IGX

I joined around Feb because it was cheap and I thought I was doing a tiny positive thing towards freedom.

Holy fucking fuck, these people are relentless and even worse than the amazingly annoying AARP (though I haven't joined AARP). So far I've received:
• A hat
• A coin of some kind with an old rifle on it.
• A home defense DVD and solicitation to purchase more
• Numerous ballots for something or other
• Multiple solicitations.

I haven't read any of it but clearly my first years dues simply funds all the shit they're sending me.

They can get away with it for a couple reasons:
1. they know people like you will likely sign on for the long haul.
2. the real point of the NRA is protecting gun manufacturer interests, but it's useful to have a lot of people signed on for various reasons.

not that there's anything wrong with either point.

tzg wrote:the real point of the NRA is protecting gun manufacturer interests

This is the latest knock on the NRA. As if the interests of the gun manufacturers diverge from those of gun owners. (Those interests didn't diverge much in Connecticut, when citizens flooded gun stores to buy soon-to-be-banned guns.)

The NRA is the powerful voice of US gun owners. If not for the NRA, our gun rights would be greatly curtailed, and we would be treated as pre-criminals & potential mass murderers. As an NRA Life Member, I'm happy with their program. Especially their lobbying & political action.

They also provide more gun safety training than all the pious gun-grabbing Lefties that your could name. Sarah Brady & Joe "Get a Shotgun" Biden, included.

tzg wrote:2. the real point of the NRA is protecting gun manufacturer interests, but it's useful to have a lot of people signed on for various reasons.

not that there's anything wrong with either point.

No, that's the job of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (http://www.nssf.org/ )

The NRA was created to teach rifle skills in the 1800s. They got into fighting gun control after 1968, when disarming the proles became important to certain groups. Prior to that time the NRA supported gun control. The National Firearms Act of 1934 was passed WITH THE ASSISTANCE of the National Rifle Association. http://jpfo.org/articles-assd02/nra-supported-nfa34.htm

HCI and NCBHV were founded with the help of employees of the US Central Intelligence Agency. The Agency itself is probably agnostic about gun rights but some of their employees are, shall we say, a bit elitist? CIA employee Edwin O. Welles assisted Shields in setting up HCI. (Shields credits Welles in "Guns don't die, people do")

NCBHV was set up to Rev. Leon Sullivan with the help of CIA employee William Colby (former Director of Central Intelligence and head of Operation Phoenix in the Vietnam conflict. In an interview Colby stated, "I wanted to help control guns because I knew from my own experience (running death squads in Vietnam) that guns are 'dangerous"").

The NRA gets money from fighting the Brady Campaign, not from gun makers.

If anyone is "helping" the gun manufacturers it's Barack Obama. He's put tens of millions of Dollars into the pockets of gun manufacturers and ammunition manufacturers, many of whom are subsidiaries of "name" defense contractor Alliant Systems. I'm sure that the "Freedom Group" has done very well each time that Obama whispers about gun control, scaring the mundanes.

So let's give credit where it's due - Barack Obama, Gun salesman of the year for 2010 through 2012.

DrDonkeyLove wrote:I joined around Feb because it was cheap and I thought I was doing a tiny positive thing towards freedom.

Holy fucking fuck, these people are relentless and even worse than the amazingly annoying AARP (though I haven't joined AARP). So far I've received:
• A hat
• A coin of some kind with an old rifle on it.
• A home defense DVD and solicitation to purchase more
• Numerous ballots for something or other
• Multiple solicitations.

I haven't read any of it but clearly my first years dues simply funds all the shit they're sending me.

I tell them not to bother sending the hat, "Give it to the ILA". I turn down the magazine too. They don't bother to send me any other shit. Try that next time.

Your dues and the manufacturer's $$$ help turn politicians into the NRA's bitches - successfully too. This is a congressman up where I live. Out and proud about being a lobbying organization's bought whore.

I'm sure that the "Freedom Group" has done very well each time that Obama whispers about gun control, scaring the mundanes.

As evidenced by Cerberus Capital being forced to sell the Freedom Group in a hurry...


It's silly to pretend that the NRA isn't wholly in bed with gun manufacturers - half the funding for the main body comes from gun companies, more for the lobbying arm. (And somewhat silly to pretend that the non-ILA NRA doesn't indirectly lobby.) But it's also a reasonable argument that the interests of gun owners and gun manufacturers coincide at this point in time, so who gives a fuck?
The NRA isn't working against the desires and interests of its constituents by backing gun corps.

nafod wrote:Your dues and the manufacturer's $$$ help turn politicians into the NRA's bitches - successfully too.

Their ability to mobilize votes is what really scares politicians.

Pinky wrote:

nafod wrote:Your dues and the manufacturer's $$$ help turn politicians into the NRA's bitches - successfully too.

Their ability to mobilize votes is what really scares politicians.

Ay-yup

Bloomberg Businessweek shoots down the idea that the gun industry controls the NRA here:

Corporate donations to the NRA, which together with its affiliates has annual revenue of $250 million, have risen during the past decade, a period when the organization has taken increasingly absolutist positions. Still, it’s not the industry that muscles the NRA.

“NRA leadership worries about two things above all else: perpetuating controversy to stimulate fundraising from individual members and protecting its right flank from the real crazies,” says Richard Feldman, author of a feisty 2007 memoir, Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist. Feldman has worked in various capacities for both the NRA and the industry. “The idea that the NRA follows orders from the gun companies is a joke,” he says. “If anything, it’s the other way around.”

Gun companies defer to the NRA for two main reasons: First, there’s intimidation. The lobby group has incited potentially ruinous consumer boycotts against firearm makers that fail to follow the NRA line with sufficient zeal. Second, regardless of some executives’ concerns about civil discourse, gun companies benefit financially from the NRA’s hype

Later in the article the author discusses the fact that, unlike the NRA and many gun owners, the industry is not necessarily opposed to expanding background checks. If anything, manufacturers benefit from anything that hampers the sale of used guns.

Pinky wrote:Bloomberg Businessweek shoots down the idea that the gun industry controls the NRA here:

Corporate donations to the NRA, which together with its affiliates has annual revenue of $250 million, have risen during the past decade, a period when the organization has taken increasingly absolutist positions. Still, it’s not the industry that muscles the NRA.

“NRA leadership worries about two things above all else: perpetuating controversy to stimulate fundraising from individual members and protecting its right flank from the real crazies,” says Richard Feldman, author of a feisty 2007 memoir, Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist. Feldman has worked in various capacities for both the NRA and the industry. “The idea that the NRA follows orders from the gun companies is a joke,” he says. “If anything, it’s the other way around.”

Gun companies defer to the NRA for two main reasons: First, there’s intimidation. The lobby group has incited potentially ruinous consumer boycotts against firearm makers that fail to follow the NRA line with sufficient zeal. Second, regardless of some executives’ concerns about civil discourse, gun companies benefit financially from the NRA’s hype

Later in the article the author discusses the fact that, unlike the NRA and many gun owners, the industry is not necessarily opposed to expanding background checks. If anything, manufacturers benefit from anything that hampers the sale of used guns.

Gun companies are scared shitless of having what happened to S&W back in the 1990s. S&W decided to pay nice with the Clinton Administration. The pack of fools that owned S&W at the time were forced to sell at a huge loss after almost destroying a premier gun manufacturing brand.

Take a look at what happened to the Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show when they decided to jump on the ban evil guns train. Better yet, take a look at the manufacturers banning the show. Ninty percent of the companies are sport related gun accessory manufacturers. This isn't being pushed by evil gun makers. All of these businesses know who is in charge; the gun buying consumer.

All politicians are whores- the difference between my political whore and Nfod's political whore; is my bought and paid for whore isn't interested in shredding the constitution.

Batboy2/75 wrote:the difference between my political whore and Nfod's political whore; is my bought and paid for whore isn't interested in shredding the constitution.

Heh. I assume you've contracted a hit on Justice Scalia, that Constitution-shredding bastard.

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal ... inion.html

nafod wrote:

Batboy2/75 wrote:the difference between my political whore and Nfod's political whore; is my bought and paid for whore isn't interested in shredding the constitution.

Heh. I assume you've contracted a hit on Justice Scalia, that Constitution-shredding bastard.

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal ... inion.html

So we elect US Supreme Court Justices now?

Funny that you are using a quote from a USCOUS decision where Scalia ruled in favor the people and against the gun grabbing state.

Batboy2/75 wrote:]Funny that you are using a quote from a USCOUS decision where Scalia ruled in favor the people and against the gun grabbing state.

You obviously missed the point of quoting from his opinion.

Obama said publicly that he hates Scalia. Clearly that means Scalia believes in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness for all Americans.

nafod wrote:

Batboy2/75 wrote:the difference between my political whore and Nfod's political whore; is my bought and paid for whore isn't interested in shredding the constitution.

Heh. I assume you've contracted a hit on Justice Scalia, that Constitution-shredding bastard.

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal ... inion.html

Scalia's opinion also says that weapons that are "in common use at the time" cannot be banned. That seems to suggest that bans on the most popular type of long gun in the country would be unconstitutional according to the opinion you quote.

Even more reason to call bullshit on the "OHMYGODTHEYARECOMINGTOTAKEMYGUNS" fear mongering. I get the value of the tactic on manipulating the cognitively lazy, mind you.

nafod wrote:I get the value of the tactic on manipulating the cognitively lazy, mind you.

Yes. You know cognitively lazy from the inside-out.

nafod wrote:

Batboy2/75 wrote:]Funny that you are using a quote from a USCOUS decision where Scalia ruled in favor the people and against the gun grabbing state.

You obviously missed the point of quoting from his opinion.

Has nothing to do with the original topic you first brought up.

Politicians that support the NRA.

johno wrote:

nafod wrote:I get the value of the tactic on manipulating the cognitively lazy, mind you.

Yes. You know cognitively lazy from the inside-out.

I can certainly recognize it when I see it. I still get Facebook shares from folks swearing the Newtown Shooter only used a handgun and left his assault weapon in the car, or the argument that we should outlaw swimming, or that the DHS is buying 2700 MRAPs to relive Red Dawn.

nafod wrote:Even more reason to call bullshit on the "OHMYGODTHEYARECOMINGTOTAKEMYGUNS" fear mongering.

Agreed, unless you live in one of the states that are currently busy thumbing their noses at the Supreme Court.

nafod wrote:Even more reason to call bullshit on the "OHMYGODTHEYARECOMINGTOTAKEMYGUNS" fear mongering. I get the value of the tactic on manipulating the cognitively lazy, mind you.

Many of the anti-gun laws being proposed are focused on cosmetic differences between weapons, rather than substantive ones. I'd argue that the collective cognitive laziness is greater on the gun banning side-- getting lobbying and voting support to help kill legislation that will do nothing more than make the unaware feel better is a good thing.

LOL

Pinky wrote:

nafod wrote:Even more reason to call bullshit on the "OHMYGODTHEYARECOMINGTOTAKEMYGUNS" fear mongering.

Agreed, unless you live in one of the states that are currently busy thumbing their noses at the Supreme Court.

If you lived in NY and were told you had to sell out of state or destroy your possessions or be declared a criminal, I bet that would feel an awful lot like having them taken away. Functionally, it amounts to confiscation, except the burden of performing the actual work has been placed on the owner.

Schlegel wrote:

Pinky wrote:

nafod wrote:Even more reason to call bullshit on the "OHMYGODTHEYARECOMINGTOTAKEMYGUNS" fear mongering.

Agreed, unless you live in one of the states that are currently busy thumbing their noses at the Supreme Court.

If you lived in NY and were told you had to sell out of state or destroy your possessions or be declared a criminal, I bet that would feel an awful lot like having them taken away. Functionally, it amounts to confiscation, except the burden of performing the actual work has been placed on the owner.

Bingo!
The NY SAFE act was passed in typical NYS undemocratic form. It was hashed out by the leadership, debated in closed session w/o committee hearings, and Cuomo waived the requirement of a three day public comment period. It's turned many honest and honorable people into criminals who face severe penalties. Real criminals didn't give two shits one way or another.

There is a reason NY was rated the least free of the 57 states.