Apparently the NRA is deeply offended that media like the New York Times actually report on gun deaths in America and the NRA is declaring war against the press in America.
Foaming at the mouth rabid dog Dana Loesch is threatening to fist or fisk the New York Times. Either way she and the NRA itself are nuts. They’re in bed with gun manufacturers and couldn’t give a damn about the tens of thousands of Americans who are killed by their products every year.
The 2nd. Amendment protects the right of Americans to own some guns. It doesn’t give the gun lobby the right to openly attack the 1st Amendment which protects the right of the press to report the facts.
The facts are that guns are used to kills thousands of people in the US every year.
The facts are also that the NRA no longer represents individual gun owners, its a lobby group for the firearm industry.
It's far from obvious. The group bills itself as the 140-year-old voice of the gun-loving grassroots -- the deer hunters, sport shooters, and self-defense-minded 2nd Amendment devotees who woud kindly like the government to keep its hands off their Glocks and AR-15s. But the modern NRA's hard-line political stances, which often seem out of step even with the majority of gun-owners, and its deepening industry ties have led some to argue that the group is little more than a corporate lobbyist dressed up in woodsy camouflage.
Between then and 2011, the Violence Policy Center estimates that the firearms industry donated as much as $38.9 million to the NRA's coffers. The givers include 22 different gun makers, including famous names like Smith & Wesson, Beretta USA, SIGARMS, and Sturm, Ruger & Co. that also manufacture so-called assault weapons.
We don't need to shut down the New York Times because it's reporting on gun deaths in a way gun manufacturers don't like, we need to regulate special interest groups like the NRA who claim to be one thing - an advocacy group for individual rights guaranteed under the Constitution - but are really something much different. A group with strong financial ties to manufacturers of a products deadly to Americans on a daily basis.
How about a class action suit to make the NRA liable for many of those deaths it helps make happen by blocking any sane gun laws.
The US 2nd Amendment was introduced in the 1790s and refers directly to a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of the nation. It was constituted at a time when the US could not afford a permanent standing army able to defend against a likely British invasion that did in fact happen 20 years later.
But due to politics and economics guns are now sold as a means for vigilante justice that places all Americans at risk of deaths at the hands of other Americans with guns. The need for a "well regulated militia" ended over a century ago, the US has the most powerful standing armed forces on the planet. All guns are used for now in the US is to commit violence against other civilians which was never the intent of the 2nd amendment.
In the 1790s a militia man would have been equipped with a musket or rifled muzzleloader, a few shots a minute was considered excellent and accuracy was only good to 100 yards or so. Now one person with a high capacity hand gun can have the same firepower as an entire squad of early militiamen. Someone with an assault rifle has as much firepower as entire platoon from that era.
If you're somebody like Jerry Miculek you can fire a pistol at the same rate as a machine gun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLk1v5bSFPw
He can also hit targets at 1,000 yards WITH A HANDGUN. Clearly firearms, geopolitical factors and US society have all changed drastically in 200 plus years, why the hell shouldn't gun laws. The threat is no longer from the British coming to take back America, the threat is the nut job next door with 20 guns going postal and taking out a school or neighbourhood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ3XwizTqDw
And the NRA wants to make sure even more Americans die violently by shutting down anyone who criticizes guns because guns makers pay the NRA millions of dollars.
This is the kind of thing that the New York Times has been publishing about gun violence in Chicago.
It’s not fake news as this flaming idiot Dana Loesch is claiming. It’s a nuanced look at a highly complex issue that is killing many Americans each year. The solutions are going to have to be nuanced as well. It’s highly unlikely that the NRA is going to be part of a nuanced solution to a highly complex and deadly issue when the NRA is basically a paid lobbyist for the companies that are profiting from chronic violence in America.
Law enforcement isn’t going to magically fix the problem, it would require martial law being declared in urban combat zones like Chicago. That is the last thing the US needs with a tyrant wannabee like trump in power. Selling millions of more guns every year isn’t going to solve the problem, they just feed the violence. In the end the only thing that is going to solve the issue of systemic violence in cities like Chicago is addressing the underlying social issues that are driving so many people to act out violently and by instituting effective and appropriate gun laws across the US. The need for an armed citizenry ended a long time ago. Now it’s just about a small number of companies that want to maintain market share. At a time when the wealth of the nation is being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands resulting in social upheaval that is driving the kind of violence in Chicago and other places.
Not only does the US need sane gun control laws it needs government regulation and taxation that stops enabling the wealthy to get a free ride while the rest of the nation is left to fall apart.
Loesch is such a fraud.
She’s a mouthpiece for a lobby group that is all about violence, guns are made for one purpose, the application of deadly force. And is using extreme rhetoric to villainize an entire segment of society that is in opposition to having American streets turned into warzones to make a few people rich. Loesch is in fact attempting to incite violence against those who want nothing more than peace and security in America by her extreme rhetoric. Then plays the victim when she’s called on it.
LOESCH: They use their media to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler. They use their movie stars and singers and comedy shows and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again. And then they use their ex-president to endorse the resistance. All to make them march, make them protest, make them scream “racism" and “sexism" and “xenophobia," “homophobia." To smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law abiding until the only option left is for the police to do their jobs and stop the madness. And when that happens, they’ll use it as an excuse for their outrage.
And the far right pet media is aiding this insanity, apparently Tucker Carlson thinks the 2nd Amendment is all that matters in America.
If anything, Carlson was all on board with Loesch’s victimhood. “For her efforts on behalf of the Second Amendment, she’s being accused of trying to destroy the country," he said condemningly.
What about the one that comes just before that.
The First Amendment guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition. It forbids Congress from both promoting one religion over others and also restricting an individual’s religious practices. It guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely. It also guarantees the right of citizens to assemble peaceably and to petition their government.
Good luck expressing your opinions and rights freely when some lunatic is holding an AR-15 to your head which is basically what an NRA spokesperson is calling for.
That's the problem with such narrow interest lobby groups that have almost been completely taken over by the private sector, they only care about a tiny section of the population... the ones that are paying them huge amounts of money to look out for their interests and nothing else.
The Constitution in its entirety is intended to create the free and open society that was intended from the start in America. Instead what is happening with groups like the NRA is the wealthy are using their money and influence to roll back any real input from average citizens and working as hard as they can to remove civil liberties that make a free and open society possible in the first place. They don't want protest and dissent, they want to sell millions of guns every year even if tens of thousands of Americans die from those guns every year.
Dissent and protest against tyranny is a core principle in any open and free society, they only happen as a result of all citizens having the opportunity to speak their minds and be represented by an open and democratic system.
None of that will happen if the gun industry through the powerful NRA lobby group decides who can say what and when about gun violence in American and what any laws to control access to deadly weapons are. Clearly the NRA is not going to be objective about this, they have taken close to $40 million dollars from the gun industry which is totally reflected in the hate filled rhetoric coming from NRA spokespeople like Loesch now.
The NRA is already doing everything it can to make sure that school children are exposed to the constant risk of being murdered by the mentally unstable with guns. And this applies everywhere across America.
And now the NRA wants to openly target any media that doesn't slavishly follow its paid for agenda and is communicating in the kind of terms that cause even greater social disruption and chaos. And using the same kind of divisive and dishonest terms and methodology as the most dishonest and disruptive president in living memory.
There is no place in what is supposed to be a free and open society for those who are basically advocating for a fascist takeover of America as Loesch is here. She is talking about the police clamping down and preventing Americans from exercising their Constitutionally derived rights to exercise their freedom of expression.
To smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law abiding until the only option left is for the police to do their jobs and stop the madness.
And she's also sending out a dog whistle to the extremists with guns who want zero control on their access to them. This places a target on anyone who stands up to the NRA and the gun industry in the same way that Sarah Palins extreme crosshairs campaign placed targets on many Democrat candidates one of which was shortly afterwards shot in the head.
The true madness is the deranged having the ability to heavily arm themselves and walk into places where some of the most vulnerable Americans can usually be found... like schools. And the NRA response is always damage control in the interests of gun manufacturers and not peaceful Americans - many of them children - who are at the deadly end of the weapons the NRA does everything it can to make sure remain on the streets of America.
Guns are big business in America, they aren't benign products that have no effect. Every guns sold has the potential to take a life. And the wrong hands they have the potential to take many lives. The average citizen is not trained to handle deadly force in a crisis situation, that takes years of training and expert leadership. But the NRA myth is that having millions of armed Americans somehow makes everyone safer. It just turns every street in America into a potential shooting gallery. And the police respond with ever greater levels of force because they realize that every encounter could be a deadly one for them.
Clearly groups like the NRA no longer have any real justification for their extremely strident and biased position on issues that are rapidly destroying social stability in America. All while talking massive amounts of money from a sector that makes the chronic violence and death possible in the first place. The American gun industry.
Shame on the NRA and shame on people like Loesch that have either given up what sense of morality and compassion they may have started with or never had them in the first place.
This issue needs the input of people who can see beyond the narrow, "what's in it for me" that defines the far right in America now. This will be resolved by people who understand that a healthy open and free society is determined by people who are able to think in terms of, "what is best for all of us".
Which is why the US has a Constitution, why it is supposed to have three equal but separate branches of government and an electoral system that provides representatives that genuinely represent the public at large. Not those who are paid to think and act in the interests of groups like the gun industry.
What the NRA has become represents what's wrong in America today as does having someone like Trump as president.
Fascism and democracy can not share the same space...
This doesn’t worry me as much as the “Campus Carry” legislation in effect in Tx. Starting this month licensed students will be able to carry concealed handguns on community college campuses. While this has been in effect for the past year at 4yr universities without significant problems, community colleges usually have a different profile, with higher crime rates. I don’t see how this could possibly be seen as anything but catastrophic. 21 is too young and immature to wield a weapon capable of taking life in my opinion; let alone carry it concealed around a high stress environment.
This doesn't worry me as much as the "Campus Carry" legislation in effect in Tx. Starting this month licensed students will be able to carry concealed handguns on community college campuses. While this has been in effect for the past year at 4yr universities without significant problems, community colleges usually have a different profile, with higher crime rates. I don't see how this could possibly be seen as anything but catastrophic. 21 is too young and immature to wield a weapon capable of taking life in my opinion; let alone carry it concealed around a high stress environment.
I agree.
It just takes a slight finger pressure on a trigger to fire a bullet that can not be called back. And one bullet can easily end a life.
It's much saner to remove as many firearms as possible from the civilian population than arming even more people. Handguns are the worst threat as they are easily concealable and can inflict a great deal of damage in a very short amount of time.
The NRA's take on this would up the threat and stress levels of everyone involved, imagine if all teachers were armed. Students might be afraid of being killed by a teacher and might start carrying weapons themselves as defense.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/nra-school-safety-report_n_2999968.html
That's the problem with removing all limitations on gun control, it may sell more weapons, but it increases the stress levels all around at a time when there are even more weapons.
Some nations have unarmed police for many functions if you can believe that. In the US it's the opposite with police ever increasing their level of firepower with the use of heavily armed tactical units becoming almost standard practice around the country. If the police feel they need to have almost the same level of force as the army then doesn't that violate the entire idea of a free and open society and Posse Comitatus itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
When the police feel the need to use heavy automatic weapons, body armor, military tactics, armored vehicles and more against the civilian population they are supposed to be serving and protecting, then isn't that a clear indication that gun laws are not working.
As I've said above, the 2nd Amendment was introduced at a time when conditions in the US were vastly different. There were not the resources to protect against an invasion by the British with a large standing army so there needed to be a well armed and trained civilian militia ready at a moment notice to provide security to the state. That is clearly not the case now, guns are presented as a solution to a problem that having so many guns in civilian hands creates. It is a paradox that will never be solved by introducing even more weapons into the hands of civilians.
21 is too young and immature to wield a weapon capable of taking life in my opinion; let alone carry it concealed around a high stress environment.
Interesting. What age do you think is more appropriate?True enough people at all ages are showing themselves to be too irresponsible to carry guns.
Go to YouTube and google "Gun Fails" - idiots come in all sizes and ages.
... “I’ll look in to those scared little britches’ [sic] eyes before I kill them," he wrote. “Now I’ll have followers because I’m so awesome…
I know someone will follow me just like I followed [the Columbine shooters]. …
They say school shootings are horrible but they don’t think like us, like me and [the Columbine shooters]…
it’s going to be so mutch [sic] fun. They won’t expect a thing."
Rather than shoot anyone else, Simons went into the bathroom and shot himself.
He was alive when paramedics arrived and later died at the hospital.
“We seriously don’t know what made him change his mind [about killing others],"
Brink said. “But we thank God every day, whatever changed his mind, changed his mind." ...
‘It’s going to be so much fun:’ 13-year-old who shot himself in Ohio had ‘8 point plan’ to massacre classmates
Martin Cizmar | MAR 2, 2018
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/going-much-fun-13-year-old-shot-ohio-8-point-plan-massacre-classmates/
Hmmm, guess we lost Doug. It’s a shame.
If only he didn’t take himself quite so seriously. Some might think that ironic coming from me, but then I do know myself better than you folks do.
Oh well, lets get this back on topic “more NRA insanity”
The Very Strange Case of Two Russian Gun Lovers, the NRA, and Donald Trump
DENISE CLIFTON AND MARK FOLLMAN - MAR. 8, 2018
Here’s what we uncovered about an odd pair from Moscow who cultivated the Trump campaign.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/trump-russia-nra-connection-maria-butina-alexander-torshin-guns/For more than a year now, reports have trickled out about deepening ties among prominent members of the National Rifle Association, conservative Republicans, a budding gun-rights movement in Russia—and their convergence in the Trump campaign.
Now attention is focused around a middle-aged Russian central bank official and a photogenic young gun activist from Siberia who share several passions: posing with assault rifles, making connections with Republican presidential candidates, and publicizing their travels between Moscow and America on social media. Alexander Torshin and his protégé Maria Butina also share an extraordinary status with America’s largest gun lobbying group, according to Torshin: “Today in NRA (USA) I know only 2 people from the Russian Federation with the status of ‘Life Member’: Maria Butina and I," he tweeted the day after Donald Trump was elected president. ...
Get the Facts on Mass Shootings in the U.S.
https://www.thoughtco.com/gun-death-stats-in-perspective-3303385
by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.
Updated February 15, 2018
The Militarization of the U.S. Civilian Firearms Market
www.vpc.org/studies/militarization.pdf
INDEX
Key Findings
“Militarization"—What is It?
Why Has the Gun Industry Militarized Its Market?
Gun Industry Problem: Long-Term Decline
Gun Industry Solution: Generating Demand with New and More Lethal Designs Appealing to the Soldier Within
How Has the Gun Industry Militarized Its Market?
High-Capacity Handguns
Handgun Militarization—High-Capacity Semiautomatic Pistols
Handgun Militarization—High-Capacity “Anti-Terrorist" Vest-Busting Pistols
Assault Rifles and Assault Pistols Imports—AK-47 Variants
Domestic Production—AR-15 Variants of the M-16
The 1994 Assault Weapons “Ban" and the Rise of Bushmaster Assault Pistols—UZI, Ingram, Intratec, and More
The Assault Weapons Hype Market The 1980s Explosion
The Y2K Exploitation
Continuing Incitement
The National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Rebranding Campaign
50 Caliber Anti-Armor Sniper Rifles
Taxpayers Subsidize the Gun Industry
The Result: Militarized Firearms Define the U.S. Civilian Firearms Market The Consequences of Militarization
Increasing Attacks on Law Enforcement with Assault Weapons
Tra cking of Military-Style Weapons from the United States
What Can Be Done? Endnotes
KEY FINDINGS
The civilian rearms industry in the United States has been in decline for several decades. Although the industry has enjoyed periods of temporary resurgence, usually primed by “fear marketing"—encouraging people to buy guns by stoking fear of crime, terrorism, violent immigrants, or government control, for example—the long-term trend for the manufacturers of guns for civilians has been one of steady decline.
Selling militarized rearms to civilians—i.e., weapons in the military inventory or weapons based on military designs—has been at the point of the industry’s civilian design and marketing strategy since the 1980s. Today, militarized weapons—semiautomatic assault ri es, 50 caliber anti-armor sniper rifles, and armor-piercing handguns—define the U.S. civilian gun market and are far and away the “weapons of choice" of the tra ckers supplying violent drug organizations in Mexico.
The flood of militarized weapons exempli es the rearms industry’s strategy of marketing enhanced lethality, or killing power, to stimulate sales. The resulting widespread increase in killing power is reflected in the toll of gun death and injury in the United States—a relentless count that every year takes 10 times the number of lives as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.1
Militarization has baleful consequences beyond the “routine" toll of murders, suicides, and unintentional deaths. Military-style weapons are a favored tool of organized criminals such as gangs and drug tra ckers, and violent extremists. Semiautomatic assault weapons—especially inexpensive AK-47 type imports—are increasingly used in attacks against law enforcement o cers in the United States.
The pernicious e ects of the militarized U.S. civilian gun market extend well beyond the borders of
the United States. Lax regulation and easy access to these relatively inexpensive military-style weapons has resulted in their being smuggled on a large scale from the U.S. to criminals throughout the Western Hemisphere—including Mexico, Canada, Central America, the Caribbean, and parts of South America—as well as to points as far away as Afghanistan, the Balkans, and Africa.
This study surveys the rise of the militarized civilian gun market, examines its impact on public health, safety, and crime in the United States and the world, and refutes the gun lobby’s recent attempt to “rebrand" semiautomatic assault weapons as “modern sporting rifles."
Might as well, keep this collection going. Here’s another revealing article about NRA campaign contributions and their separate Attack Ad budget
and other tricks of the trade.
The real reason the NRA’s money matters in elections
Direct contributions to candidates aren’t the only way to wield clout.
By Charlotte Hill Feb 27, 2018
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/2/27/17051560/money-nra-guns-contributions-donations-parkland
... According to the Center for Responsive Politics’ database, the NRA donated less than $14 million from 1998 to 2016. ...
... The popular “money doesn’t matter" talking point is ignoring something that’s absolutely crucial: outside spending. Rather than giving money directly to politicians, the gun lobby spends the bulk of its money independently of political candidates, running TV and internet ads urging voters to reject anyone who supports gun reform. From 1998 to 2017, the NRA distributed $144.3 million in outside spending, or 10 times more money than it spent on direct donations to federal candidates. ...
... Both the NRA’s main lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, and the NRA Political Victory Fund “must continuously raise the funds needed to sustain NRA’s legislative and political activities," reads the NRA website. “The resources expended in these arenas comes from the generous contributions of NRA members — above and beyond their regular dues."
America’s woefully inadequate campaign finance disclosure laws make it hard to determine who exactly pays for the Political Victory Fund’s attack ads, but past funders appear to have included corporations, conservative Super PACs, and the Koch brothers. ...
Lookie there, we wind up back with the Koch Klan. Surprise, surprise.
Unfortunately, most folks don't seem to care enough to be bothered, by their stealth take over.
http://Americansforkochsprosperity.blogspot.com
