these people want to have a coup'd'etat and we need EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING to protect the United States of America.

You think our home grown patriot/terrorists would be scared just from name recognition alone?

Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq AUMF that opened the floodgates of war. Thanks to the AUMF, the Obama admin now asserts the privilege to assassinate US citizens, etc. I believe that Hillary also voted for the PATRIOT Act, yes? Not the kind of Democrat we need in the White House, thanks.

Eric Holder's authoritarianism toward us little people (i.e. - citizens), coupled with his obsequiousness toward banks and Wall Street is a disservice to this country. He has no legitimate place in any public office.

-app

When their side wins, they DEMAND everyone get in line.

They act as if God died and left them in charge.

I laugh when they get together for 'gunn rites rallees.'

They are ID'd and their names go in the gun collection database.

Idiots.

Biggest "gun nutt data base" the NRA membership list!

When the gun collecting starts, they'll be priority targets.

Every time I mention that perhaps more progressives take jobs as police and prosecutors, crickets.

So the people in charge of collecting the guns from the right wingers are: More gun loving right wingers.

Most Progressives seem to want peaceful jobs in academia, social work, and the arts, not in being violent authoritarians breaking down the doors of angry, well armed groups and individuals.

Has DARPA secretly built Terminators?

'Ground drones.'

"What a nimrod! What a ultra-maroon!"

There is no 'database,' no 'black helicopters,' no 'facial recognition scanning' of open carry 'enthusiasts' by those ubiquitous security cameras sprouting up everywhere, no 'drones' following them home, and 'Janet Reno' is not behind that unused treadmill leaning up against the cinder block wall in their basements.

I swear on Obama's 'birth certificate.'

This should be addressed as a public health issue, not a criminal one

If we can get 75% of all smokers to quit in 15 short years, we can get 75% of all the guns off the street the same way

so you are proposing we reduce suicides and criminal violence. Excellent idea.

Start with single payer health care with full mental health coverage for suicides. For criminal violence, focus the criminal justice system on violent felons and lock them up for a long time.

There are too many "what ifs" with guns lying around the house

We can sit and punish bad behavior by sending the perps to Crime University...which does nothing

Or we can convince people not to buy guns

I'm not saying we legislate them away, I am saying we make it so embarassing to own a gun, that people lie about it in job interviews

Shame can be a great tool

for the simple reason that, unlike most gun controllers, the American public understands that not only is responsible gun use possible, it is the norm.

Take away suicides and criminal behavior and there is not much left for legal gun owners to be ashamed of.

they will have sympathy for those that commit suicides but will not blame their deaths on others. As for crime, they will direct their wrath at criminals, not those that live their lives obeying the law.

Unlike you, they know it is people's behavior that is to be judged, not the the inanimate objects they own.

And I hope we do

Gun nuts should be seen akin to Child Molesters in our society

you are disillusion if your really think all of America will see them that way.

But if you have more handguns than hands, you are

It is quite possible to stigmatize people who want to own guns, to make owning guns a thing viewed generally with disfavor. We are in the early stages of that already, and the excesses of 'Team NRA' and its ilk are major contributors to the cause....

judging by the lack of success of the latest attempts at gun control in America, I am not that concerned.

You apparently think it is possible to smear all gun owners with the "Team NRA" label and link them to all things bad about guns. Maybe Americans are as stupid as you think they are - we will have to see. Shall we bookmark this thread and revisit in 10 years?

A 'massacre of innocents' rouses a different class of emotion in the mass. The wholesale murder of children evokes deep rage and passionate desire for revenge against the murderer. That the murderer committed suicide cheats this passionate desire to punish of an immediate object, but feelings of this strength must find an outlet and an object of focus. That focus has become those who react to the massacre in a manner offensive to the widest popular feelings it has roused.This will not change until people feel it has been discharged through proper punishment. This is not a matter of regulation and law; it is a matter of social norming, of group boundaries, of who is 'one of us' and who is not.

One small point you may have over-looked: the loudest voices speak for the in the popular mind.

how is it manifesting itself beyond heated rhetoric? Legislative calls for gun control are rapidly losing steam, with expectations being lowered daily. What concrete changes can you point to that indicates some national change in attitude?

Your complaint is that because what you call the extremists are but a small proportion of gun owners, they will never come to define gun owners in the popular mind. But it is the loudest voices, the voice that capture the most attention, which become the definition of a group in the popular mind. 'Team NRA' and its ilk are by far the loudest voices speaking 'for gun owners', and against regulation of gun ownership and sales.

I agree that the NRA rhetoric is harmful to the interests of the most gun owners.

You and your fellows must become louder than they are, and make clear at every opportunity that you consider them lunatic extremists, and demonstrate they do not speak for you. This latter will require supporting things they oppose, and doing so forcefully.

regardless of whether it makes sense or not. There are gun control proposals I disagree with - positions I came to independently and not through mindless adherence to the NRA. Yet if I was to voice them, you will immediately slap the "Team NRA" tag on me.

Do you view all dissent with your gun control desires as supporting the NRA?

If your views on the matter dove-tail with the swill spouted by 'Team NRA', people will take from this that they speak for you, and you range yourself with them. It is your problem, not mine, and it is up to you to find a way to solve it.

at least in the real world away from DU.

It was a pleasure talking to a gun controller that didn't resort to insults - see you around.

your persistence in trying to fit me into that "team NRA" box you have constructed being a perfect example.

I do not 'try and fit you into that box'; you often with your comments step smack into it for all to see.

It would be quite easy to establish your dissociation from 'Team NRA': all you need to do is denounce their excesses and refrain from echoing their arguments.

I am team NRA?

I have no problem joining "fuck the NRA threads". But you know that it not the issue.

You do not like being lumped in, you say, with "team NRA', but apparently you do not want to change anything about how you conduct yourself, and the arguments you choose to press, even though it is precisely these things which get you lumped in with 'team NRA'. You could, for example, simply acknowledge the fact that states which regulate guns less, and in which rates of gun ownership are higher, have higher rates of death by gun, and move on, rather than trying to twist and spin in a way that obfuscates the matter in the interest of pretending the degree to which guns are present has no relation to the rate at which people are harmed by guns. No member of 'team NRA' would adopt the former course; every member of 'team NRA' adopts the latter course.

you don't want agreement or cooperation - you want capitulation. And you will wield your "team NRA" hammer every time I deviate from your orthodoxy. I can recognize a closed mind when I see it.

You sound like anyone who has a bad habit, knows he ought to give it up, but just cannot bring himself to make the effort to break it....

lets meet in the middle. I will never praise the NRA and will criticize them when they deserve it. You, when faced with disagreement on gun control, will actually discuss it without once mentioning "Team NRA".

We have already agreed on another thread that our positions on gun control overlap to a great extent so lets lower the rhetoric and have actual conversations.

Social stigmatization of the extreme views in the RKBA camp is necessary for political success in achieving a desirable social objective in this matter. People ought to be ashamed to sound like LaPierre and his ilk, in any degree, and that shame ought to alter their behavior, to make it evident that they have no truck with the mentally unbalanced gun fetishists who trade under the NRA label.

If you criticize the NRA when they deserve it ( which is always ), and concentrate on support for regulations you actually do support, I doubt I would have much call to quarrel with you.

and would confirm in the eyes of millions what they suspect: That "liberalism" is as intolerant of others as any other prohibitionist outlook. Your's is a hectoring, moralistic and socially divisive stance.

That you are reduced to denouncing 'liberalism' as intolerant here suggests a number of things, among them that you are not thinking straight....

then act like a small-town unquisitor.

Claiming campaigning against one of the main props of the right-wing in our political life reveals that 'liberalism' is intolerant.

that there will never be widespread stigmatization of guns.

I just doubt that once that it down, there will be that much change.

in fact it was considered adult, sexy, sophisticated.

These days: not so much.

Some studies in fact indicate that "gun culture" is already on its way out. And so, for instance, we have articles such as this:



Gun Ownership And Gun Culture In Decline
OP-EDFebruary 22, 2013|By MARY SANCHEZ | OP-ED, The Hartford Courant

There's a little-known fact about guns in America, and it's one that the firearms industry and its political allies don't like to dwell on: The rate of gun ownership in America is declining.

This has been the case for decades. Rates peaked way back in the 1970s, the era of disco balls and bell bottoms. In 1977, 54 percent of American households reported owning guns. In 2010, the last time the General Social Survey data was compiled, the percentage had shrunk to 32.

The Violence Policy Center follows such data, as analyzed by the National Opinion Research Center. The center's last report was "A Shrinking Minority: The Continuing Decline of Gun Ownership in America."

The trend is expected to continue. It seems counterintuitive, given all the recent headlines about people lining up at gun stores and given the stranglehold the gun lobby has on American politics. It raises all sorts of questions. Who owns guns, who doesn't, and why? For the nation to handle its problems with gun violence effectively, we need to grasp the nitty-gritty realities of gun ownership.

First of all, whatever upticks have been observed in the purchases of guns and ammunition seems to reflect stockpiling by those who were already gun owners. Gun manufacturing increased dramatically between 2007 and 2011, from 3.7 million weapons to 6.1 million being produced. You have to wonder if owning guns, for those who still do, is a bit like buying cellphones. Once you're hooked, only the newest killer version will do, prompting more frequent purchases.

Meanwhile, the declining overall trend in ownership rates is largely explained by the changing demographic composition of America.

Older white men, many of whom grew up with hunting as a part of their lifestyle, are in decline relative to other demographic groups. Younger people are more likely to play soccer than sit in a duck blind or a deer stand.

More and more households are headed by single women, and they are far less likely to have guns than families with a father in the household. So the swelling ranks of single mothers, a topic of much hand-wringing in other regards, may actually help to reduce suicides and accidental gunshot injuries.

But what about all of those news stories of women flocking to shooting ranges, eagerly buying up pink-handled pistols and bedazzled accessories to hold extra clips? The rate of gun ownership among women peaked back in 1982 at about 14 percent. It fluctuates more for women than for other categories of people, but it was just under 10 percent in 2010.

What those news stories about female gun fascination reveal is not so much reality as a gun industry fairy tale. It's marketing. Gun manufacturers, the National Rifle Association, hunting organizations and shooting ranges want to drum up interest in guns that has been slipping away for decades.

It's of a piece with the events known as "zombie shoots," staged target practice encounters designed to lure in younger people who aren't being taken hunting by their parents.

A declining proportion of the American public is getting involved in gun culture — that is, the gun industry's customer base is not growing — and yet business is booming. This should lead us to an alarming conclusion. The marketing of more lethal forms of weaponry and ammunition is how the gun industry has decided to shore up profits. The fierce resistance to bans on assault weapons and large ammo clips, as well as to background checks and any other hurdle put in the way of those who want to arm themselves, is not about defending the Second Amendment. It is about defending a business model — a sick, cynical business model.

***

The same demographics that are working against the GOP would also seem to be working against the gun culture.

Time will tell.

People own guns as a gesture of defiance towards people who do not like, and want to either severely restrict, or outfight ban guns.

In other words, owning guns, especially guns that are seen as "evil" by some people is a great big FUCK YOU toward those people.

Some people are simply not going to be told how to behave, and will resist any effort to do so. This just does not mean guns, it means telling people what they can eat, or drink, or smoke, or what hobbies they can engage in.

And the harder people try to prohibit things, the harder other people are going to push back against those who want engage in Prohibition.

You can lecture, preach, rant and rave, march in the street, wave placards, and that is just going to harden people's attitudes.

And I'm one of those people.

As long as guns are legal, and I can legally own them, and am mentally and physically capable of using them properly and safely, I will do so. If I ever reach the decision to not own guns, it will be solely on my own accord.

I will not be shamed, or guilt-tripped, or embarrassed into not owning guns. Not by anyone.

Hopefully she grows out of it.

As in the word "No", which signals a negative response?

You have my sympathy, and should know that there is help for it.

Your personal suffering, though, is not a sound basis for law and social policy regarding implements of deadly force.

You are diagnosing me by remote. I'm sure you have a Medical Degree to go along with your Law Degree. If not the phrases "Quack" and "Shyster" would seem to fit you rather well.

Do not back water now; you will lose all the respect you have gained....

inquiry, where its terms are used to accuse, not explain. You have found a warm place in the far bleachers.

I could not look at myself in a mirror if I did not take advantage of such an opening left by an opponent....

"Politics ain't bean-bag."

You are a bit late to the field, and present nothing of particular interest.

And this isn't TV, and you aren't one of the Twelve Peers, either.

Some folks on this threat have tried to bully and guilt-trip me over my views on guns, and guess what? It's easy to talk shit behind a keyboard. That's all they can do.

I have no problem with people who have genuine concerns about gun laws; we can have decent conversations about this. But there are hatemongers and bomb-throwers who just want to vent their frustration that the post-Sandy Hook movement hasn't gained the level of support they expected to see.

I have been thinking about making the above post for a long time. I finally decided this was the right time.

Or any other kind of care actually.

Private prisons are not interested in housing violent criminals, those convicted of victimless crimes are far easier to deal with and hence more profitable.

don't be obtuse.

End the war on drugs and non-private prisons will have plenty of room.

Until they find one that zones you out so far you are no longer capable of being a problem.

And the drug war will never end, way too profitable for way too many people on either side of the law.

You sound like an L. Ron Hubbard pamphlet.

What are your experiences with mental health care in the US?

I think the CDC had involved itself into it some years back, citing gun violence as a legitimate public health concern, but their studies were defunded almost as soon as they got started.

http://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-nra-kills-gun-violence-research-2013-1

"In 1996, Republican Rep. Jay Dickey removed $2.6 million from the CDC budget — the precise amount the CDC spent on gun research in 1995 — at a time when the center was conducting more studies into gun-related deaths as a "public health phenomenon," according to The New York Times. The NRA and some pro-gun Congressmen perceived this as more of an attack."

driven with spluttering rage apparently doesn't register on the national threat risk meter and is largely ignored whereas big brother has ruthlessly suppressed left-wing groups peacefully protesting Wall Street fraud and abuse. While these right-wing extremist groups are of little apparent concern, protesting the rulers of the known world is seemingly an impertinence with which big brother will not put.

"gun enthusiast" and the like (see sig line) has either an extreme right-wing bent or an clearly racist one - or both.

you make me smile. as long as you and people like you are out there, I will have no trouble with the general public not liking me or my guns. You'd be appalled at how many people are waiting for me to take shooting once the weekends get nice, first time shooters, male and female are becoming very interested in guns. And from my experience once they see the ease and enjoyment that sport shooting offers, they are hooked for life. I offer them the outdoors, the satisfaction gained by improved skills, the feeling of accomplishment, pride in overcoming fear and bias, the joy of discovering unknown skills. All without any RW political dis info. What do you have to offer? Lets see.. Divisive rhetoric, Classism, regionalist bigotry, mockery, suggestive and pitiful psyche evals, fear, and blatant hypocrisy. Yeah, hearts and minds, you are losing.

You and those like you do more for the NRA than a dozen ads of bikini girls with machine guns, you empower the NRA, not me.
as for your Sig? bless your heart.
Simplicity is the safe refuge of the foolish.

That's a pity. Of course, others will need a bigger one to overcome fear of you.

Where this all ends up does require a modicum of imagination.

I am talking about the fear inexperienced and uneducated people generally have around firearms the first time. Fortunately it diminishes rather quickly.
The pity is you focused on fear, why is that? Are you afraid of me and my guns? I am sorry, truly. But your inability to accept my life and lifestyle puts no onus on me. Mayhap with exposure and education you can work through, there is help. If you ever want to come out of the shadows, and be free of fear, I would love to take you to the range.. you might like it.

It is a sure sign of a fetishist attachment to fire-arms, in which they serve as symbolic enhancements of a weak and timorous personality that fears it is unfit to face the world on terms of equality, let alone superiority in any aspect.

I hope you get credit by using scrabble rules.
You use fear, not me. As stated the more you push fear and silly psuedo-psych, the easier it is for me to educate and expand awareness..
As before I avoid the NRA and its associates in my training.. But again you just trow out tired accusations, and know they are false.
And yes down here... we are winning

Distaste for 'lib'ral book-larnin'' is another tell, you know....

Your little drawlin quote wouldn't be yet another attempt at denigration of a person due to an elitist and regionalist form of paternalistic projection would it?.
We po' Suthners.. we just so durn stoopid we dont git how them guns are dangerous?
Distaste for FALSE ideas of superiority and psuedo-psychology, well you did get that right.
It is truly funny how I outlined each of the angles people would use, and yet you are so bereft of any ideas and actuall knowledge on how to wage this debate you had to fall back on all of them... yup, winning.

I will be quite pleased when this farce of security and safety is behind us and we can move on to actual change.

"They believed nothing they could not prove,and could prove everything they believed."

.. That is cute.. I can do quotes too.

Yeah, take a victory lap over that one.....


(Sarcasm alert)

And your saying West Texas is a place not worth fighting for?

If it had to be a former Texas Gov, why couldn't it be Ma Richards, now that was a cool and smart lady.

Probably because Texas is chock full of right-wing types.

Though born in Odessa, I grew up going between El Paso, and Oceanside Ca El Paso is unlike the majority of Texas, it has been blue for ages, and is as different from Houston, or Dallas as Chicago is. Texas was a solid Dem state for decades, only recently buying in to the BS of the modern Repub party..Demographics are trending it back to blue in about 2 election cycles. So yeah not so chock full of "right-wing types" as many think. But still a very redish purple... for now.

And stop trying to tell the rest of us to lap up that right-wing gun shit, you're just proving my point.

and as always defending a right is not RW, sorry if you cant see that, but hey.
Again your odd animosity to one of my enumerated constitutional rights is leading you to be vulgar, and make accusations. You and all like you are doing a better job than the NRA at protecting my right to have lots of firearms.
So in examining it I think some on the left have finally found a way to get rid of the NRA, my humble thanks, I have been really tearing my hair out trying to find a way. You guys are the best.

Who perpetuate a failed gun control system that results in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries every year in this country.

I find it sad that you seem to care more about your guns than you do about good people being murdered and maimed by guns.

BTW - what do you mean "some on the left" - where are you on the spectrum?

It seems my only "sin" is to be a strong supporter of gun ownership in America. Course that is a biggie nowadays. Though as divisive as the Democratic party has been as of late, no one can pass anyone else's purity tests.

I disagree that there is a monolithic gun culture, and that it is inherently right wing.

You assume I don't care about people dying or being maimed, how would you ever know, you just see an enemy (and a caricature), defending an individual right. You have made no effort to ask my opinion, to see if I had ideas, or if maybe, as an educated and experienced firearms owner I could lend a hand in crafting a dialog that would help save those lives you claim as your own personal domain.

I give $ to the Brady Campaign. I'm sick of the violence. I'm sick of those who apologize for the gun culture that enables the right-wing gun culture that enables the violence. Soon we'll have more guns than people in this country. That is fucking nuts.

And where is your outrage?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022471674

Gotcha.
I do not HAVE to do anything, I shoot and used to teach a concealed carry permit class, completely free of any NRA propaganda or pamphlets. I educate and go shooting with many first timers and allow them to judge for themselves without either sides mis info and dis info.
I actually hunt and shoot with many of these people you call right wing.. the so called red necks around here that have voted D since FDR brought in the TVA, the vehemently class conscious anti corporate, anti big business people, the rural poor that actually need the venison and feral hogs they shoot to live. The guys whose brothers didn't come back from the war.. whether Vietnam or Iraq and Afghanistan. We talk alot actually, we discuss local and state politics. We discuss the difference in Southern and Northern Democrats. AND we talk about the NRA.. yup, I am constantly pointing out that todays NRA is not the same organization that their fathers and grandfathers signed them up for, i talk about the money the NRa funnels in to help pols like Scott Desjarlais, and Marsha Blackburn, how they have gone outside the original ideas of 2A protection and now are shills for the Manufacturers and corporations.
So I don't fight RW gun culture, because for me its a chimera, I do fight ignorance, I do educate and try to convince and persuade..