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More NRA and Machine Guns

Sebastian has the transcripts and some analysis:

You’re wrong, Paul. And you’re wrong to go on national TV and suggest that you somehow support the Second Amendment, when your actions speak louder than your words.

If you’re not keeping up, The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership is attempting the old divide and conquer. And we’re playing along, as evidenced by a lot of the hysteria over HR2640.

7 Responses to “More NRA and Machine Guns”

  1. countertop Says:

    And then look at the comments you recieve, from GOA types about the NRA actively selling people out as bargaining chips.

    Its about time gunnies got rid of GOA altogether. banish them, excommunicate them. Stop paying attention to them and their supporters.

    GOA has no voice whatsoever on any gun issue anywhere at any time in this country, except on the internet where – like the Ron Paul nuts – they seem everywhere and fully capable of enabling Brady to get the 2nd Amendment thrown out.

  2. straightarrow Says:

    What you call hysteria some of us call experience.

  3. David Codrea Says:

    It seems like more than “the Brady Campaign is attempting divide and conquer.”

    Yeah, “banish GOA.” Insult and dismiss Ron Paul supporters. With undisguised contempt. Lord knows there’s no room in the debate for a hard line or even principle, or God forbid a line in the sand, so by all means make surrender, avoidance and appeasement the extreme edge of the envelope–then we can use that as the position we negotiate and compromise inward from.

    And some day, when we win enough hearts and minds, we can put it up to increrasingly dumbed-down majority rule. How many lifetimes will that take again, or should we just shut up and let you drive?

    Yeah, so talking about repealing NFA 34 is a political loser. So what? That doesn’t mean we adopt the enemy’s playbook lines. It means we take advantage of time offered in front of a microphone to score our own points.
    http://waronguns.blogspot.com/2007/10/shhhwe-dont-dare-talk-about-machine.html

    If you think gun owners who are fed up with compromise are going to roll over and let you sideline them from the debate, you need to step back and consider the hornet’s nest you’re whacking at.

    Nothing like fighting a war on two fronts. Just ask Napoleon.

  4. Sebastian Says:

    What you call hysteria some of us call experience.

    Considering Countertop’s a lobbyist, I’m inclined to yield to his experience on political matters, even if I don’t agree with the stance he’s taken about marginalizing hard-line gun rights folks, and shunning them.

    That said, I don’t make any secret that I think that a hard-line public face alienates us from the public at large, who’s acquiescence we require to make any headway on this issue politically. The reason machine gun ownership is such a tough issue for us is not because we haven’t fought hard enough for it, it’s because people who believe that the right to keep and bear arms extend to the right to keep and bear machine guns are a small small minority, and the majority of the population, hell, even most gun owners, don’t agree with us.

    The problem with going on national TV, and talking about machine gun rights, is it scares the hell out of people who are barely comfortable with the idea of people carrying a pistol for personal protection. In short, if we make machine guns an issue now, we will lose. We don’t have enough political power for the outcome to be otherwise.

    So it’s a matter of convincing people, and the place to start is with people who are mostly on our side, but when the topics of machine guns come up say “Oh, no, I don’t support that.” The place to start is not on CNN, where most of the people listening likely have absolutely no familiarity with the issue at all.

  5. straightarrow Says:

    That’s right Sebastian, it’s a popular vote issue. Rights have nothing to do with it. We should just bow to popular opinion. Why don’t you do that with all the rest of your rights?

    Are there any worth fighting for if public ignorance and opinion are against it?

    I keep hearing that you don’t think so.

    How do we “win their hearts and minds” if we don’t expose their ignorance to truth and assert our rights despite their unwillingness to recognize them?

    Do we just keep saying “We agree with you on that.”, even though we don’t? Somehow that doesn’t seem an effective way to change their minds. In fact, I assert that it only reinforces them in their desire to deny us.

    I am going to the store tomorrow. I will stand close enough to everybody I see so that I am touching them skin to skin, maybe osmosis will win their hearts and minds to my way of thinking. What say you? Think that will work? I mean the battery charges aside.

  6. Sebastian Says:

    That’s right Sebastian, it’s a popular vote issue. Rights have nothing to do with it. We should just bow to popular opinion. Why don’t you do that with all the rest of your rights?

    What else are you going to do? I don’t have to do this for the rest of my rights, because the courts take them seriously. Gun rights are completely within the realm of public opinion at this point, which means you convince the public to support, or at least not oppose you, or you lose.

    Are there any worth fighting for if public ignorance and opinion are against it?

    They are all worth fighting for, but just because you fight doesn’t mean you win.

    How do we “win their hearts and minds” if we don’t expose their ignorance to truth and assert our rights despite their unwillingness to recognize them?

    Do we just keep saying “We agree with you on that.”, even though we don’t? Somehow that doesn’t seem an effective way to change their minds. In fact, I assert that it only reinforces them in their desire to deny us.

    Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m not saying we shouldn’t talk to people, and educate them. You have to educate people. But if someone says to you “I’m not all that comfortable with the idea of people having guns in the house for protection”, and you start talking about machine gun rights, you lose that person. You’ve treaded way beyond that person’s comfort zone, and they’ll shut their ears to any further argument. For that person, I’m happy just to convince them that having a revolver in a nightstand isn’t a seriously radical idea. Sometimes that might be the best you can do.

    That’s what I mean when I say that the hard core message is alienating to people who aren’t familiar with the issue. You won’t turn most people into activists for gun rights. You’ll turn even fewer into activists for machine gun rights. Politics on any issue isn’t just about getting people to support you, it’s also about getting people to not oppose you. When you bring up machine gun rights on a broadcast medium, with lots of different people listening, you’re going to win a few people over to your side, but you’ll probably make a lot more people dismiss your other arguments, because they aren’t comfortable at all with what you’re saying.

  7. straightarrow Says:

    Well, I’m back. Went into five different retail places today.

    This is not a scientific experiment as there was no control group, but anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that osmosis doesn’t work in winning hearts and minds. Not one convert today. In fact, not one comment or mention of the subject either for or against. Which tends to illustrate that osmosis elicits no response at all, negative or positive, but rather tends to support the status quo.

    Further experiments are deemed unnecessary at this point.

Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.

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