The Evil Gun Lobby
Over at the Harvard Political Review (which seriously cannot afford its own domain name?), comes PSH alleging that gunnies engage in PSH:
The NRA boasts over four million members and is ranked, year after year, as the most powerful lobbying organization by Fortune. “The NRA exploits fear,” Anthony Bragga, a senior research associate in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government told HPR, “and they have created a culture of fear.” The group has been successful in framing many issues surrounding gun control as potential threats to the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding, gun-owning citizens.
This week it’s fear, last week it was wheelbarrows full of cash. I get confused on what I’m supposed to be shilling for. Anyway, the myth seems to always be that we active in gun rights are afraid or scared or paranoid, etc. The claim is bogus, of course.
Anyway, you’d think something with Harvard in the title could be bothered to do some research. But you’d be wrong. Anyway, GABRIEL UNGER seems to be fawning over Bloomberg’s Taking on the illegal gun trade in America, which is odd because Bloomberg to date has only taken on the legal gun trade. And Bloomy likely broke the law while doing so. More stupidity:
About 30,000 Americans are killed every year because of gun violence, and research shows that only one out of six guns in such situations is legally obtained. The remaining guns are illegal and unregistered, and are often obtained through the careless or intentional negligence of legally-established gun dealers.
Actually, well over half of those killed are suicides. What research? None I’ve ever seen. And you’re implying that only 5,000 of these guns were lawfully obtained? No way. Particularly factoring in suicides.
And, of course, there is no requirement for a weapon to be registered so the word unregistered is meaningless.
And crime guns are rarely obtained through intentional negligence of legally-established gun dealers. They are mostly (93% per the BATF anyway) obtained unlawfully from street dealers.
January 28th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I don’t need the NRA to tell me politicians and academic elites are threatening my 2nd Amendment rights. I can see it clear as day with my own eyes.
It’s as if he thinks gun-owners are idiot rednecks told what to think by the “evil gun lobby.” Could it be that he stereotypes us and thinks he’s morally superior?…… Rhetorical queston of course.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
“The NRA…is ranked, year after year, as the most powerful lobbying organization by Fortune.”
If that’s true, then the editors at Fortune are bunch of bloomin’ idiots. The AARP is the 800lb gorilla of the lobbyists… and the car mfg’s, and big oil, and farmers, and big medicine, and dozens of other industries spend more.
Newsflash: The money tossed around by the NRA gets lost in the noise in DC! The NRA doesn’r succeed because they’re ‘powerful’, the NRA succeeds because they have the Constitution on their side, and the rights of ALL citizens at the heart of what they do. Not too many advocacy groups can claim either, let alone both.
January 28th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Imagine how absurd it would be to call people who take their own lives by slitting their wrists “victims of knife violence.”
Nobody would ever call it that, firstly because we don’t include suicide in the “violence” category. Secondly, people who commit suicide are not “victims”—suicide isn’t something that happens to people, it’s something that people do to themselves.
Whatever. I’m so tired of these freaks who can’t do basic research.
January 28th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Funny, I think that those people without guns are the scared/ paranoid ones.
Every argument on the part of the gun control crowd seems to quickly devolve into a “OK corral” “blood in the streets” affair.
The fact that CCW legislation has not yet seen the “Old West effect” does nothing to check their fear.
Hoplophobes are by definition driven by fear….
January 28th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Actually, the NRA succeeds for much the same reason the AARP succeeds…not necessarily $$, though they both have that, but VOTES.
The AARP and the NRA can both, when they need to, mobilize, or threaten to mobilize, MILLIONS of votes. The AARP can just do millions more than the NRA. Thats why they’re so powerful nobody messes with them.