Boycott the NRA

[BehindBlueI's]

The NRA is selling us out on this "RED FLAG" legislation. They and Lindsey Graham are pushing it. If it goes nationwide the gun grabbers will build on it until they have seized all of our guns and making us all criminals.

Assuming you are in Indiana, you've lived in a "red flag legislation" state for about 14 years since the passage of the Jake Laird law. There are checks and balances on the law, it hasn't been used to "make all of us criminals" and the sky isn't falling.

 

[BugI02]

Well, you guys are welcome to go Washington D.C. and (try to) get meetings with politicians and tell them how you personally will withhold your one vote...


Or the NRA can do it, and do it well.





IMHO, it's fine if the NRA is pragmatic at times. Sometimes there are both rocks and hard places. Choices must be made.


Do I like the ban? No. But, am I going to throw a tantrum and blame the NRA? No.


I'll take a somewhat unpopular stance and say bumpstocks (and stability braces) are gimmicks meant to get around a law. Those items live in the grey area and one shouldn't be surprised when the squiggly NFA line gets moved. Better to work hard to change that law (and pull suppressors off the NFA list), and no one is in a better position than the NRA.




Here's a plausible scenario:
Droves of gun owners leave the NRA over bumpstocks; even though most of those NRA protesters considered them goofy toys right up to the day ban was announced.
Then, a weakened NRA isn't able to fend off the Bloomberg machine and an AWB is enacted.

To paraphrase, "For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to [valuing access at the expense of principle]"

Relevance should not require relativism

 

[BehindBlueI's]

My frustration is that groups like GOA are actually out fighting this stuff in courts... while the NRA (at least appears) more interested in big conventions...

I'd encourage you to research the NRA-ILA. I'd further encourage you to research their record vs that of GOA. I used to be members of both. I get the frustration with the NRA. Especially in the Clinton AWB era I was angry with them and went to only the GOA. These days I'm convinced the NRA is the most effective lobbying group for us out there. YMMV, but I'd strongly urge you to spend an hour looking past the headlines and research it a bit before you decide the NRA isn't advancing gun owners' rights in the courts.

Recent press releases: https://www.nraila.org/articles/20190322/illinois-court-throws-out-deerfield-gun-ban

https://www.nraila.org/articles/201...mont-superior-court-decision-on-magazine-bans

 

[indygunguy]

Assuming you are in Indiana, you've lived in a "red flag legislation" state for about 14 years since the passage of the Jake Laird law. There are checks and balances on the law, it hasn't been used to "make all of us criminals" and the sky isn't falling.

Thanks for posting that. I did not know that.

https://www.in.gov/isp/3484.htm

 

[HoughMade]

...it hasn't been used to "make all of us criminals" and the sky isn't falling.

#1 Not yet.
#2 Yes it is.

I watch the social media gun guy videos and read their poorly designed web pages and facebook posts. 14 years? I see that phase 1, lulling us into complacency, is almost complete.

 

[indygunguy]

I'd encourage you to research the NRA-ILA. I'd further encourage you to research their record vs that of GOA. I used to be members of both. I get the frustration with the NRA. Especially in the Clinton AWB era I was angry with them and went to only the GOA. These days I'm convinced the NRA is the most effective lobbying group for us out there. YMMV, but I'd strongly urge you to spend an hour looking past the headlines and research it a bit before you decide the NRA isn't advancing gun owners' rights in the courts.

Recent press releases: https://www.nraila.org/articles/20190322/illinois-court-throws-out-deerfield-gun-ban

https://www.nraila.org/articles/201...mont-superior-court-decision-on-magazine-bans

Good call. I will do that.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Thanks for posting that. I did not know that.

https://www.in.gov/isp/3484.htm

It's rarely something that makes headlines, because nobody cares when something didn't happen. It's also often used in conjunction with Immediate Detention/Mental Writ orders. Say somebody starts threatening school officials because they say the school is hiding their kids from them (and the kids, if they exist at all, have never been enrolled at that school) and then shows up in the street in front of the school with a firearm. That's a real event, by the way. Do you want an enforcement mechanism to prevent the foreseeable tragedy or do you just shrug and say the law will be abused, let's just let it happen? Which, long term, continues to turn public opinion away from gun owner's rights and keeps gun control in the headlines?

Against truly evil people, sure, probably not much of a deterrent. Neither are laws against Murder, yet we need them. Against the temporarily dangerous, such as the mentally ill person who's no threat once back on medication, the person who's temporarily suicidal/homicidal due to circumstances in their life, that's a different ballgame. A short term intervention, and that's what Laird's Law is, can make a big difference.

 

[JettaKnight]

s... while the NRA (at least appears) more interested in big conventions, Charlie Daniels concerts, and their crappy monthly magazines that give only positive reviews to guns that have been on the market for 2 years (oooh look, Remington is making a double stack 1911!).

To be fair...

The NRA has multiple roles. The NRA-ILA is the wing for politics.

Other parts of the NRA is to promote shooting sports and inform it's members.


The way to the win the war isn't always in the courts, it's in the hearts and minds of the people and getting more folks involved is a good thing.

 

[JettaKnight]

#1 Not yet.
#2 Yes it is.

I watch the social media gun guy videos and read their poorly designed web pages and facebook posts. 14 years? I see that phase 1, lulling us into complacency, is almost complete.

LOL at my desk.

 

[Hawkeye7br]

Well, you guys are welcome to go Washington D.C. and (try to) get meetings with politicians and tell them how you personally will withhold your one vote...


Or the NRA can do it, and do it well.





IMHO, it's fine if the NRA is pragmatic at times. Sometimes there are both rocks and hard places. Choices must be made.


Do I like the ban? No. But, am I going to throw a tantrum and blame the NRA? No.


I'll take a somewhat unpopular stance and say bumpstocks (and stability braces) are gimmicks meant to get around a law. Those items live in the grey area and one shouldn't be surprised when the squiggly NFA line gets moved. Better to work hard to change that law (and pull suppressors off the NFA list), and no one is in a better position than the NRA. End quote.

I agree. Our club banned them years ago when someone shot wildly over the berms. Does anyone in law enforcement actually use bumpstock?

NRA has a lot of functions, and they won't (can't) please everyone all the time.

 

[ziggy]

"Well, you guys are welcome to go Washington D.C. and (try to) get meetings with politicians and tell them how you personally will withhold your one vote..."

As a matter of fact, you probably can get a meeting with your representative, or certainly with his or her legislative assistant, and they will assume that if you go to that much trouble, you probably speak for hundreds of other people (or maybe thousands)
who feel the same way.

 

[MCgrease08]

Sometimes one needs to prioritize their battles in order to win the war. With all due respect, they have done a much better job than I could have alone....or YOU could have alone.

What have you done to help the cause? What are you willing to do?

There is a big difference between picking a battle and surrendering before the battle even starts. The NRA has recently been willing to make concessions unprompted. It's the willingness to cede ground before being asked is what frustrates so many of us.

It goes back to the premise of compromise being that both sides give up ground to get something in return. What expansion or solidification of gun rights has the NRA gained in exchange for supporting the bump stock ban and red flag laws?



I say this as a life member.

All that said, the NRA is still the big dog on the block and the group all the gun haters vilify. They do good work at the state level and do good work to promote youth shooting sports. All in all, they still deserve our support.

 

[two70]

Both this and this seems apropos to this thread.

I'm open to viable solutions to address the problems with the NRA, provided, that those solutions do not harm either the good accomplished by the NRA or our own interests. The best I've heard or been able to come up with is to spread some/more of my 2A donations around to other groups and let the NRA know about it.

 

[KLB]

Why isn't that boggeyman the GOA or JFO (?), or ...

Boogeymen develop because of a reason...

Because they are the best known. They don't have anywhere near the influence the antis attribute to them. I sometimes think that some supporters seem to believe they do though.

I am not really impressed with the political arm. The legal arm seems to be a better job in my mind, along with the SAF.

 

[Ingomike]

Sometimes one needs to prioritize their battles in order to win the war. With all due respect, they have done a much better job than I could have alone....or YOU could have alone.

What have you done to help the cause? What are you willing to do?

It goes back to the premise of compromise being that both sides give up ground to get something in return. What expansion or solidification of gun rights has the NRA gained in exchange for supporting the bump stock ban and red flag laws?

I have posted several times, it was near certain that Congress was going to pass a bad law and Trump short circuited it with the bumpstock reg that I suspect they think the courts will overturn. That got us away from the hyper emotional time we were in when momentum to pass something was strong, that is what we got. As said, sometimes battles must be prioritized...

 

[KLB]

I have posted several times, it was near certain that Congress was going to pass a bad law and Trump short circuited it with the bumpstock reg that I suspect they think the courts will overturn. That got us away from the hyper emotional time we were in when momentum to pass something was strong, that is what we got. As said, sometimes battles must be prioritized...

I would have preferred a bill go through congress and get voted on. The Rs have been horrible about loosening gun laws, but they have held strong against new ones.

If this was just to get things to blow over, why are they going through with it? You really think they went through all of this thinking it will just get overturned by the courts anyway?

Trumps words have shown him to not be a particularly good friend of gun rights.

 

[Expat]

I think the idea was that a law would be forever. A regulation is easier to get changed. I think they also questioned whether a regulation would even be constitutional and might get overturned later.

 

[Trigger Time]

The 2nd amendment is always the right that gets infringed on the most. I do not even support background checks so im probably not going to agree with most other supposedly "reasonable" infringements either.

 

[KLB]

The 2nd amendment is always the right that gets infringed on the most. I do not even support background checks so im probably not going to agree with most other supposedly "reasonable" infringements either.

Very true. Seems they are starting to chip away at others more as well.

 

[Trigger Time]

It's rarely something that makes headlines, because nobody cares when something didn't happen. It's also often used in conjunction with Immediate Detention/Mental Writ orders. Say somebody starts threatening school officials because they say the school is hiding their kids from them (and the kids, if they exist at all, have never been enrolled at that school) and then shows up in the street in front of the school with a firearm. That's a real event, by the way. Do you want an enforcement mechanism to prevent the foreseeable tragedy or do you just shrug and say the law will be abused, let's just let it happen? Which, long term, continues to turn public opinion away from gun owner's rights and keeps gun control in the headlines?

Against truly evil people, sure, probably not much of a deterrent. Neither are laws against Murder, yet we need them. Against the temporarily dangerous, such as the mentally ill person who's no threat once back on medication, the person who's temporarily suicidal/homicidal due to circumstances in their life, that's a different ballgame. A short term intervention, and that's what Laird's Law is, can make a big difference.

If someone threatens someone else (school) with a gun then if they try to advance they should be shot. Save the state some money housing, feeding, and clothing them in jail.
People within the school should have the right to be armed and defend themselves. they have a natural right but government has stripped it from them and turned them into sheep reliant on help that will come too late. Or if even in just 1 case and innocent person is stripped of their rights because of pre-policing (red flag) then it is a wrong and unjust thing and should be done away with. Can you guarentee NO innocent persons will even be temporarily stripped of their rights due to red flag? No, you cannot.
More laws, more laws, more laws. Always the answer of government.. But the real answer is natural rights of self defense and getting less govt not more.
If someone is ****ing crazy then lock them up in a hospital or for intimidation. Or if you cant lock up a legitimate threat then the laws have failed. For as complicated as the law is and as many of them that their are it sure seems like it fails more times than not. That's because we are using government including police for things they were never intended or granted authority for.
Thats not the cops fault, its governments fault and our fault (the people) for allowing it to continue unchecked and failing.