Why I just joined the NRA
townhall.com
townhall.com
Americans don't have a love of guns, they have a love of confrontation.
That was the most difficult cultural thing I had to learn when I moved to Japan.
I suspect America is a lot closer to the middle than it.
America may be in the middle confrontation-wise, but when you add in the ease of obtaining a handgun, you get the current problem.
I take this as evidence we're simply a violent people, however we're armed or not.
Sure its a bumper sticker slogan but there is some truth to the slogan that "If you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns."
To me the only truly effective way to neutralize criminals or insane irrational people with guns, is to surround them with sane and rational people that peacefully also have guns.
I just wish people liked guns less.
I dont really think people that like guns are the problem though. I would not classify myself as someone that "likes" guns. On the other hand i know people that "like" guns, and it's not that they likes the power a gun has, but they certainly understand and respect it, and therefore take extra care. They like them because they appreciate them for the same reason that people appreciate works of art, or sportscars. For the Craftsmanship, for the minior details that went into the design of the gun, for the historical value of the gun.
Pretty sure they used large aircraft to kill people and no one is crying tyranny over the idea that large aircraft need a bunch of regulations to ensure public safety.
Guns have absolutely no effect on violence. Treat people better, make sure they have access to opportunity and caring about one another is how you reduce violence.
I own more than my share of guns and they have never made me violent, or invoked violence. I have a few knives, they too have never invoked violence in me.
Maybe a better comparison is gun control in other countries.
"Sure its a bumper sticker slogan but there is some truth to the slogan that "If you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns.""
So what, "some truth to it" is a shockingly low standard.
"To me the only truly effective way to neutralize criminals or insane irrational people with guns, is to surround them with sane and rational people that peacefully also have guns."
To me this is nonsense because:
(1) Countries with gun control have neutralized gun violence without arming the entire populace.
(2) Allowing the entire US population to arm freely has had a net negative effect on controlling insane people with guns.
You might ask why the people who fed you this talking point used a clearly deceptive statistic instead of an obvious one like murder.
These are not clearly deceptive statistics. Murder is not the only kind of violent crime.
Allowing people to protect themselves is a great deterrent against violent crime of all types. That is what these statistics point to.
Why do you so easily want to give up these hard-won freedoms?
I just told you why they weren't.
http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2013/01/12/fact-checkin...
the definitions for “violent crime” are very different in the US and Britain, and the methodologies of the two statistics he cites are also different...
First, it should be noted that the figures Swann gives are out of date...
Second, and more importantly, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports defines a “violent crime” as one of four specific offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
The British Home Office, by contrast, has a substantially different definition of violent crime. The British definition includes all “crimes against the person,” including simple assaults, all robberies, and all “sexual offenses,” as opposed to the FBI, which only counts aggravated assaults and “forcible rapes.”
When you look at how this changes the meaning of “violent crime,” it becomes clear how misleading it is to compare rates of violent crime in the US and the UK. You’re simply comparing two different sets of crimes.
No one ever said that Freedom was easy or that it didn't come at a cost. It does and always will. But maintaining freedom and our core principles as laid out long ago should be a goal we never stop working towards. This seems like a huge step backwards.
So what? Maybe the 2nd amendment is wrong, or a bad idea, or a 200 year old proclamation that is no longer relevant in modern times? People's attachment to this clause is just... fundamentalist.
And why do people insist on equating gun ownership with freedom? You're not allowed to own bombs or missiles, does that also mean I am not free?
There's lots of things we're not free to do which actually makes us freer: not to steal, or house break, or kill people. I for one am glad my freedom is curtailed in this manner. It means i can live in a (largely) peaceful and safe society, and am free to go about my business with minimum threat to my existence or assets. And further adding to my sense of security is the knowledge that I am very unlikely to ever be threatened, injured or killed by a gun as almost no one owns one here - because they are illegal.
Everybody in Europe manages just fine without owning guns, what makes american's so special? why do you need to own a gun? (yeah sure, self defence, but if no one had them in the first place that wouldn't be necessary)
We are the same country that came to the worlds aid (and europe, especially) during WW1 and WW2.
Our beliefs aren't perfect. They just happen to be less wrong then others, IMHO... and in the opinion of a large majority of our country.
If you can't understand why the right to keep and bear arms is an essential aspect of being american then you are short sighted and have refused to see how history repeats itself over and over throughout mankind.
I 100% believe Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said the following: "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
Once you start picking apart our constitution, little by little, you soon open up the flood gates for rights and liberties to be taken away much more easily.
They can already wire-tap without a warrant. Now they want the guns. This is how it starts...
First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
Lets modify the above...
First they came for the assault rifles, and I didn't speak out because I didn't own one.
Then they came for the bolt action rifles, and I didn't speak out because I didn't own one.
Then they came for the pistols, and I didn't speak out because I didn't own one.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left with the capabilities to defend me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...
Having the ability to arm yourself and defend yourself and uprise against OUR OWN GOVERNMENT should the need arise is specifically why the 2nd amendment was written the way it was... and I believe they felt very strongly about this. It's #2 on the list after all.
When we try to outsmart the people that made our great country, we usually mess it up.
Just my 2c.
Slavery?
[ Clarified: it -> slavery. ]
"Errr, without accepting it there wouldn't have been a Constitution or United States of America. "
Maybe this is also true about the second amendment?
"And it did provide a mechanism for outlawing it"
Maybe this is also relevant to gun control?
Errr, that turns out not to be the case. Look at the results of the 2007 Small Arms Survey at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gun_owners... and you'll see it's pretty well armed (drill down to the PDF and even legal registration levels are a lot higher than I suspect you think).
In the other direction, when it comes to mass shootings Europe has been doing worse than the US as of late:
From Wikipedia, school shootings in Europe in this century, last two numbers are killed and wounded:
R., Georg, 18, Sep. 17 2009, Germany, 0, 10-15
Kretschmer, Tim, 17, March 11, 2009, Germany, 15, 9-13
De Gelder, Kim, 20, Jan. 16/23,, 2009, Belgium, 4, 12
Saari, Matti Juhani, 22, Sep. 23, 2008, Finland, 10, 1-3
Auvinen, Pekka-Eric, 18, Nov. 7, 2007, Jokela, Finland, 8, 1
Bosse, Bastian, 18, Nov. 20, 2006, Germany, 0, 22
Steinhäuser, Robert, 19, April 26, 2002, Germany, 16, 1
Merah, Mohammed, 23, March 11–22, 2012, Toulouse & Montauban, France, 7, 8
Amrani, Nordine, 33, Dec. 13, 2011, Liège, Belgium, 6, 123 (he also used grenades)
Breivik, Anders Behring, 32, July 22, 2011, Norway, 75, 242 (a bomb killed 8)
van der Vlis, Tristan, 24, April 9, 2011, Netherlands, 6, 17
Radmacher, Sabine, 41, Sep. 19, 2010, Germany, 3, 18 (arson was also used)
Bird, Derrick, 52, June 2, 2010, United Kingdom, 12, 11
Sacco, Angelo Secondo, 54, June 28, 2005, Italy, 3, 9
Antonello, Mauro, 40, Oct. 15, 2002, Italy, 7
Durn, Richard, 33, March 27, 2002, France, 8, 19
Selamet, Ozan, 42, Jan. 18, 2002, Belgium, 6 (2 strangled)
Roux-Durrafourt, Jean-Pierre, 44, Oct. 29, 2001, France, 4, 7
Leibacher, Friedrich, 57, Sep. 27, 2001, Switzerland, 14, 18
Kaya, Hakan, 24, Dec. 22, 2000, Germany, 6This is false.
"school shootings"
Europe: 65, US: 85
"Other spree shootings"
Europe: 93, US: 121
Europe has over twice the population of the US.
Where do you get 85 school shooting deaths (?) in this century? VT 32 + Newtown 24 = 56. (In all cases I do not count the shooter if he died.) Plus I'm also pointing out that there were a lot more school shooting incidents.
It's too late for me to go into spree shootings, but ... when I just added up the deaths for Europe from my list, I got 157.
I just output the wiki lists it appeared you were working from. Once you start selectively editing you open yourself up to acts of cherry picking so I didn't edit anything. It's possible that I missed string entries that didn't follow a sort on the date column, I'll take a look again later but here is my list for us school spree shootings this century:
Lanza 27 Goh 7 Kazmierczak 5 Cho 32 Roberts 5 Weise 9 Total 85
But arguing over simple body counts reeks of Vietnam War insanity; that Europe is not doing well in this is undeniable, worse or not is a debatable point, the statement that "Everybody in Europe manages just fine without owning guns..." is obviously falsifiable in every particular, i.e. they have lots of guns and they misuse them as well.
The article mentions a staggering obvious truth, "Why would we rush to ban guns, when almost all of our mass murders and most of our violent crimes occur in places with the strictest gun control?" There is also the fact that the proposed gun control laws all talk about assault rifles. That's fine, go after assault rifles but don't overlook handguns too. Last year in Chicago, more people were killed by handguns than the total number of those killed in all of the mass shootings over the last decade. How can those proposing gun control ignore that? Chicago has some of the strictest gun control laws in the US yet it has one of the highest rates of murder in the US…most of which results from the use of handguns. Yet, assault rifles and high capacity magazines are the problem….
So you're saying that the universal outrage over all these children being murdered couldn't possibly lead to good faith attempts to reform society to prevent similar events? You're saying it's probably a front for ... something? That the powerful archery, knife and karate lobbies were just waiting for any pretext to get rid of guns so they can start raking in the bucks?
32,367 died in automobile accidents in the US in 2011, but no one is trying to take away your car.
If the Newtown tragedy happened differently and the killer used his car to run over 20 children. Would you want new legislation to limit your access to automobiles?
I understand this is an emotional time, but how is this so difficult to understand?
Let me put it a different way.
Good regulation: Drive drunk and you can lose your right to drive or end up in prison.
Bad regulation: Drive drunk and your neighbor gets his car taken away.
Plenty of new regulations related to cars and highways every year to make them safer.
"If the Newtown tragedy happened differently and the killer used his car to run over 20 children. Would you want new legislation to limit your access to automobiles?'
Are you really asking that if reality was completely different would I maybe believe different things then I believed in this reality? Maybe. The Newtown tragedy is not a singular event. It's just the latest event.
"how is this so difficult to understand?"
How is the empirical fact that gun control works and limits deaths in many countries so hard for you to understand?
I agree that mental illness awareness is a much better place to spend the $500 million Obama just asked for gun control.
More government always fixes things! .... right?!
Then you turn around and say that one country is possibly just naturally more violent than another and it has nothing to do with the deterrent affect guns have on violent crimes of any kind.
Hmmm..
Please go to Japan and obtain a gun illegally as proof of this claim.
" I remember my gun nut friends all had illegal assault rifles during the Clinton ban."
Bad regulation is proof that all regulation doesn't work! ... right?
Nevermind the fact that we have millions more guns in our country -- making guns illegal after they've hit such a penetration level would be impossible.
"I really can't see"
The point I was making was pretty obvious but I'll repeat it here again: it is actually very possible to make it hard to obtain a gun. Japan is hardly the only exhibit.
My big problem with NRA is how spammy they are to members. NRA-ILA is one thing, but being offered overpriced auto insurance, etc. all the time was really annoying. I eventually got off all the marketing lists, but it took a few tries.
However, they don't solve the problem that (you too have pointed out) of population gradually turning against gun ownership. If anything, railing against pop-culture makes them look like hypocrites and actively hurts the longer term (10+ years out) outlook.
I did rejoin the NRA just to add to their numbers; no doubt they'll support some stupid "compromise" soon enough again and I'll not renew, but for now I think it's the best thing, maladroit as they are.
I am not, BTW, under the impression that the population is "gradually turning against gun ownership". If that were true, how could we have had a nationwide sweep of shall issue concealed carry regimes from Florida in 1987 to Wisconson in 2011, totaling 42 states (with Vermont, Washington and maybe Indiana already having been there before it started)?
8 million outstanding licenses and counting, plus who knows in the 4 states with "Constitutional Carry" (no license required if you're not forbidden), Arizona having a substantial population (6.5 million, 15th in the nation).
And I don't believe the gun grabber propaganda that the same people are just buying more guns; for one extreme claim, someone did the math and came out with an average $100K investment per gun owning citizen.
But, yes, the NRA's pop-culture stuff, especially gaming, was an own goal and doesn't help in the long term. But there are plenty of RKBA types like myself who are happy to poison young people's minds about the NRA ^_^, so we'll see what happens after we get past the current mess.
Experiment: go to the range, find 10 men or women under the age of ~35 with AR-15s. Ask if they play first person shooters. Pretty sure over 75% will say "yes."
I am not an FPS person myself -- I like nethack and freeciv -- but aside from the fact that even violent video games are unambiguously protected by the first amendment, the demographics just can't be ignored.
"but aside from the fact that even violent video games are unambiguously protected by current first amendment jurisprudence"
You wouldn't have to go too far back for your original statement to be iffy or downright false; that said, I don't see this changing in the foreseeable future, but then again the Supremes are never entirely predictable.
The law overturned in Brown [originally -- in irony of all ironies -- Schwarzenegger] vs. Entertainment Merchants Association was created by a fellow who is currently better known for gems like these:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0201-0250/sb...
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?...