Vigilantism and the NRA

[cthulu2016]

The NRA is supposed to be about your right to own a gun. I get that.

I don't care for guns, but not everyone cares for things I feel I have a right to. As a civil libertarian I can see both sides.

I am, however, really weirded out that the NRA pushes legislation throughout the USA, like stand-your-ground laws, in order to make it easier for gun owners to actually shoot a person someday. It goes from "you cannot own a certain piece of metal," which feels intrusive to me, to promulgating a radical and un-American theory of society.

Of course the NRA has a right to espouse a theory of society, but it's at odds with what they seem to claim their purpose is.

It's mission-creep, I suppose. Many, if not most NRA members are proponants of vigilantism and that makes the NRA a pro-vigilante organization.

As with any organization, you are ultimately what your members want you to be.

[TheMastersNemesis]

1. It Only Gets Worse

In Colorado it is now legal to carry a concealed weapons on the CSU campus. And there is supposed pending legislation in several states to allow conceal and carry with out a permit or background check. Of course sponsored by NRA and ALEC.

[cthulu2016]

3. I undrstand concealed carry.

Leaving aside whether I agree with it, I see it as a rights issue. A person wants to be able to own thing -- in this case a gun.

It's a logical step to want the freedom to carry your property around where-ever and however you want. That doesn't make it right or wrong, just sensible from and advocacy perspective. (A hypothetical American Persian Cat Association might lobby for people to be able to take their cats into grocery stores or airplane cabins... okay, they like being with their cat.)

There is a difference between the right to carry a gun in your pocket in a bar, and the legal right to shoot people with that gun. That's what feels like a real line-crossing to me.

[villager]

2. The NRA is not merely an advocacy group. It's a sickness.

n/t

[rustydog]

4. Has the NRA released any statement regarding the murder?

They are really good at riling people up about Obama going after their guns.

Apparently after 4 years of going after my firearms, he wasn't successful.

Has anyone in the NRA expressed sympathy to the family of Trayvon?
Or are they resoundingly silent like they are after every single horrible gun incident?

[lastlib]

6. Remember George Bush's charming expression of concern for the vicitims of VA. Tech?

First words out of his mouth: "I support the right of the people to keep and bear arms."

Nope, all the big boys at NRA care about is the gun industry's profits. Human lives lost don't affect the bottom line, so they're irrelevant.

[Walk away]

5. I don't understand the benefit to the NRA of the "White folk can legally kill Black folk" bills....

How does that work? Do they get more members or do they just hate minorities?