Dig the crap in this leftwing rag re guns and NRA

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http://www.nationofchange.org/how-gu...ety-1394371107

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Not clicking. Summary?

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http://www.nationofchange.org/how-gu...ety-1394371107

click on POLITICS, then click on the Gun Lobby heading

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http://www.nationofchange.org/how-gu...ety-1394371107

Just a generation ago, the NRA was a nonpartisan and relatively non-ideological organization that advocated for responsible and safe gun ownership in addition to defending gun rights.

But in its 20 years under the leadership of chief executive Wayne LaPierre the organization has become another cog in the broader conservative advocacy machine.

At the same time, with gun ownership declining, the organization has come to rely less on its members’ dues and more on firearm manufacturers, which now account for over half of the NRA’s revenues according to Walter Hickey at Business Insider.

The gun lobby also lost a key element of what had long been its defining mission: Guns remain a hot-button topic for political debate, but in the courts the issue has largely been settled. Gun rights won.In 2010, the Supreme Court settled a long-standing debate about whether the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to bear arms or only applied to, as the Constitution reads, “a well-regulated militia.” The court ruled that the right to own firearms, while not without limits, is as integral as the right to free speech or the free exercise of religion. Since then, a number of municipal bans on firearm ownership have been overturned — most recently when a federal court struck down a California law that allowed counties to restrict the concealed carry of guns.

But the gun makers’ lobby remains strong and well-financed, and it has an institutional imperative to keep lobbying. It is now in the business of selling guns by promoting the idea that we can never have too many, nor should there be any public places where firearms aren’t welcome — and by spinning conspiracy theories about various imagined plots to disarm law-abiding Americans.

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Today, the NRA and its political allies promote such policies as allowing concealed weapons in bars, allowing the blind to carry firearms (“Blind gun user Michael Barber said: ‘When you shoot a gun, you take it out and point and shoot, and I don’t necessarily think eyesight is necessary’”), making it a felony for doctors to discuss gun safety with their patients (never mind the First Amendment) and barring private firms from telling their employees to keep their guns at home.

Pro-gun lawmakers have gotten the message. Last month, five Republican legislators in Washington State introduced a bill that would exempt all firearms and ammunition from the state’s sales tax. Now in theory at least, one reason for tax breaks is to encourage some social good. For example, 20 years of tax credits have played a role in the exponential increase of wind energy production in the US. Yet here was a proposed tax break that would only encourage the sale of more guns in a country that’s already bristling with them.



These laws are predicated on the belief that more guns make a society safer. One of the cosponsors of the Washington State bill, Matt Shea (R-Spokane Valley) told a local conservative talk radio host, “It’s beyond a shadow of a doubt: More firearms in a society cuts crime in that society.” (In fact, according to the UN, the US is believed to lead the world in private gun ownership and has the highest total crime rate among wealthy countries.)

Kentucky lawmakers proposed a similar measure back in December, and in Kansas, the belief that more guns mean more safety forms the basis of a law that only permits local officials to bar firearms from public buildings if they install costly metal detectors or hire security guards. In South Carolina, Governor Nikki Haley is backing a law that would allow people to carry concealed guns without a permit or any safety training.

The problem is that this faith in guns for security, like global warming denialism, flies in the face of a mountain of serious, peer-reviewed research.

Last month, the Annals of Internal Medicine published a study conducted by epidemiologists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) finding that access to a firearm makes an individual almost twice as likely to become the victim of a homicide and three times more likely to commit suicide.

Previous studies had found that countries with higher rates of gun ownership also have higher rates of gun deaths and that states with more guns have higher homicide rates. But gun advocates dismissed those studies because they didn’t account for illegal gun sales. (The National Rifle Association’s side of the scholarly debate rests largely on the discredited and allegedly fraudulent work of economist John Lott.)

The UCSF study took a different approach, starting with a dead body and working backwards to see whether that person owned or had access to a firearm, legal or illegal. The study was a meta-analysis combining data from 15 previous, peer-reviewed papers.

It also found a significant gender gap in terms of homicide: Men with access to a gun were 29 percent more likely to be a victim of homicide, while women with a gun close at hand were almost three times more likely to be murdered. The report cited previous studies that found that most female murder victims knew their assailant, and three-quarters of women killed with a gun died in their own homes. Researchers concluded that the presence of guns may make impulsive killings during domestic disputes more common.

Another soon-to-be-published study may provide the most compelling evidence to date that looser gun laws lead to more bloodshed. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health were able to conduct a natural experiment in Missouri after the state repealed a law requiring handgun purchasers to get a license and pass a background check in 2007. According to the study’s authors, repealing the law “contributed to a sixteen percent increase in Missouri’s murder rate.”

That translated into 55 to 63 more murders per year in Missouri between 2008 and 2012, despite the fact that during the same period, “none of the states bordering Missouri experienced significant increases in murder rates and the U.S. murder rate actually declined by over five percent.” The increase in murders began in the first full year after the state’s licensing requirement was repealed, and the researchers “controlled for changes in policing, incarceration, burglaries, unemployment, poverty, and other state laws adopted during the study period that could affect violent crime.”

The conclusions presented in these studies, along with previous research, fly in the face of the persistent claim that more guns make a society safer. But this is as much a story of money influencing politics as anything else. With supporters like Springfield Armory, Inc, Pierce Bullet, Seal Target Systems, Beretta USA Corporation, Sturm Rugar & Co and Smith & Wesson, public safety simply isn’t a high priority for the gun lobby.

[JenniferG]

At the same time, with gun ownership declining, the organization has come to rely less on its members’ dues and more on firearm manufacturers, which now account for over half of the NRA’s revenues according to Walter Hickey at Business Insider.

The lefties are probably a day late and a couple of dollars short with that statement. 5 million NRA members, NICS system overloaded with background check requests, and ammunition sold out as soon as it hits the shelves. Maybe they did legalize pot or the authors are blatantly breaking the law because they are pretty high writing something that irrelevant and out of date.

[JenniferG]

The article also tries to tie in the "warmers' misguided beliefs in global baloney.

[elweasel]

Blind gun user Michael Barber said: ‘When you shoot a gun, you take it out and point and shoot, and I don’t necessarily think eyesight is necessary

I proved that when I got my FLA CCW and every time I visit a shooting range.








__________________________________________________ ____________
I see fine. My vision is 20/400. And they still let me drive and carry.

[Kabloosh]

I think the article may have some traction in that the NRA does have financial ties to the gun manufacturers. This is modern America guys, all big businesses try to buy out as many politicians as they can to further their profits. Don't think for a second the gun industry is any different than any other industry in this country especially since many of the companies that make our guns are part of the military industrial complex.

I also think the gun industry is notorious for playing on the fearmongering of potential criminal activity happening against us. Of course it can happen, but chances are it will be a property crime and the perp will likely be someone you already know. Just reading gun magazines and looking at the ads you can see that it plays on our interests in protecting ourselves. I'm not really the type to want to stick to any level of loyalty to any company or organization I don't work for though.

However, with the studies I couldn't help but notice that they are citing studies done by an organization that I guess Bloomberg owns and the University of California, in San Francisco.
Also, the article I know screwed up on one fact and that was that the US likely has the highest crime rate in the developed world. I've been apart of many debates that have looked at UK's and the US's crime rate and if you factor in violent crime rates all together, statistically you are twice as likely to have a violent crime committed against you in the UK and not the US. That 4 times figure is actually misleading because what the UK considers as violent crime isn't the same as what the US does and when you merge the two systems you get only two times.

[Pilot321]

A consistent theme in today's leftist (brainwashed) argument against the NRA, and guns is that the NRA is just a lobbying group for gun manufacturers with their sole goal of selling more guns.

The same people against legally owned guns are also pushing the man made global warming nonsense. It is all the same crap. Control of the law abiding populace.

[Kabloosh]

A consistent theme in today's leftist (brainwashed) argument against the NRA, and guns is that the NRA is just a lobbying group for gun manufacturers with their sole goal of selling more guns.

The same people against legally owned guns are also pushing the man made global warming nonsense. It is all the same crap. Control of the law abiding populace.

I did see something on the number of animals becoming extinct in recent years has been over 100 per year. In comparison in some of the worst mass extinction events in the history of the planet only reached around 40 or so per year.
It's a highly charged political topic as to what is happening to the planet but when you have tons of evidence supporting it you have to be curious instead of ruling it out because someone else just says it isn't true.