CNN: This is how the NRA loses

[villager]

<snip>

...after 50 years of hostility, the United States would normalize relations with Cuba. It was a stunning defeat for a group that once seemed invincible.

"You couldn't forecast it because you didn't know it was going to happen, but it happens much more than people think," Bishin says of powerful political groups that suffer sudden downfalls.

Could the National Rifle Association ever face a similar fate? Most Americans probably don't think so. When a gunman murdered nine people at a community college in Oregon earlier this month, the President seemed to express what many Americans were thinking when he said, "Somehow this has become routine. ... We have become numb to this."

There's a pervasive belief that any attempt to tighten gun laws would be futile because too many politicians are afraid to defy the NRA. But there are at least four examples from American history -- including two snatched from recent headlines -- where ordinary people and unforeseen events defeated a seemingly invincible lobbying group, and hardly anyone saw it coming.

<snip>

The ASL could control politicians, but not the unintended consequences of Prohibition, which spawned organized crime and the rise of gangsters such as Al Capone. Fed-up Americans opened up "speakeasies" across the country. Pharmacists stocked "medicinal liquor" and sold Old Grand-Dad and Johnnie Walker by prescription, while many Americans brewed alcohol in their homes. Even President Warren G. Harding was rumored to keep bootleg liquor in the White House.

What really hurt the ASL, though, was the onset of the Great Depression.

"The Depression came on and there was no more tax revenue for the federal government," Okrent says. "People were saying, 'Where are we going to get the money to keep the lights on?' The primary tax revenue before Prohibition was alcohol."

Prohibition ended in 1933 with the ratification of the 21st Amendment. And so did the ASL.

"By the middle 1930s, it was a toothless organization," Okrent says.

Wheeler died of exhaustion at age 58 in 1927. When Prohibition was passed, people predicted he would be remembered as one of the most important people in America's history. Yet who remembers Wheeler or the ASL today?

<snip>

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/15/politics/defy-gun-lobby/index.html

[maxsolomon]

1. everyone sees that the sky doesn't fall when you change

prohibition
cuba
iran

next:
marijuana
firearm regulation

although, with firearms, i think lapierre is going to have to pass on. then pols with feel safer.

[LittleBlue]

2. Unintended comedy alert. The American public came to its senses, seeing you couldn't ban something

Last edited Thu Oct 15, 2015, 03:50 PM - Edit history (1)

that was in high demand.

Oh wait, we're talking about Prohibition. Guns will be... ummmmm.... just the opposite, or something. Whoops!

The truth is that alcohol had been common for hundreds of years before Prohibition. Prohibition was the exception and doomed to failure. Guns hold an even higher level of acceptance than alcohol, being protected by the 2A.

[villager]

3. At least the "unintended comedy alert" part of your reply was correct.

You are free to keep defending a thriving NRA in all its "glory," however

[friendly_iconoclast]

5. You are free to explain how 'gun Prohibition' would work...

...where alcohol and drug Prohibition didn't.

[villager]

7. I realize that misdirection and conflation are on your faxed sheet of talking points

The article, of course, is not talking about "gun prohibition" (the misdirection, as you know), but rather, the fall of the NRA, which will allow much greater response, in terms of closing loopholes, background checks, etc.

[frizzled]

19. People are neither physically dependent on guns, nor can they manufacture them in a bathtub

Prohibition of guns obviously works well in other countries.

[friendly_iconoclast]

23. Guns can be homemade fairly easily, as any Australian bikie or Afghan peasant can tell you

[villager]

25. Ah yes, we forgot about those "homemade mass killings" that have happened in Australia

...since they instituted sensible gun reform.

[friendly_iconoclast]

29. What do you propose to do about the 300 million extant guns in the US?

Or smuggling, for that matter?

[maxsolomon]

32. IDK, let the owners make their own bullets?

stricter regulation does not = confiscation.

[LanternWaste]

44. It seems irrational to purposefully conflate regulation with banning and prohibition.

It seems irrational to purposefully conflate regulation with banning and prohibition. It also seems disingenuous-- but I like allow the benefit of a doubt.

[friendly_iconoclast]

64. It was legal to make up to 200 gallons a year of your own wine during Prohibition

But it was still Prohibition

[frizzled]

30. Having to DIY a zip gun is an acceptable barrier to entry for crime and will stop mass shootings

This is a pointless reply to a gun nut

[longship]

58. If the zip gun does not blow up in the user's face.

Which happens often enough to make such things uncommon.

I would support the zip gun support act in congress. It would give plenty of incidences for the Darwin Awards.

[Eleanors38]

12. Damn, LittleBlue, you know how to spoil a party.

[villager]

15. So to be clear, E38 -- you support the NRA, and think they should continue to thrive?

Just to be clear.

[friendly_iconoclast]

24. Glad to see that you're standing watch for Communi... err, NRA sympathizers here

No doubt a concern for our precious bodily fluids enters into it as well...

[villager]

26. Since "NRA Sympathizer" means you, and since there's no moral difference between them

...and the KKK (for example), you -- as one of their apostles -- are vastly overdue for an "ignore!"

Buh-bye!

[friendly_iconoclast]

34. "Since "NRA Sympathizer" means you..." A lie- and you are not the first to promulgate it

For the record:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2186448

Also...

...you seem unaware that I intensely dislike the NRA:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022164207

The NRA *and* the Brady Campaign(s) might be both be headed to the dustheap...
...of history, and I couldn't be happier about it. The sooner the armed wing of the Republican Party and the crypto-Prohibitionists are gone, the better.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/117222584

Why I'm not going to rejoin the NRA just yet.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/117222584#post50

No point in donating money to people that piss on the President, while accepting Mitt's AWB.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023396665#post62

friendly_iconoclast (12,189 posts)
62. For what it's worth, I share your low opinion of the NRA.

I called them the "armed wing of the Republican party", and meant it. Still do:

http://betterment.democraticunderground.com/10022164207

For that matter, Americans for Resonsible Solutions has left the Bradys in the dust, as I predicted in that OP:

http://betterment.democraticunderground.com/12623921

Gabrielle Giffords Gun Control Super PAC Raises $6.5 Million

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027223615#post33

FWIW, I despise the NRA as it currently exists, that being the de facto
armed wing of the Republican Party.

You lot will only succeed when you finally realize that "disagreeing with you" =/=
"likes the NRA"

[LanternWaste]

46. Or possibly preventing the NRA from denying the CDC relevant health related studies again

"No doubt a concern for our precious bodily fluids enters into it as well..."

Or possibly preventing the NRA from denying the CDC relevant health related studies again; however I can readily understand your predilection for bodily fluids and Communists as a go-to answer.

Bang bang shoot shoot

[friendly_iconoclast]

67. Really? The CDC did one a couple of years ago. Here's an excerpt:

http://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/1

http://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/3#16

Defensive Use of Guns

Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996; Kleck, 2001a). Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010). On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.

A different issue is whether defensive uses of guns, however numerous or rare they may be, are effective in preventing injury to the gun-wielding crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies (Kleck, 1988; Kleck and DeLone, 1993; Southwick, 2000; Tark and Kleck, 2004). Effectiveness of defensive tactics, however, is likely to vary across types of victims, types of offenders, and circumstances of the crime, so further research is needed both to explore these contingencies and to confirm or discount earlier findings.

Even when defensive use of guns is effective in averting death or injury for the gun user in cases of crime, it is still possible that keeping a gun in the home or carrying a gun in public—concealed or open carry—may have a different net effect on the rate of injury. For example, if gun ownership raises the risk of suicide, homicide, or the use of weapons by those who invade the homes of gun owners, this could cancel or outweigh the beneficial effects of defensive gun use (Kellermann et al., 1992, 1993, 1995). Although some early studies were published that relate to this issue, they were not conclusive, and this is a sufficiently important question that it merits additional, careful exploration.

[Eleanors38]

40. I also quit beating my dog when I discovered I didn't have one. nt

[villager]

41. Around the same time you quit answering direct questions on DU?

[Eleanors38]

49. I don't respond to vacuous inquisitions ("are you now, or have you ever been...")

Check out Joe McCarthy. I believe he was an extreme right-wing GOPer who interrogated many progressives using that language.

[villager]

50. No, what you're doing is dodging the fact you support the NRA.

Because it would undermine all the vacuous snarking you do here on the subject.

[Eleanors38]

51. Actually, you have told a lie.

To any potential jurors, the poster "Villager" is lying. His is not an opinion. He is saying that I support the NRA. Therefore, the poster is Lying.

[villager]

52. Bye bye, E38

You don't discuss. You snark, you drive-by, and you're dishonest.

Pointless to swap posts with you here.

Take care.

[friendly_iconoclast]

66. No loss to him. It's also not the first time for that particular untruth of yours:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7261479

[Bucky]

37. Defeating the NRA doesn't mean banning guns though.

The problem isn't hunting rifles nor even firearms used in homes for protection. Those are popular and make good sense. Shooting guns is fun, as are hunting and target practice. Background checks and gun registration is NOT going to stop these popular features of gun ownership. Those are only tools that can help law enforcement stop or at least diminish the sorts of tragedies we see in the news far far too often.

The problem is the proliferation of rapid fire guns, assault rifles, machine guns, and the fear of keeping track of the kinds of people who buy lots of guns or skirt what few ownership safeguards we have by buying at gun shows without passing background checks.

[friendly_iconoclast]

38. Rifles of any kind aren't the problem, per the FBI:

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-20

So what is it that you want to accomplish?

[villager]

42. Many here are taught to conflate the two

Keeps them from having "too much to think" when they're "rapid fire" response-posting...

[Eleanors38]

47. There is no "proliferation" of "assault rifles, machine guns." These weapons are strictly regulated

and have been for years. I know of no intentional homicides using these weapons over last several years, and only a very few deaths-by-accident.

I don't know what you mean by "rapid fire guns." Semi-autos weapons (where a round is fired, spent casing ejected, fresh cartridge chambered, gun cocked with EACH pull of the trigger are indeed prolific. This action is the most popular type for self-defense, shooting sports, shotgun sports and increasingly for hunting non-fowl game.

"Assault rifle"' is a recognized term describing a rifle or carbine (short-rifled barrel) capable of Full Auto fire, and are issued to nearly all standing armies and most guerilla and insurrectionist forces. They do all of the above actions using medium power cartridges, but require only that you squeeze the trigger and hold it back to fire continuously. In this country, obtaining one is as difficult as acquiring a machine gun. You may be thinking of " assault weapon," a term of art to describe a Semi-Auto rifle which Looks like full-auto assault rifles. As such, they are essentially obsolete as military weapons. The semi-auto rifle accounts for significantly less than 3% of all gun-homicides, and in any case have proven impossible to ban as past legislation has focused on how the weapon "looks." Local bans against Any weapons can of course include these semi-auto rifles, but Chicago and D.C. bans have been overturned as unconstitutional.

Current BG check laws affect only FFL dealers and not individual intrastate sales; i.e., selling a gun to a neighbor. The only difference is instead of conducting business over the kitchen table, some folks may sell small numbers of arms at a big meeting hall. But the main sellers at a convention center are dealers, and they must do a b.g. check like any other brick & mortar gun or pawn shop.

I favor making the b.g. checks universal, but for now I can't use the NICS system even if I wanted to. It's only for dealers.

Incidentally, the ill-fated BATF gun deal which "lost track" of guns that were to be traced to Mexican drug/gun buyers, involved a FFL dealer who twice informed the BATF that someone was buying large numbers of guns. Of course, the dealer didn't know of the ruse.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. How does someone seriously argue fewer restrictions pave the road to more restrictions?

[CTyankee]

6. pretty soon the gun group guys will ride in to save the day in this thread...

and since I have most of them on Ignore I will mercifully be spared...

[villager]

8. What's really appalling -- and unsurprising -- is that they are here *defending the NRA*

A blood-soaked, far-right lobbying group. They are, truly, shameless.

[Logical]

10. I think any DUer who supports the NRA should be banned. Right wing nuts! Nt

[villager]

14. I agree. We don't allow racists to post here. Why do we allow NRA defenders?

[Logical]

16. True! Or RNC members or KKK members. Nt

[villager]

17. Exactly. And there is zero daylight between NRA defending, and anything else on that list

n/t

[Logical]

18. When ted nugent is on your board you know you are not legit! Nt

[villager]

20. A couple NRA defenders here claim to "Feel the Bern," but really they "Feel the Nuge"

...in their heart of hearts.

Which is every bit as awful as it sounds.

[CTyankee]

31. Yeah, I never used Ignore before but I found it enormously helpful. I was delighted with

the result. I was being silly not using it before. Life is so much nicer and the air here is so much cleaner...

[villager]

43. It's a whole new DU when you notch out the "NRA Message board" aspects!

[pablo_marmol]

9. Oooooooh.......the big bad NRA again.

Yet it was the 2nd Amendment Foundation that brought the Heller & McDonald cases before the SCOTUS and won.

The ignorance. It burns.

[Logical]

11. You support the NRA? Really? Nt

[pablo_marmol]

21. How does my statement IN ANY WAY demonstrate support for the NRA?

The predictable dishonesty. Pointing out ANY flaw in gun restriction "reasoning" is tantamount to support of the NRA.

Congratulations on displaying so vividly why the NRA is winning.

[friendly_iconoclast]

27. Don't you know that chanting "NRA!" is a sovereign remedy?

It works just like a crucifix in all those Hammer horror documentaries we watched as kids

[beevul]

35. True enough, but...

I'd say some of the usual suspects remind me more of this fella:

[Eleanors38]

13. "Are you now, or have you ever been...?"

On edit: You are right, of course. The NRA is primarily a legislative pressure group, not a litigation outfit. It only joined in on Heller after it was clear the plaintiffs didn't give a rip about the NRA's noodling around.

[Logical]

22. They are a right wing bunch of lying nuts! Nt

[Eleanors38]

28. The people asking the question I posted?

[Logical]

33. Really, that is funny to you? Calling DU member right wing nuts? nt

[friendly_iconoclast]

36. Eleanors38 isn't the one that's been claiming that other DU members are NRA sympathizers

That particular poo-flinging comes from your side of the issue...

[Eleanors38]

48. They are the Poo Fighters!

[Eleanors38]

39. Not sure to whom you referred.

[aikoaiko]

45. Usually Liberty wins out.

[Kang Colby]

53. I am a proud NRA Democrat.

The NRA has actively supported a good number of Democrats over the years, including Harry Reid, Heidi Heitkamp, Max Baucus, Jon Tester, Mark Begich, and many others. The NRA helped Bernie Sanders win his first House seat in 1990.

I have no shame in supporting the NRA.

[villager]

54. I am not proud of you being an NRA Democrat.

But I'm glad being a member of an increasingly racist, far-right lobbying group works for you.

[Kang Colby]

55. Please show me where the NRA has used racial rhetoric?

You can't.

I'll let Ice T tell you how he feels.

[villager]

56. WP: "Most gun owners don’t belong to the NRA — and they don’t agree with it either"

Nice company you keep!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/15/most-gun-owners-dont-belong-to-the-nra-and-they-dont-agree-with-it-either/

[Kang Colby]

59. I don't really care.

I'm very proud of the NRA and the SAF.

[villager]

60. By definition, you "don't care!" "You're the NRA!"

[Kang Colby]

62. That's right. I don't care for gun control. n/t

[villager]

63. And I don't care to have NRA errand-runners off the "ignore list!"

Buh-bye!

[Lizzie Poppet]

57. The results are in (and the alerter just barely dodged a time-out):

On Fri Oct 16, 2015, 03:34 PM an alert was sent on the following post:

I am a proud NRA Democrat.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7264005

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

NRA Democrat?

WTF???

Please hide.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Fri Oct 16, 2015, 03:37 PM, and the Jury voted 1-6 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: WTF indeed. How about this: people have a right to say things that neither the alerter nor I agree with.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: As much as I am anti-gun, the poster didn't say anything here that was inappropriate.
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: The values and beliefs of the NRA are not reconcilable with those of the Democratic Party.
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: It's an opinion, these are forums for opinions regardless if not all agree

[Kang Colby]

61. What were they expecting?

Heller and McDonald already showed that the pro-2A cause can do well in the courts.

[cherokeeprogressive]

68. I'm guessing juror #3 needs to bone up on the Democratic Party platform...

[Lizzie Poppet]

69. My precise thought!

I'm not a Democrat (just a fellow progressive who tends to vote for a lot of Democrats...), and I knew that there are multiple points of agreement between the party platform and the NRA's positions. #3 needs to up their game.

[cherokeeprogressive]

70. Exactly. Plus I tend to resist "If you believe ____, you're not one of us!" kind of thinking.