NRA President: ‘Today, Guns Are Cool’
Source: TPM
TOM KLUDT 10:35 AM EST, MONDAY FEBRUARY 18, 2013
National Rifle Association president David Keene expressed confidence that the powerful lobby has a decided edge in the simmering debate over gun violence, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in a profile published Saturday that his side draws one of its biggest advantages from being hip.
Keene said much has changed since the 1994 passage of the since-expired federal assault weapons ban, which amounted to a policy defeat for the NRA.
"The difference between today and 15 years ago is that today, guns are cool," Keene said.
Keene also characterized the debate over gun violence in the United States, brought to the fore by the December massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., as a "war" that he thinks the NRA will ultimately win.
"You get into a war like this - the president has proposed 87 things," Keene said. "We'll lose a battle here or there. But we won't lose the war."
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Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/nra-president-guns-are-cool?ref=fpb
Link to full Journal-Sentinel article:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/nra-chief-david-keene-a-gentleman-who-sticks-to-his-guns-ru8q1mc-191559311.html
onehandle
(51,122 posts)geomon666
(7,512 posts)Guns are cool. We're in a war right now. Does this sound like a man who should president of anything?
bowens43
(16,064 posts)this guy is obviously a product of the gun culture in the US. Guns are not cool, they are not good , they are not just tools. They are made for one purpose and one purpose only , to kill.
world wide wally
(21,744 posts)It is no longer cool!
SecularMotion
(7,981 posts)[center][/center]
The AR-15 rifle is an object of undeniable, fascinating beauty. Force glows from its perfect black frame. Its substantial weight is more than physical; it's emotional, historical. Built in the same factory as Remington, which has been building rifles for nearly two hundred years, the Bushmaster is a quintessentially American object. Other countries tend to treat guns as tools, which policy can deal with on the level of their functionality. In America, guns are works of art. They must be treated as such.
In the crisis of conscience brought on by Newtown, many people who should have known better resumed the pathetic mid-nineties debate about the culture of violence in America. The New York Times brought up the (tepid, insubstantial) connection between video games and gun manufacturers. President Obama chimed in his support a week after the massacre. So did representatives of the NRA. They never quote any studies, for the simple reason that no serious studies support them. Young men in South Korea and in Canada play more violent games than American kids and they commit nowhere near the same num-ber of gun murders. In the largest study of the correlation between movie violence and real violence, conducted at Berkeley in 2007, the researchers found no causal link between violent movies and violence on the streets. But what they did find was that violent movies actually led to a decrease in the number of violent crimes committed nationally on the days they were shown. Only vapid, ahistorical understandings of culture believe that the culture of our own period is uniquely violent, anyway. Shakespeare competed with bearbaiting and public hangings for entertainments; King Lear has an onstage eye-gouging; Titus Andronicus reenacts cannibalism. The culture of violence is general; it belongs to all times and all places. But the culture of the gun is uniquely American and of the moment.
Guns are one of the primary avenues by which ordinary Americans experience beauty. Nobody wants to recognize this fact. Why else would Instagram be loaded on Christmas Day with people in their Christmas-morning jammies showing off the semiautomatic rifles Santa left under the tree? Why else would there be PinkGun.com (its motto: Just because it's concealed doesn't mean it has to be ugly)?
Guns have replaced cars as the American machinery fantasy of choice. Just as there is no sensible reason for owning a car with 1,001 horsepower and a top speed of 253 mph, as Jay-Z does, even the most casual examination of a gun like the AR-15 reveals its uselessness in the real world, its status as a fetish object. The .223 ammunition that Adam Lanza used to murder children isn't powerful enough to hunt deer, one reason it's illegal for hunting in some states, for humane considerations. Protection in the home? Houses with guns in them are statistically far less safe than houses without guns. As a safeguard against a tyrannical government? How long do you think the best armed militia would last against a single company of Marines?
http://www.esquire.com/features/thousand-words-on-culture/guns-are-beautiful-0313#ixzz2KnQHUZ7H
Brigid
(17,621 posts)Is that all you got, Keene? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
marble falls
(57,097 posts)his gourd. But at least I know he's armed. I only wish there was some way to know who all the other armed ones are ......
graegoyle
(532 posts)So, video games trump guns. Now, stop comparing the fictional video game violence with the literal violence and murder done with guns.
modrepub
(3,495 posts)1,000 people gather in the streets of Manhattan
The lights go out guess what happens?
It's time to steal, it's time to shoot!
It's time to rob... taste my boot!
Dead Milkmen circa 1985 (Big Lizard in My Backyard)
Anyone who knows this band knows how ridiculous this song is but as soon as a saw this quote this is what popped into my head. Sad.
Skittles
(153,164 posts)then people woke up and realized SMOKING KILLS
DFW
(54,397 posts)¡Viva la muerte!
There, now his idiocy is complete. I've had the dubious honor of meeting Keene numerous times. He is angry, belligerent and rude. This will come as a shock to no one, I suspect.
RevStPatrick
(2,208 posts)"...the president has proposed"?
Please tell me, Mr. Keene.
I would like to know.
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)... if the stakes (all of our safety and well being) were not so high
drm604
(16,230 posts)It's pure scripted PR. They've probably paid PR professionals big bucks for this nonsense.
They think that if they say things like this often enough people will start to believe it. Guns are no more "cool" than they were 15 years ago. There's always been some segment of the population that thinks they're cool. I see more evidence that the size of that segment had decreased than that it has increased.
MatthewStLouis
(904 posts)When are all these rebellious children going to learn that not everything is about them?
There are wackos out there who want guns and need to be denied them. Period.
And nobody needs a gun that shoots 200 rounds per minute. There's nothing very sporting about violent murdering machines that can cut kindergartners in two.
Why do they even call this a debate?
Paladin
(28,262 posts)Our resident Gun Enthusiasts are sure to come calling......