Originally Posted by
tacticalreload
Aye... some should be embarrassed. I, for one, certainly am not embarrassed of my current opinion of the NRA's statement. You keep swooping in to comment passive-aggressively about things that I say by vaguely referring to "some people". If you want to call me out as ignorant, do it directly. You're an NRA apologist, and anyone who does not hold them accountable for the missteps that they make get the NRA that they deserve. You'd have to be blind to not see the damage that was done mere moments after the NRA released their statement... NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES do I want a gun-rights lobbying organization to utter the words "should be subject to additional regulations". I don't care one iota about what kind of complicated political games you or anyone else think they were playing behind the scenes. Marion Hammer's statement made it clear... the NRA doesn't consider full auto firearms as a cause they care about, and they flat out WANT the ATF to make some kind of bureaucratic judgment call with yet another highly dangerous "determination letter" to kill off things that supposedly "skirt the NFA".
So initially when the statement came out, the apologists said that the NRA was just trying to keep it out of the hands of congress by pointing toward the NRA. Now that Congress has taken action, you're suggesting that they were throwing it to the ATF who would then through it to Congress? What exactly are you saying that they did that was beneficial then? First of all, I have yet to see anywhere where there is proof that the ATF has "thrown the ball over to Congress". As OF&U points out above, this isn't an official ATF determination letter. It's some private club of former ATF agents, attorneys, and seemingly anyone else who feels like joining and paying the fee. Plus this "letter" was drafted AFTER HR 3999 was introduced. Therefore, not only does it have nothing to do with the actual ATF, but it had no effect on the introduction of HR 3999 (by a REPUBLICAN who received an endorsement and A rating from the NRA, which I was able to look up on the NRA website because I am currently and have been a member for over TWO DECADES).
If you're cool with that, fine. We don't all have to agree about where we draw the line. However, I happen to draw mine in the side of not giving an inch... not now, not ever. As such, I do not feel good about donating money to organizations that do not represent my personal feelings. If you're good with it because you think that the ends justify the means (even if (1) the means is damaging and (2) there is no proof that the NRA has had anything to do with positively affecting the flow of these occurrences), then by all means keep supporting them. However, your demeaning and insulting attitude toward good folks who are passionately of the belief that "shall not be infringed" is the driving paradigm behind all their pro-gun stances by implying that they are somehow too stupid to understand the way the world really works or that they are too committed or doctrinaire to their cause... well, quite frankly I just can't support that kind of opinion. In this case, you and James Yeager share the same opinion, and that tells me all I need to know about what side of the argument I want to be on.
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