Senate Gun Control

I expect that we'll find out which one of us is closer to being right.

 

Well history says I'm right, so I'm happy to call it now if you want.

KW you could have made this prediction before any major shooting of the last decade, and been wrong then too. The NRA has only ever seen benefits from these tragedies. Remember when Charlton Heston appeared at a rally in Colorado after Columbine? Did the NRA collapse? No. Do I need to point to every single major shooting since, the response from the NRA, and then look at the numbers for you to agree?

It's not that the NRA courts controversy, but my opinion is that it thrives on it.

 

I'm going to voice a concern over the 'mental health issues' part. As one poster mentioned, HIPPA laws can be used to circumvent this, unless the mentally ill person has made threats of harming others or him/herself. Even then, in most states, they can only be involuntarily committed for 72 hours.

It will be interesting to see how this is handled by the President and/or the political parties.

 

You mean how they've been "crushed" with another 250k new members since Sandy Hook? And how guns sales are rising since then?

History proves E_S right......




....again.


As for the president's action this morning......all seem sensible to me. Even all his reform proposals for Congress to pass seem reasonable.

 

If it helps, Shane, I haven't gotten tired of it yet.

 

I can see where KW is coming from in that he is arguing that if there is a further mass shooting which occurs in the course of the NRA actually blocking specific gun reform legislation, then there is the potential for the Obama adminstration to argue that the mass shooting only occured because the NRA had blocked the proposed reforms. You could draw a direct causal link between the NRA's actions in blocking reform and the deaths caused by the shooting. Having said that, I can also see the larger historical point that the NRA appear to be teflon coated when it comes to political fallout - I mean, the NRA releasing that shooting game is just outrageous, but they have gotten away with it.

I would like to see the detail in Obama's proposals because whilst they appear to be sensible there is a high degre of vagueness and fuzziness there as well (as you would expect as a press release for public consumption).

 

I wonder if there actually is any more detail yet than what you see in that 22 page release.

 

Why do you guys hate history so much?

 

Time for a fact check.

What you call a "rally" was actually the NRA's annual meeting that they are required to hold by law (according to their charter). It was scheduled almost a year before Columbine took place and they couldn't change its location because there wasn't time to send out the required notification.

Instead, they cancelled all of the planned activities except for the minimum required by law (the general meeting to hold the elections of new officers).

It was heavily spun by Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine as an antagonistic rally, but he did that by splicing together Heston's speech in Denver with another one given over a year later in Charlotte, NC. If you watch the film, you can clearly see that his clothes change between different cuts of him talking.

EDIT: You can read a comparison of what Moore used in the film and the actual text of Heston's Denver speech here.

 

I don't, I agree with you.

 

KK, for the purposes of my point, I did not need to go into the minutiae of the NRA bylaws. KW was, in complete disregard of history, claiming the NRA would be crushed if it blocked gun reform legislation. My point was the NRA is indifferent to this kind of sentiment which I maintain is correct and unaffected by your clarifications.

 

I wonder though whether the NRA members themselves are all indifferent to public sentiment. There could potentially come a point when NRA members feel much more heavily stigmatized even than they already do by being NRA members. Parents of school-aged children are themselves a potentially powerful group that's really incredibly good at stigmatizing other groups. I'd love to see the NRA go head-to-head with parent-teacher organizations.

 

Just for the sake of clarity, my understanding of KW's point is not that the NRA or the GOP would be crushed if they blocked gun reform legislation. This is basically the foundation upon which both institutions are built. KWs point is that if the NRA and GOP blocked the reforms proposed by the Obama adminstration in response to the last mass shooting and there was a further mass shooting during the course of this blockage, then the NRA and the GOP would be politically crushed. I think he raises a valid point but I disagree that they would be 'crushed' given the history.

 

Background checks prevent sales. It's all about money. If you listen to the right wing media, from Limbaugh to Beck to the NRA, this is all an Obama fuelled liberal takeover of the U.S. and we are all gonna be slaves to the evil black man. And among the arguments against is that video games and Hollywood have to be curved but every American should have a gun in their hand.

 

I think the NRA knows that games like Call of Duty Black Ops 2 are an effective gateway drug to actual gun ownership. That's why they released their own game.

 

I didn't say they absolutely would be for sure. I think they risk serious negative consequences to their organization if they keep blocking gun laws/regulations and another mass shooting happens. The NRA may be a powerful organization and lobby, but they are not the only game in town (pardon the mixed metaphors there).

The NRA is not invincible, or immune to political realities. They may have a lot of influence over a majority of the Republican caucus and also some Democrats, but there are other organizations with a lot of influence and money. If another mass shooting happens, or more than one, those organizations may choose to throw an increasing amount of their weight into getting laws passed, both for practical reasons and also for political benefit. There is a tipping point where gun regulations no longer become a politically toxic to talk about and to attempt to pass. I don't know what that point is, but it exists. In the event of a number of new mass shootings, we could find out what it is.

NRA members and their congressional benefactors could become politically isolated, as their top priority shifts from other organizations' lesser priority to becoming their top one as well. The NRA can wield power in part because guns are what they're about. That isn't the case for just about anyone else. If the NEA or some other big organization decided to use its political influence in an all-out press to get more regulations passed, the NRA would go from being the top dog to just another big lobby fighting for what it wants.

The more politically acceptable it becomes for other groups to fight for gun control, the more likely it will be to happen, and the more likely new laws and regulations are to be passed.

I'm reminded of David Frum's admonitions to Republicans to bargain on health care reform in 2010, rather than making an all-out attempt to fight any change. The GOP gambled and lost. The NRA could find itself in a similar position if more shootings happen. There are all sorts of unforeseeable things that could make gun regulations much easier politically. Someone beloved is shot/assassinated. An attempt on a major politician, and so on, to say nothing of another massacre.

The NRA is gambling, and many Republicans along with them, that they will not have to cede any more territory to gun control advocates. That could be a mistake.

 

I decided to post the second amendment word for word from my pocket copy of the Constitution: Amendment II. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

As an English major, I would say that everything after the first comma is dependent upon the beginning clause of the sentence "A well regulated Militia..."

I know the Supreme Court sees it a bit differently, but then they are lawyers and not necessarily English professors.

 

We play COD in the UK where it's a completely ineffective gateway to gun ownership.

I think the NAMBLARA release their games hoping that a small percentage of their membership will buy them for their children.

 

I take exception to that, V-2 and Jabba. My son plays those video games and he doesn't own any guns. In fact, his uncle left him a couple of handguns and a rifle and a shotgun and my son sold them 'cause he doesn't like real guns.

 

I was actually disagreeing with Jabba.

 

Sure, COD isn't going to indoctrinate you into your gun culture if you don't actually have a gun culture. That goes without saying. But you still said it.

 

The leadership seems to be the problem in the NRA--not its members. And that 4.2 million figure may sound impressive, but in the whole of the US it's a rather small number. Hell, New York City has over 8 million citizens so should they get more weight politically just because of their numbers? This gun regulation debate is being run by a small minority who's becoming more politically obsolete by the day. I support their scumbag approach, actually, because it is showing people what they're really about. So keep it up NRA.

 

I've played those and many other first-person shooters over the years and I've never owned a gun. So yeah, not a gateway "drug".

 

Wait. That's not even proper English. It's not a complete sentence. So apologies for double-checking, but I found this on Wikipedia:

So, Mr. Goody-two-shoes took out two commas and two capitals, and made it a proper English sentence (and doomed the US in the process).

It could even be argued that the second part is just as important, if not more, as the first. But, since every word in this sentence was obviously given some thought, we should note that it says "the people" and not "people". This raises the question: is "the people" the equivalent of "individuals"?

 

The only thing COD 2 is going to be a gateway to is to COD 3.