NRA & Machine Guns
The NFA community is a bit upset with the NRA because Chris Cox said that the NRA never supported machine guns. IIRC, Sandy Froman is an NFA weapons holder as are plenty of other members, I’m sure. I know that the NFA community often expresses its displeasure with how the NRA seems to ignore them. The NRA is way wrong on this one. But it is a tough sell to people who don’t know much about guns. Another method to approach this issue would have been to note how only two lawfully owned machine guns have ever been used in a crime. That NFA weapons, in general, are almost never used in crimes. And that the process for getting an NFA weapon is quite extensive.
October 8th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Unfortunately, that argument is used by the opposing side to “prove” that “licensing and registration work!”
Thus ignoring the myriad crimes committed with unlicensed fully-automatic weapons, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, unregistered suppressors.
October 8th, 2007 at 10:31 am
I’ll take compromise from politicians, although I don’t particularly enjoy it.
I’ll take compromise from laws, if we get enough in return.
But why in the flying f*** am I supposed to be taking compromise from the allegedly vast and powerful agency that I’m supposed to hand together with or risk hanging alone?
If you can’t, politically, say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
October 8th, 2007 at 10:58 am
gattsuru,
because if you don’t message well, then you risk throwing the whole thing in the toilet.,
don’t get greedy. don’t read into what Cox said. don’t think anyone outside the gun culture things you have any right to machine guns.
If it becomes a debate about access to machine guns, we all lose.
You class 3 folks need to get over it, get off your high horse, and realize we are all in this together and its going to take baby steps to get it all back. We are close. We are real damn close, but somehow for ever 5 steps forward we take the nuts (at the urging of GOA I suspect) insist on pushing us back 6.
October 8th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I’d accept it if the NRA ignored NFA weapons, but I don’t think they do. I think they actively sell their owners out as a bargaining chip.
October 8th, 2007 at 11:13 am
[…] agree with Uncle over at his post on NRA and machine guns. Just for the record, here’s the context: BECK: We’ve already had that. We […]
October 8th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Then don’t let the damn thing become a debate over machine guns. Even if they’re stupid enough to let their opponents get them into a corner on NFA items — the sorta stuff the NRA hasn’t opposed within my lifetime — they can point out the suppressors that are sold over the counter in Finland of all places, or the sporting language limitations. If you’ve stupid enough to be stuck claiming thing you’d never support, point out the NRA and gun rights movement’s opposition to unexpunged felon gun ownership or that sorta thing.
I can deal with the current NFA system (although, as noted, the suppressor thing is just idiotic). I have absolutely zero expectation for the NRA to fight it. But the NRA also doesn’t need to have its crack legal team point out currently legal things that it — the group every media organization portrays as gun absolutists — will not fight for NFA weapon owners.
October 8th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
I’d think you’d have to frame NFA weapons as a “collectors & enthusiasts” debate.
October 8th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
[…] made a comment over at Uncle’s that I wanted to highlight here, because he’s so very right: Because if you don’t message […]
October 8th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
For me, this machine gun issue seems like a microcosom of the larger gun debate. I mean, its akin to the ‘assualt weapons’ versus ‘reasonable firearms’ debate. What’s the difference between Zumbo and this machine gun issue? The fact that there are far more black rifles out there than machine gun owners? Is throwing the machine gun owners overboard the same as Zumbo and the black rifle debacle?
If I was hardcore into machine guns, I would be very offended that I am being marginalized by the NRA over Chris’ comments. I wonder what GOA thinks of machine guns.
And I was formerly one of them gun owners who though nothing but bad things about machine guns. Then I learned later that all a machine gun really does is shoot more than one bullet at a time with a single trigger pull.
October 8th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
You mention two NFA machine guns being used in the commission of a crime. One was the rogue cop who killed an informant with his personal MAC 10 (not a typical owner) What was the other one?
October 8th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Rich doctor had a thing for his secretary. He can’t have her so you know the rest. It was also a Mac, iirc.
October 8th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
There’s a key difference between the machine gun debate, and the assault weapons debate. The difference is, on the machine gun debate, we’ve already lost, and lost big time, and it would be very easy to lose even more.
No one is arguing “let’s feed the NFA collectors to the anti-gunners, then they’ll be happy and leave our black rifles alone”. The issue is how do you move forward on the issue as a whole, and machine guns is one of those areas where if there’s a way forward, I’m not seeing it.
If someone else can see it, I’m all ears.
October 8th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
[…] few people are talking about the role of NRA in advancing the rights of NFA owners. Here’s my […]
October 8th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
The way forward is to stop falling victim to GOAs every last move to discredit the NRA.
The issue, if it ever gets taken care of will getting taken care of on the coattails of the larger debate – not because sound public policy dictates what it should be.
As I’ve said before. We are close. We have the chance to really advance the ball at the Supreme Court, but if this issue becomes part of the debate don’t be surprised to see The Court sidestep it or address it in a way you don’t like … And at that point you’ll have no one to blame but yourselves and your continued misplaced reliance on GOAs self dillusions.
Of course, knowing GOA, they’d probably love that … Just gives them another opportunity to bash the NRA.
October 9th, 2007 at 1:41 am
Oh please master may I keep what is mine? Please! Well, no, I won’t ask for that then, but could I have a little of what is mine? No? Well do you still like me?
Goddamnit, get real.
October 9th, 2007 at 9:35 am
You make a fair point, straightarrow. What’s your prescription?
October 9th, 2007 at 10:05 am
SInce you ask, Olds, MY prescription is simple – “All or nothing.”, because if we don’t stand for all, pretty damn soon we will have nothing. And I wish to hell I had bought those dewats back in ’62 – Thompsons, Schmissers, STENS, BRENS, and such from Ye Olde Hunter’s Lodge.
October 9th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Emdfl, “all or nothing” is a statement of position, and a legitimate one, but it is not a how-to. That said, this is an open forum and I would neither ask nor expect you or anyone else to draw unwelcome attention in response to a question from a stranger.
I’m with you on the NFA. In fact, if cannon were good enough for the Sons of Liberty, I think I ought to be able to have a technical mounting an M2 and towing a pack howitzer if I feel like it. I can and do advocate and even agitate, trying to light Sam Adams’s brush fires in the mind, but it took us three or four generations to get this deep in the tar, and I reckon it’ll take that long to get out–and that’s if we don’t take our eyes off the ball…
…three generations, or a Constitutional Convention (which has its own brand of risk, but I’ve thunk her over for a decade now and I decided I’m game). That’s how I see it.