NRA

Is it just me, or does the NRA show up after every gun related incident and have a pro-gun rally??

Specific examples:

-10 days after Columbine
-6 days (I believe) after the 6-year-old boy shot the 6-year-old girl in Flint, Michigan
-2 days after a Gulf War veteran shot and killed three nursing professors in Tuscon, Arizona

Uhhh??

yeah, they had a rally in my home town (orlando) mere hours after a someone broke into my neighbors home, and was shot minutes after raping his daughter.

the criminals gun was stolen, and unregistered. the home owners gun was legal.

I think you watched Bowling For Columbine and were misled by Moore's editing, Emu.

You think there's a gun violence reaction squard at NRA HQ?

There is a gun violence reaction squad at the NRA HQ.

News to me. You mind showing me what you mean?

[Edited on Nov 01, 2003 by stockula]

Showing you what? Theyre a single issue industry group, what do you think they do?

They advance their agenda and spin damage control and they have a protocol for PR disasters like every other such organization. Do you honestly think they sit around going "Oh shit, some deranged loner offed his classmates again what do we do?!?!

They have a team. One part gathers data, one part interpolates it and one part gets out the response. Then they all sit down with senior staff and decide how it affects the long term agenda. Welcome to politics 101.

Yeah, probably. But the same's true of say the Brady group and the VPC.

In the sense that there are pressure groups on the other side of the issue, yes. In the sense that they need rapid response units, no. Thye don't need spindoctors because theres nothing to spin and they don't need to leverage their position. They drop a press release and wait for the phone to ring, which it always does. There is no corrolary catestrophic event which makes gun control a hard sell, therefore they have a different strategy and a different need.

As with every issue, the issue of guns has degenerated into a narrow frame of debate. The liberal anti-gun fringe and the hard right loony gun fetishists. Sometimes the "centralists" or "moderates" are given in a voice for light gun control. This is the characterizations. Like cartoons, it is not an accurate representation of the diversity of viewpoints, but it is given the frame of debate in corporate controlled media. Here is my, off the spectrum viewpoint on the matter.

Gun rights? Of course I am all for gun rights.

Gun control? Hell yeh, I am all for gun control. Get the guns out of the hands of the government and into the hands of the people. Also, no one has a right to nuclear weapons or to make radioactive waste.

Any individual who opposes gun ownership by the working class but supports the possession of guns by the rich and their armed forces is either a class enemy or a class traitor.

Also, a good critique of the illegitimate nature of corporations would do wonders for the debate. Corporations are government created fictions with all the rights of persons, without the responsibilities. These non-intenties should not have control over the guns either.

I believe in guns for the people, not the government, not the corporations.

Ummmm, yeah, sure.

Two things. Firstly, guns are made by corporations. As they require precise complicated and expensive machinery to create, thats not going to change. Seondly, your canned indignation is apropos of exactly nothing in this discussion. No matter how good you feel your points are, little is likely to make people less receptive to your opinion.

LordJim, you are SG's most condescending member, in fact even your name is condescending. Congrats!

My pseudonym is a literary reference that in fact has absolutely nothing to do with nobility or authority of any kind.

As for condescending, no, really I'm not, I'm merely the most naked and honest about it. Unlike several I could name, my presumption is delberate and declared. Its the price you pay for being self aware.

Guns are bad...Mmmmmkay.

Actually, it's not all that hard to make a gun yourself from raw metal stock if you know what you are doing. The machinery required depends on the gun, but assuming you buy basic machine tools and make the boring/rifling machine yourself (not that big a stretch for a moderately skilled machinist), you can get set up to make guns for about $2500; less if you are a good scrounger and/or get lucky at surplus sales. After a couple of days of making good jigs, one journeyman can run off anywhere from one to several guns per day, depending on the design.

Ok i cant help myself on this one i try not to get into political arguments like this one but his one hits close to home for me. yes the nra has done such things and it realy pissed me off when they had there rally right after the little girl got shot in flint Michigan it got to me because i live 20 minuets north of flint when im at home and not at my duty station camp pendelton. second yes the guns are made by the corporation and beleave me as plonk stated it doesnt take all that much to make them your self if you have some knowlege of machining. third as to the liberals and the conservatives on gun control issues i am against gun control in the way it is going in recent years ( but i am not completly against it either) it is taking the firearms out of private hands and puting them in the hands of the government and the criminals use great britain as an example (this is only taken from what i know so if i offend anyone with what im about to say heres a straw suck it the fuck up were all adults) the british government enacted laws that made it illegal for private citizens to own firearms and the crime rate sky rocketed no look at other countrys that have left the firearms in the hands of hte private citizen the crime rates are fairly low. and yes i do own several firearms myself and i am in the united states armed forces like i said befor if i said something that offended you geta straw and suck it the fuck up

The increase in UK gun crime: if you illegalise something, crime rates for this will go up. If you make carrying or possessing a firearm illegal, then gun crime will increase. I'm not saying this 'cancels out' the increase in gun crime, but it is a factor often ignored. Also, the government at least attempts to keep gun crime rates down with various initiatives, including a recent gun amnesty.

I think I LordJim. Condescension = hot.

From the NRA website in reference to the protesters (including the family of the slain) outside of the NRA National Meeting just days after Columbine:

"The real story of the meeting was of grown men—cowboys and tough, working men—sitting, heads bowed, brushing away tears at the thought of the tragedy. It was not a rally, but more of a memorial. The only “rally” was a raucous demonstration held by the Million Mom March across the street. "

Yeah, the NRA is really a victim of Moore's editing..

Uhhh, no. Its been tried, in fact theres a massive federal lawsuit over it. No journeyman is making a workable gun from scratch on a mini mill. Smithing a gun is as far apart from designing and building one as fixing a leaky faucet and designing and building one. Copyiong, folding, boring, stamping, sure. Designing and prototyping a reciever, not a chance. Machinists don't create parts, they reproduce them. Engineers create parts.

I'll admit his words "The NRA met just days after Columbine." combined with the image of a rally is misleading, if that is not, in fact, what happened.

I'll admit his words "The NRA met just days after Columbine." combined with the image of a rally is misleading, if that is not, in fact, what happened.

The NRA did indeed meet days afterward. However, this was their annual meeting which had been booked a few years earlier. All events except the required annual meeting were cancelled due to Columbine.

Good movie.

The NRA did indeed meet days afterward. However, this was their annual meeting which had been booked a few years earlier. All events except the required annual meeting were cancelled due to Columbine.

The NRA is not a subscription based organization. There is no legal requirement that a membership meeting be held save for those very small few with power to elect the D&O.

They held the meeting because they wanted to, and now theyre lying about it.

So what if they held that meeting? They cancelled damn near everything (except that one meeting) to minimize the inevitable whiplash, they booked & paid for the Convention Center a couple years earlier, so they used it.