Flutterby™! : Joined the NRA 2000-03-14 03:30:35+00

Joined the NRA

2000-03-14 03:30:35+00 by Dan Lyke 11 comments

On the basis of this exchange, I've joined the NRA.

Why? What bothered you about the exchange? I saw the original Clinton interview with Donaldson (well, part of it), and he didn't come across nearly as nasty as these articles are making him out to be. On the other hand, I can never tell what are the coded phrases these pols use to get under each other's skins, so maybe I missed something. Cool new system, by the way? Are you going to share? :-) Does it parse html?

What bothered me about it is the feeling that this has really hit a nerve, that, indeed, the NRA folk are dead on. And yes, it parses HTML, it'll pass through tags that it doesn't like, just in case you like to markup your prose with pseudo-HTML like <irony>, and you don't even have to remember to close the tags with a </irony>. I think there are one or two issues with ampersands in URLs that I need to work on yet stemming from my conversion to XML.

Where can we find information on the enforcement of gun laws, seems to be the follow on question. Were there laws already on the books which would had prevented the kid in Michigan's death? So why aren't they enforced? Is it a matter of politics that enforcement take a back seat to creating new laws? It's my hunch, that that is probably the case. Saying that effective enforcement of existing law reduced harm by X% probably doesn't carry the same rhetorical effect as "I pushed through a law making Z illegal." Can it also be gamesmanship in the Congress? One side holds up enforcement so they can force the other to advocate more restrictions in order to create a supply of controversy for consituiencies to rally around? Sorry, my classes in game theory are coming back to haunt me.

What has impressed me with the exchange is that while Wayne LaPierre has stated the reasons he has based his opinion that Pres. Clinton is willing to accept a certain degree of killing to further his cause the administration has only attacked Mr. LaPierre's opinion and not his basis for his opinion.

The one reason I cannot respect the NRA is that, while claiming to represent the gun owner, its agenda has for a long time been far more supportive to the gun MANUFACTURERS. And the question must be asked, how GUN MANUFACTURERS must support a certain level of crime and violence in this society (or a level of paranoia in excess of the actual amount of violence) in order to support the market for their products. If crime and violence IS SEEN as going way down, then dump your Smith & Wesson stock... (well, you can keep your Wesson stock; I like corn oil).

The one reason I cannot respect the NRA is that, while claiming to represent the gun owner, its agenda has for a long time been far more supportive to the gun MANUFACTURERS. And the question must be asked, how GUN MANUFACTURERS must support a certain level of crime and violence in this society (or a level of paranoia in excess of the actual amount of violence) in order to support the market for their products. If crime and violence IS SEEN as going way down, then nobody'll buy any new guns. And that's bad for business - and it really is all about the business, isn't it?

oops... first post error. If I can't handle a computer any better, don't trust me with a gun.

By the same reasoning, of course, seat belt manufacturers must support a certain level of automobile accidents, or at least fear of automobile accidents, in this society in order to support the market for their products.

Change that to air bags and it's a better example, just because seat belts are manditory in all cars and have been for a long time; there's no market fluctuations... of course, USAGE of seat belts probably drops when auto accident stats get better - or just drop off the news radar - but nobody's business gets better or worse based on seat belt USE (well, maybe windshield replacement). All businesses built on products that provide symptomatic relief of any problem will face moral marketing problems. But I can't think of any besides gun manufacturers where the MISUSE of their product does so much to promote the product's "proper use". In other words, if guns didn't get into "the wrong hands", there'd be so much less demand for them in "the right hands". Which is why I'm so flabbergasted at the bald-faced hypocracy of the latest NRA accusation, blaming Clinton for the failure of the ATF to prevent the Ricky Birdsong killing, when the NRA has been calling the ATF "jackbooted thugs" and doing everything possible to weaken the agency's ability to enforce gun laws. That's not the voice of responsible gun owners. That's the voice of an industry that profits from arming both sides in a war.

I think what the NRA was so down on the ATF over was its misuse of power, not its proper enforcement of gun laws. The NRA pointed out several incidences where the NRA had come in on people in the wee morning hours who were actually compliant with all gun laws. Those were the incidences that the NRA referred to ATF agents as