problem with prohibition attempts. Raise a few generations with these norms and the ingrained culture of using guns as tools to solve problems (where "solve the problem" means "kill someone" to the person wielding the gun) -- which we certainly have in this country -- will fade into the history books.
There are many vastly greater ills that plague our society; it is regrettable that intelligent people like you choose to waste so much hate and energy fighting something that has such a relatively miniscule effect on society. Prison reform, for example. Smoking cessation, for another. Drug law reform or repeal. There are myriad more solvable and more effective ills to correct that have actual strong causative effects.
I'm not interested in continuing this conversation further, whatever followup you may make.
[edit: dropping an errant comma]
... and you have the unmitigated gall to claim that those of us on the other side of this issue are "all or nothing".
He seems to be unaware that those people have to go home to sleep when they're off their shift.
The US has never fought a war without a secure rear (well, eventually the Confederates found themselves in that situation, and they of course lost). It won't go well if this comes to past, and [censored by dang], but I really don't see the military any time soon, even in the middle of their Fundamental Transformation, lining up on the side of those who hate them with a burning passion. Especially the front line trigger pullers, which, of course, does not exactly include the drone operators.
If that transformation continues and succeeds, they'll be so much less a threat they'll probably only play a minor role, whatever side they take.
What I propose still allows people to own and use guns for the things they enjoy owning/using guns for, while going after the problem usages. It's not a complete ban, and in spirit it's similar to how gun control actually works in some countries. What's "all or nothing" about that?
Your proposal is a wild fantasy with as much grounding in reality as "Dear Hustler" stories. I'll even be so bold as to assert you likely haven't even read the relevant regulations from the countries you allege you're borrowing your "spirit" from; I have. I must admit you have certainly turned quite an epic troll here.
Still looking forward to reading your exploration of the causative link between gun control and reduced crime rates in free countries.
(it really does seem like your objection is "I'd no longer be allowed to own a gun for the purpose of killing other people", and my objection, of course, is that this isn't already illegal)
Here's a thought exercise for you - return to your car analogy and apply all the same rules you insist on for firearms to freedom of movement. The Constitution doesn't even guarantee freedom of movement explicitly, so you can wipe away that mess without even repealing an amendment, just overturn some old cases. Stipulate the same taxation and registration (even for private land use), revocation of use upon even considering moving to another state, and so on. Our founding fathers could have never imagined the network of interstates we have today. Unless you're saying your car analogy doesn't work.
Still looking forward to reading your exploration of the causative link between gun control and reduced crime rates in free countries.
So, again: why is allowing sports/hunting/collecting but harshly penalizing the violent-crime aspect not a useful compromise?
I expect this is casting pearls before swine, but your proposal is not simply harsh on violent crime as you so boldly attempt to claim. What you allege is a compromise does not allow non-criminal uses of firearms without imposing harsh penalties on those uses. Your proposal is as radical as someone on the other end of the firearm use spectrum insisting that individuals found guilty of not having shot a criminal in the past 30 days are guilty of "being soft on crime", which carries a penalty of lifetime (or at least 50 years') imprisonment.
Your proposal remains a wild, masturbatory fantasy with cherry-picked examples from pop culture knowledge of other countries' gun control laws without even understanding them and their actual implementations. Further to that point, you also still have yet to even explain why your proposal is anything but an amusingly dismal attempt at parroting a tired, predictable talking point about how gun control in "other countries" works. Disappointingly, that was abandoned the moment I showed actual working knowledge in that space.
Go ahead, let's see what random single phrase you decide to object to out of this large set. We've already abandoned a large part of the conversation behind us, you're just amusing at this point.
Are you basing this on your own research, or are you relying on other people who wish to see guns banned in the US?
In District of Columbia v. Heller, 478 F. 3d 370 (U.S. 2008) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZO.html, the court held that the Second Amendment does guarantee an individual right to keep and bear arms unconnected with militia service. In particular, the District of Columbia's law banning possession of usable handguns in the home for self-defense violated the Constitution.
In McDonald v. City of Chicago, 567 F. 3d 856 (U.S. 2010) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-1521.ZO.html, the court held that the right of self-defense in the Second Amendment is a fundamental right and its guarantees are applicable to the States by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Legislation similar to that in Heller was struck down as unconstitutional.
I encourage you to read both opinions (and the dissents), even if they are laden with constitutional legalese and references to language from hundred-year-old opinions. You can argue all you want about your own opinions, but the opinions of the Supreme Court are the law of the land and are binding on every other court in the United States.
Depends on who is writing the "historical understanding". Are we talking about the courts, or the people who actually ratified the constitution?
One who many have made clear has no room for us at all, e.g. the couple in who's home now President Obama launched his political career planned on liquidating 25 million Americans who they judged couldn't be reeducated, adjust for population growth and that's now around 37 million, well over 10% of the population.
And it's only murder if my side loses, the winners after all write the history books. You should be happy for the fair warning of the folly of your actions, should you initially succeed in them.
That's something of a no true Scotsman argument, where any compromise offered by the other side can be rejected as unreasonable.
Besides, why should we be expected to compromise on our civil rights? What other civil right could acceptably be demolished over time?
Heck, flip the law around as is done in some countries: require them, or at least require that they be provided with all new guns. It's a health and safety measure to prevent hearing loss.
BTW, the problem is the name. Silencers don't actually silence. Pretending that they do is feeding the idea that they are for assassinations.
In part, it's because handguns in concealed carry are now by daily bread and butter use of guns, and they're impractical in that use case, and would hinder retention in a home defense case.
But, hey, a compromise where I could own a full auto suppressed P90 (a post '86 design) for home defense and the like, yeah, I could get behind that, and Henrietta would no doubt approve.
But this is in no way mutually exclusive from representing the interests of citizens who want to buy and possess those firearms.
It makes total sense that an organization lobbying against outlawing a product would be supported by both the manufacturers and consumers of that product.
If the NRA wanted to solely juice sales and sell more guns they would give heavily to elect more Democratic candidates. The current presidency has been great for sales [0].
0 - https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/nics_firearm_...
(I consider myself to be a right-winger, as I am certainly pro-gun and pro-business, and straight as a rail, but I never heard about LGBT lobby concept, except in jokes about fashion. LGBT guys and gals are fun.)
Looking at their 2013 Form 990 (http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/530/5301161...), member dues totaled $175,577,863, which swamps the money they get from the industry including advertisements, and that's not counting the donations from members which are on top of their dues.
Which is a large part of the $83,356,202, from the figures I saw in one of the linked hit jobs, I would guess the majority, and advertising is a mere $24,468,824.
No dice.
- Buying new now no longer has additional hassle compared to buying used, since the difficulty of the latter has been increased.
- Two people are now forced to go into a gun shop where they wouldn't have before. They might browse for accessories or maybe a new piece.
This is rather similar to the software industry's attacks on the ability to resell. If the NRA was just a lobby for gun businesses, why would they not support private sales bans? They should want this kind of captive audience.
NRA member here.
I neither manufacture nor sell firearms, and the NRA represents my interests re: gun ownership.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/nra-supported-backgrou...
The NRA regularly opposes such expansions (for instance they oppose closing the so called gun show loophole).
Further that would incentivize people who might be struggling with mental illness NOT to seek help, lest they forever find themselves unable to own a gun. Is that what we want? Discouraging people from seeking help?
Finally, there's absolutely NO incentive for the people actually executing the background check system to "be reasonable" such that if you had a nervous breakdown in college at 20 years old from trying to take 21 credits so you could graduate before your scholarship ran out (as a totally contrived example) should that really prevent 40 year old you from owning a shotgun to shoot clays? I might argue "no" but the bureaucracy has NO incentive to allow it and EVERY incentive not to allow it. There are no real repercussions for taking someone's rights in a nebulous and opaque manner but large repercussions if anyone, anywhere ever who has any kind of mental health history ever gets a gun and uses it murderously.
So tough that many states still absolutely refuse to supply their relevant mental health records to the NICS "instant" background check system. And then there's the screwups, the Virginia Tech shooter should have been stopped by the gun store (and who knows what would have happened after that), but Virginia hasn't forwarded his involuntary treatment order to the NICS due to their confusion and/or sloth.
Or take the Colorado theater shooter, he so alarmed his university psychiatrist that she reported him to its threat board, which she was also a member of. But he soon withdrew, and they washed their hands of any further responsibility WRT to him.
Where I suspect he got some extra help to keep on that nasty class of drugs and otherwise manage his life. Little did she suspect they, and lithium for bi-polar disorder, would be used as an excuse to dump the mentally ill on the streets, saving money that could be better used in other ways to buy votes.