I think any non-profit that steals money from their members needs to go. Lots of people are going to complain that this is about 2A rights and that this is NY coming to take your guns, but that's...
I think any non-profit that steals money from their members needs to go. Lots of people are going to complain that this is about 2A rights and that this is NY coming to take your guns, but that's 100% not what it is. If people try to claim this, please make sure they know that this is about the stealing, not the guns.
Did the shootings erode support for its pro-gun agenda? I'd like to see some data on that, as their supporters seem as numerous and outspoken as ever. I see no evidence that the general public has...
The troubles [...] started to come to light as the NRA’s deficit piled up and it struggled to find its footing after a spate of mass shootings eroded support for its pro-gun agenda.
Did the shootings erode support for its pro-gun agenda? I'd like to see some data on that, as their supporters seem as numerous and outspoken as ever. I see no evidence that the general public has changed their mind on the subject. It feels to me like the abortion debate. People pick a side at some point in their life based either on the data they have or because they're indoctrinated into it, and rarely change their minds after that.
As a "dirty liberal" gun enthusiast, it's worth noting that there are plenty (read: far too many) single-issue voters on the left that regularly vote GOP because of Dem gun control pushes.
It's just that there are so many single-issue voters on the right
As a "dirty liberal" gun enthusiast, it's worth noting that there are plenty (read: far too many) single-issue voters on the left that regularly vote GOP because of Dem gun control pushes.
I find it hard to not conclude that America has an unhealthy obsession with guns. With all the other shit that the GOP promotes, an otherwise left-leaning person would still vote for them to avoid...
I find it hard to not conclude that America has an unhealthy obsession with guns. With all the other shit that the GOP promotes, an otherwise left-leaning person would still vote for them to avoid gun control? How do they square that?
If you view the right to own guns as a check that the populace wields against tyranny, it is then a somewhat fundamental right. There's a pithy saying on the right that "the second amendment...
If you view the right to own guns as a check that the populace wields against tyranny, it is then a somewhat fundamental right. There's a pithy saying on the right that "the second amendment exists to preserve the first".
Of course, recent authoritarian overreach from this administration highlights the hypocrisy of that stance, but nonetheless if you view the right to own guns as fundamental to the preservation of other rights, single issuing voting in that matter makes more sense. I do think people genuinely believe this (and to be honest, I probably believe some version of it). The difference across the spectrum is what people count as tyrannical overreach.
Let's take this statement to its conclusion. Who even reviews statements you make? What venue are you using to make public statements that you're going to get shut down? Are you arguing here that...
the second amendment exists to preserve the first
Let's take this statement to its conclusion. Who even reviews statements you make? What venue are you using to make public statements that you're going to get shut down?
Are you arguing here that you're going to go murder... someone?... because a Facebook post gets taken down? Because your Twitter account is suspended?
Are you going to start taking pot shots at a police officer if they're called to your home because you're standing on your porch screaming your opinions?
and to be honest, I probably believe some version of it
So, as someone who believes this, please share your opinion on when specifically it's okay to go start shooting people.
Well I should note that the first amendment only applies to government regulation and intervention in speech. As far as I’m concerned, Facebook is free to take down posts and Twitter is free to...
Well I should note that the first amendment only applies to government regulation and intervention in speech. As far as I’m concerned, Facebook is free to take down posts and Twitter is free to suspend accounts. And I don’t think any amount of censorship of those platforms would warrant in any way taking up arms. I’m not sure if my post honestly read as though I did, or if that’s something you read into.
Second, I said I believe some version of the statement, the statement being “an armed populace makes it harder or discourages tyrannical governmental over reach”. I don’t think that’s an insane statement to make, and I also believe it is almost certainly correct and silly to pretend otherwise. I can’t really name a specific set of circumstances that would warrant taking up arms against a government - certainly the silly examples you’ve listed would not be enough. But if the government outlawed protests, or was punishing critical activist leaders with capital punishment or life sentences, or otherwise was marching along the road to authoritarianism in the vein of 1930s Germany, I think principled resistance would be the moral choice, and that such resistance would be easier with guns. We are not far removed historically from despicable governments, and the resistance movements under those regimes certainly benefited from having guns.
I have to be honest and say I feel that you didn’t take my comment in good faith by suggesting I would be okay with murder if a Facebook post gets removed, or by ignoring the qualifications in what I think I believe.
I live in southwest Virginia. Maybe my perception is shaped by the people around me, but all of the "second amendment protects the first" will also tell me with a straight face that Trump is right...
if the government outlawed protests... I think principled resistance would be the moral choice, and that such resistance would be easier with guns
I live in southwest Virginia. Maybe my perception is shaped by the people around me, but all of the "second amendment protects the first" will also tell me with a straight face that Trump is right to send in federal troops to shut down the Portland protests.
I'm just left like, "this is exactly the first amendment infringement you're carrying guns for."
So maybe a more relevant question, would you show up armed to support the protests in Portland?
I'm pushing 40 now and am having a hard time thinking of instances where I thought the actual government was actually interfering with free speech at all, let alone to the point that there should be some kind of armed conflict about it.
I suppose I should clarify that I personally do not own any guns, and like I said in the original post I also see the hypocrisy in people like the ones you mention here, where they excuse...
I suppose I should clarify that I personally do not own any guns, and like I said in the original post I also see the hypocrisy in people like the ones you mention here, where they excuse authoritarianism when it suits them.
All I was saying is that in principle the stance makes sense to me and that some version of it is likely accurate. Given any stance or position on just about any topic, I can guarantee you will find people who are hypocritical in their support of it. I don't think that's necessarily a reason to discount the stance though.
As for me personally, I would not show up armed to protests in Portland, both because I own no arms and because there is legitimately sufficient opposition to the federal agents there both from local governments and the populace that they had effectively already 'lost' once it became a national story. I would not be willing to die when those troops would be leaving in a week anyway.
I do think Portland is the closest we've come in decades to such a point, and I think a nation that can produce a Portland like situation can easily go further. We see democracy movements going on around the world, from Hong Kong to Belarus. I can't help but feel that if even a small portion of the population in those places had access to weapons, their governments would be less willing and able to stifle such movements. I think that same is true in the US.
It absolutely is an unhealthy obsession. As @p4t44 notes in another reply, sometimes mass shootings have resulted in an increase in NRA membership. We collectively shrugged at a bunch of first...
It absolutely is an unhealthy obsession. As @p4t44 notes in another reply, sometimes mass shootings have resulted in an increase in NRA membership. We collectively shrugged at a bunch of first graders being shot up, we mostly collectively shrug at our murder rate that's five times higher than any other developed country, we collectively shrug at the 20,000 gun suicides every year. Everyone says guns are tools, but that's not right in a vast majority of cases. Guns are made for killing things and all it takes is thirty seconds to kill ten people with one. Every time a school is shot up and some teenagers die stupid, meaningless deaths we say "oh look, a shooting in <place> today". I've had people tell me that it's worth the 30,000+ gun deaths every year to be able to own them and as long as people have that attitude things are never going to change (aside from external factors that would lower gun crime).
View from the UK: pretty much this. From over here the entire US gun landscape looks completely insane, a totally outdated throwback to a past era of cowboys and the wild west. In a way I'd love...
View from the UK: pretty much this. From over here the entire US gun landscape looks completely insane, a totally outdated throwback to a past era of cowboys and the wild west. In a way I'd love to switch a switch and be able to even vaguely understand the reasoning behind a pro-gun stance but then I look out at my beautifully gun-free country and think "meh, maybe one day they'll see the light", and I realise I don't want to understand this kind of insanity after all.
I think it's a combination of a number of things, including: There's a long tradition of individualism and self-sufficience in the country. This comes in part from our ancestors who often lived...
I think it's a combination of a number of things, including:
There's a long tradition of individualism and self-sufficience in the country. This comes in part from our ancestors who often lived with just their families on some big area of land and you needed a gun to hunt for food.
We've deified the founding fathers and the revolution to some extent, which is where the fighting tyranny part of having guns comes from.
I had another one but I forgot it while I was writing this, so if I remember I'll come back and add it.
Sometimes I hear people talk about how our current regime being more overtly fascistic justifies the second amendment but no one who talks about revolution, left or right, is shooting at anyone. I know all it takes is a spark, and maybe that will end up happening, but for all the talk of guillotines and overthrowing the government and that sort of thing it hasn't been attempted. I've become slightly more receptive to the fighting back government argument as I became a socialist, but I'm still not convinced that an armed revolution would result in anything good at the end of it.
Kinda offtopic, but on a similar vein, this video claims guns have historically about defending property, above any moral or libertarian concerns. Thoughts on that?
There's a long tradition of individualism and self-sufficience in the country. This comes in part from our ancestors who often lived with just their families on some big area of land and you needed a gun to hunt for food.
First, I'm not an expert on this subject by any means. I can only speak based on my thoughts and my experience growing up in a relatively gun-friendly part of the country (although maybe not as...
First, I'm not an expert on this subject by any means. I can only speak based on my thoughts and my experience growing up in a relatively gun-friendly part of the country (although maybe not as crazy as other places?). I watched that video and went "well kinda, yeah", and then realized I didn't necessarily articulate that in my comment that you replied to. I feel like our gun culture is tied to defending property through its tie to our culture of individualism.
That culture of individualism contributes to gun culture both in defending your things by whatever means necessary and in caring less what happens to whoever you're shooting at. You see it in people acting tough sometimes, like "if that happened to me I'd shoot them without a second thought". That and a host of other issues caused by our refusal to help out the people who live around us result in a murder rate that's 5+ times higher than any other developed country.
Owning guns has also become an identity thing to some people in the last 50 years. It's why the NRA has had so much influence on the Republican party. I went to South Dakota last year and saw a sign along the interstate that said "God, Guns, Beef: The American Way" which pretty much says it all.
I hope that was useful, I feel like this wasn't one of my better comments.
The conversation is much more complicated than "unhealthy obsession with guns" so I won't get into that. When I've tried to have those conversations it almost always boils down to the same excuse...
The conversation is much more complicated than "unhealthy obsession with guns" so I won't get into that.
When I've tried to have those conversations it almost always boils down to the same excuse that right-wingers ultimately give. "The 2nd amendment protects all the others." So they excuse giving up all of the things that should be in place from a left leaning leadership by saying such.
I think any non-profit that steals money from their members needs to go. Lots of people are going to complain that this is about 2A rights and that this is NY coming to take your guns, but that's 100% not what it is. If people try to claim this, please make sure they know that this is about the stealing, not the guns.
Did the shootings erode support for its pro-gun agenda? I'd like to see some data on that, as their supporters seem as numerous and outspoken as ever. I see no evidence that the general public has changed their mind on the subject. It feels to me like the abortion debate. People pick a side at some point in their life based either on the data they have or because they're indoctrinated into it, and rarely change their minds after that.
As a "dirty liberal" gun enthusiast, it's worth noting that there are plenty (read: far too many) single-issue voters on the left that regularly vote GOP because of Dem gun control pushes.
I find it hard to not conclude that America has an unhealthy obsession with guns. With all the other shit that the GOP promotes, an otherwise left-leaning person would still vote for them to avoid gun control? How do they square that?
If you view the right to own guns as a check that the populace wields against tyranny, it is then a somewhat fundamental right. There's a pithy saying on the right that "the second amendment exists to preserve the first".
Of course, recent authoritarian overreach from this administration highlights the hypocrisy of that stance, but nonetheless if you view the right to own guns as fundamental to the preservation of other rights, single issuing voting in that matter makes more sense. I do think people genuinely believe this (and to be honest, I probably believe some version of it). The difference across the spectrum is what people count as tyrannical overreach.
Let's take this statement to its conclusion. Who even reviews statements you make? What venue are you using to make public statements that you're going to get shut down?
Are you arguing here that you're going to go murder... someone?... because a Facebook post gets taken down? Because your Twitter account is suspended?
Are you going to start taking pot shots at a police officer if they're called to your home because you're standing on your porch screaming your opinions?
So, as someone who believes this, please share your opinion on when specifically it's okay to go start shooting people.
Well I should note that the first amendment only applies to government regulation and intervention in speech. As far as I’m concerned, Facebook is free to take down posts and Twitter is free to suspend accounts. And I don’t think any amount of censorship of those platforms would warrant in any way taking up arms. I’m not sure if my post honestly read as though I did, or if that’s something you read into.
Second, I said I believe some version of the statement, the statement being “an armed populace makes it harder or discourages tyrannical governmental over reach”. I don’t think that’s an insane statement to make, and I also believe it is almost certainly correct and silly to pretend otherwise. I can’t really name a specific set of circumstances that would warrant taking up arms against a government - certainly the silly examples you’ve listed would not be enough. But if the government outlawed protests, or was punishing critical activist leaders with capital punishment or life sentences, or otherwise was marching along the road to authoritarianism in the vein of 1930s Germany, I think principled resistance would be the moral choice, and that such resistance would be easier with guns. We are not far removed historically from despicable governments, and the resistance movements under those regimes certainly benefited from having guns.
I have to be honest and say I feel that you didn’t take my comment in good faith by suggesting I would be okay with murder if a Facebook post gets removed, or by ignoring the qualifications in what I think I believe.
I live in southwest Virginia. Maybe my perception is shaped by the people around me, but all of the "second amendment protects the first" will also tell me with a straight face that Trump is right to send in federal troops to shut down the Portland protests.
I'm just left like, "this is exactly the first amendment infringement you're carrying guns for."
So maybe a more relevant question, would you show up armed to support the protests in Portland?
I'm pushing 40 now and am having a hard time thinking of instances where I thought the actual government was actually interfering with free speech at all, let alone to the point that there should be some kind of armed conflict about it.
I suppose I should clarify that I personally do not own any guns, and like I said in the original post I also see the hypocrisy in people like the ones you mention here, where they excuse authoritarianism when it suits them.
All I was saying is that in principle the stance makes sense to me and that some version of it is likely accurate. Given any stance or position on just about any topic, I can guarantee you will find people who are hypocritical in their support of it. I don't think that's necessarily a reason to discount the stance though.
As for me personally, I would not show up armed to protests in Portland, both because I own no arms and because there is legitimately sufficient opposition to the federal agents there both from local governments and the populace that they had effectively already 'lost' once it became a national story. I would not be willing to die when those troops would be leaving in a week anyway.
I do think Portland is the closest we've come in decades to such a point, and I think a nation that can produce a Portland like situation can easily go further. We see democracy movements going on around the world, from Hong Kong to Belarus. I can't help but feel that if even a small portion of the population in those places had access to weapons, their governments would be less willing and able to stifle such movements. I think that same is true in the US.
It absolutely is an unhealthy obsession. As @p4t44 notes in another reply, sometimes mass shootings have resulted in an increase in NRA membership. We collectively shrugged at a bunch of first graders being shot up, we mostly collectively shrug at our murder rate that's five times higher than any other developed country, we collectively shrug at the 20,000 gun suicides every year. Everyone says guns are tools, but that's not right in a vast majority of cases. Guns are made for killing things and all it takes is thirty seconds to kill ten people with one. Every time a school is shot up and some teenagers die stupid, meaningless deaths we say "oh look, a shooting in <place> today". I've had people tell me that it's worth the 30,000+ gun deaths every year to be able to own them and as long as people have that attitude things are never going to change (aside from external factors that would lower gun crime).
View from the UK: pretty much this. From over here the entire US gun landscape looks completely insane, a totally outdated throwback to a past era of cowboys and the wild west. In a way I'd love to switch a switch and be able to even vaguely understand the reasoning behind a pro-gun stance but then I look out at my beautifully gun-free country and think "meh, maybe one day they'll see the light", and I realise I don't want to understand this kind of insanity after all.
I think it's a combination of a number of things, including:
I had another one but I forgot it while I was writing this, so if I remember I'll come back and add it.
Sometimes I hear people talk about how our current regime being more overtly fascistic justifies the second amendment but no one who talks about revolution, left or right, is shooting at anyone. I know all it takes is a spark, and maybe that will end up happening, but for all the talk of guillotines and overthrowing the government and that sort of thing it hasn't been attempted. I've become slightly more receptive to the fighting back government argument as I became a socialist, but I'm still not convinced that an armed revolution would result in anything good at the end of it.
Kinda offtopic, but on a similar vein, this video claims guns have historically about defending property, above any moral or libertarian concerns. Thoughts on that?
First, I'm not an expert on this subject by any means. I can only speak based on my thoughts and my experience growing up in a relatively gun-friendly part of the country (although maybe not as crazy as other places?). I watched that video and went "well kinda, yeah", and then realized I didn't necessarily articulate that in my comment that you replied to. I feel like our gun culture is tied to defending property through its tie to our culture of individualism.
That culture of individualism contributes to gun culture both in defending your things by whatever means necessary and in caring less what happens to whoever you're shooting at. You see it in people acting tough sometimes, like "if that happened to me I'd shoot them without a second thought". That and a host of other issues caused by our refusal to help out the people who live around us result in a murder rate that's 5+ times higher than any other developed country.
Owning guns has also become an identity thing to some people in the last 50 years. It's why the NRA has had so much influence on the Republican party. I went to South Dakota last year and saw a sign along the interstate that said "God, Guns, Beef: The American Way" which pretty much says it all.
I hope that was useful, I feel like this wasn't one of my better comments.
The conversation is much more complicated than "unhealthy obsession with guns" so I won't get into that.
When I've tried to have those conversations it almost always boils down to the same excuse that right-wingers ultimately give. "The 2nd amendment protects all the others." So they excuse giving up all of the things that should be in place from a left leaning leadership by saying such.
sometimes shootings have resulted in an increase in NRA membership