Why is the NRA not considered an organization that gives material aid to terrorists?

With respect to another current question in Fluther – which I won’t link to, but only because I’m lazy, not out of any disrespect or disparagement – do you believe that there are more good people in the world than bad?

Most of us, regardless of how some might answer that other question in jest or tongue in cheek, do actually believe that the “good people” in the world far outnumber those who intend harm. (Or, to follow up on a response I put in the thread myself earlier today, “those who ‘intend good’, but employ evil means, or whose ‘good’ is so subjective that only they and other fanatics can agree with them on that judgement.)

The world is full (to overflowing, one might say) with good people. They have a right to defend themselves. That is what the Second Amendment to the US Constitution is about, after all. It’s not about duck or deer hunting. It’s not about target shooting. It’s also not about armies and “organized state militia”, i.e. the National Guard (although it does include those folks). It’s not about competitive shooting, gun collecting, just buying and selling guns, or mounting another revolution.

It’s about people having a natural right to defend themselves through the ownership and use of arms. That happens to mean, because we believe that “most people are on balance ‘good’”, that primarily good people will be exercising that right.

And they should.

What?

Mainly, I would think, because supporting an idea or law, or even, currently, buying politicians, or the election of politicians, is not considered a crime in the USA.

The NRA has done lots of things, but they haven’t given guns away, They are all for the ability to sell them, they are all about profits for gun companies.

I would actually argue that they are all about selling fear of your guns being taken away and promising to help for the low fee of 40 bucks a year.

The NRA has never given or sold guns to anyone. They are an organization that promotes supports the sale ownership of firearms.

The NRA has done lots of things, but they haven’t given guns away, They are all for the ability to sell them, they are all about profits for gun companies.

And stirring up fear to squeeze donations and votes from the impressionable and weak-minded.

Because what you are suggesting is a hairsplitting technicality.

My cars are potentially lethal devices.

However, I have not modified them to be especially deadly.

I have not mounted a meter long sharpened spike to the front. I have not packed the trunk with explosives.

The rifle in question has in all likelihood been modified in order to do the amount of damage it did.

This was the result of an informed and deliberate choice on the part of the terrorist.

Why should they be considered such a thing? Should fertilizer plants fall into that category, or alarm clock and cell phone manufacturers?

@zaku. Federal law prohibits any U.S. citizen, national, or permanent resident from donating cash or other resources to listed foreign terrorist organizations [18 US Code Sec. 2339B]. This provision has a broad scope. Because money is fungible, it’s unlawful for someone to give to the humanitarian branch of a group such as Hamas. Support is also denied to a number of U.S.-based charities with alleged ties to terrorism. A violation is a crime, subject to harsh fines and possible incarceration.

You nailed it right on the head: Money. We are a Capitalist society and making money is what we do. If the NRA was giving the guns away to the bad guys, it would be different.

Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.

@si3tech – so the AR15 was shooting fingernails? Please….

Well, the NRA has certainly “radicalized” plenty of people.

Here’s hoping that common sense will again prevail in the US, and weapons of modern warfare will once again be restricted to…well…war.

I saw a meme today on Facebook which addresses the OP pretty accurately, I think.

The graphic part of the meme isn’t even necessary to refute the question:

“The NRA is the only organization in America that gets blamed for actions that none of its members commit.”

“The NRA is the only organization in America that isn’t held accountabe for actions that all of its members condone.”

NRA, Republicans block proposed law to stop suspected terrorists from buying guns in U.S.

NRA: Obama’s ‘Political Correctness’ Let Orlando Shooting Happen

I believe the number given by the FBI was that 9,000 people are investigated every year in the US for suspected terrorist activities.
And yet, the NRA would have us believe that the right of those 9,000 people to buy firearms supersedes our rights, as Americans, to congregate in communal areas safely.

Don’t let the NRA set policy on guns and mental health
“The NRA bill, though, equates release with health and stability. Forget the doctors, the courts, and the wishes of family members – the NRA bill restores gun rights, and returns a person’s guns, immediately and automatically. That’s regardless of a person’s mental health condition, and regardless of the risks or likelihood of relapse.”

@elbanditotoroso The AR-15 responded to the direct command of the shooter. Gun did not go off automatically.

@CWOTUS That’s it in a nutshell! None of its members are connected to these mass shootings!

@si3tech – without the gun, the shooter would have had nothing to shoot.

@elbanditoroso Those areas/states/communities in this country which have the most strict gun control also have the highest rate of gun violence. When you take away everyone’s guns then only criminals will have guns.

So, just to be clear, @si3tech, you favor deregulation of anything that requires a human operator?
Because it’s easier to regulate humans than it is inanimate objects?

Because that’s what it comes down to. You’re arguing that humans are more predictable and measurable than the tools they make. By that standard, why would we license and regulate, say…dynamite, for example?
Is it not equally true that “Dynamite doesn’t kill people, people do.”

It is the “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” rationale.

Please explain that, @si3tech.

@ibstubro It means throwing the good out with the bad. However in this case it means only throwing out (punishing good people by confiscating their guns) and nothing is said about the criminals. Shouldn’t the idea be to disarm the evil/bad/thugs/crazy people?

You’re the first to bring up confiscation, @si3tech.

The NRA has resisted all, and I mean all common sense attempts to keep semi-automatic guns out of the hands of “the evil/bad/thugs/crazy people”. All in the name of those ” evil/bad/thugs/crazy people” having an inalienable Second Amendment right to bear arms that supersedes the rest of the populations right to assemble peaceably.

You can’t even apply your own platitude to your own cause. Frankly, your participation is appearing very ignorant in the strictest sense of the word.
The very discussion is about the NRA opposing all efforts to keep guns intended for warfare out of the hands of terrorist criminals.

Ahh, technology…

There’s no way I’m going to take the FBI’s word over Tim Cook’s on matters of personal cyber security.

Why on earth would I trust the State over the NRA on matters of personal firearm ownership?

How has the NRA resisted the states’ attempts to keep firearms out of the hands of, say, convicted felons, @ibstubro? After all, you were the one who said that they resist all common-sense attempts to keep … guns [not solely semi-automatics] out of the hands of “the evil/bad/thugs/crazy people.”?

Can I get you to admit that your sweeping statement has been falsified, and then move on to a more specific rant? Because the next part of my question is: “Aside from a criminal conviction of a crime or a court hearing to formally declare a person insane, how do you even identify “the evil/bad/thugs/crazy people.”? I’m just hoping you have something better up your sleeve than “the no-fly list”, a secret list, frequently mismanaged, from which there is almost no appeal, and which cannot be known to those who are on it until they run up against it and are refused permission to travel. No, that can’t be how you plan to manage a fundamental right in a democratic republic, is it?

We haven’t even gotten to the question of “How do you keep guns out of the hands of those who will not follow laws in the first place?” That is, the very people who are determined to be “the evil/bad/thugs/crazy people.”

Almost as if the NY Times was in Fluther and read what I wrote in the question:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/16/opinion/the-nras-complicity-in-terrorism.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0

The New York Times.

Now THERE’s some bias free credibility.

Interesting that your avatar can be read as saying “No Rights.”

Fuck it.
Just apply the tobacco laws to firearms, and I’m good.

Those areas/states/communities in this country which have the most strict gun control also have the highest rate of gun violence

That’s a meaningless claim without data. Prove it.

List the areas with high and low rates of gun violence, and detail how strict their gun laws are.

We haven’t even gotten to the question of “How do you keep guns out of the hands of those who will not follow laws in the first place?” That is, the very people who are determined to be “the evil/bad/thugs/crazy people.”

That’s arguing from the false premise that legal gun owners don’t commit crimes. Not an honest argument.

None of its members are connected to these mass shootings!

Another bogus argument. Nobody is saying the NRA problem is that members are committing all the crimes. The actual membership is small. But its influence is huge.

The NRA works very hard to pump up fear and paranoia among its audience.\

I get the NRA emails, and they are works of dystopian fiction, describing a world where gun owners are an oppressed minority, heroes protecting America from the evil, evil liberal gun grabbers and the “urban” thugs hiding behind every corner.

The NRA keeps a few million impressionable people stirred up and there’s always a steady stream of violence coming from the edges of that group.

Thanks to this thread.

I just got a robo-call from the NRA wanting me to call my legislators and tell them what I think. I’ve never called a lawmaker before.

I called and told them they were welcome to come over and take the guns out of my house – welcome to them if it would save a life. “I come from a family of gun collectors and lifelong NRA members, and I support any and all gun control you care to enact.”

@ibstubro Surely I did not deserve that hateful rant!

If I had posted a hateful rant, @si3tech, it would be removed by moderation.

I was actually quite restrained, compared to how I actually feel. I’m totally fed up with well reasoned discussion about meaningful gun control being met with meaningless platitudes, such as “You’re throwing the baby out with the bath water.”

As in:
“Because it’s easier to regulate humans than it is inanimate objects? You’re arguing that humans are more predictable and measurable than the tools they make.”
“It is the “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” rationale.”

If I had posted a hateful rant, @si3tech, it would be removed by moderation.

I had a response removed.

It was very hateful towards ignorance and dishonesty.

I am neither dishonest nor ignorant.

“Hateful” will get you – rightfully – moderated every time, @Call_Me_Jay

Did someone call you dishonest or ignorant, @si3tech?

@si3tech How’s that list of areas with their gun laws and gun violence rates coming along?

@ibstubro I called some claims and ideas dishonest and ignorant.

I tried to concentrate on ideas, not the people, but I guess I stepped over the line.

Water under the bridge. I don’t mind being edited.

It’s interesting that we are scolded to not blame all Muslims for the actions of a few of them, but we are encouraged to blame all gun owners for the actions of a few of them.

Interesting, @josie, that one candidate of a major political party is calling for a total ban on Muslim travel, monitoring of Muslim American citizens and killing the families of terrorists in retribution, and I don’t know a single credible politician on the national that’s calling banning guns.

Are you thinking that someone needs to be saying that we a total ban on all guns and we should start killing the families of people responsible for gun violence?
I can’t support that. I’m not my brother’s keeper. And he’s got more guns than Mother Hubbard has kids.

@josie No one wants to ”...blame all gun owners for the actions of a few of them;,

We want to blame assault weapon advocates that have blocked any attempt to control the sale and distribution of assault weapons.

@zenvelo Assault weapons are not allowed for sale or ownership in the USA. People who get their information from the media are still ignorant. People love to talk about the AR-15. It is not an assault weapon. It is not an automatic weapon. It is not an assault rifle. It is a semi-automatic rifle that is the number one sold for sport and hunting. It is used in shooting competitions. It is not the most powerful rifle sold in the USA but since politicians in the 80s coined the term ‘assault rifle’ in an effort to pass gun control legislation, the media has been pounding it into Americans’ brains. It is purely false. The AR in AR-15 stands for the manufacturer who first made the gun in the 50s…................not assault rifle. The Stanford law review talked about this but I don’t remember exactly when it was. Shouldn’t be too hard to find.

@MollyMcGuire You are quibbling over semantics about the weapon of choice of mass murderers. Meanwhile, PEOPLE DIE because you think it is okay to have unrestricted sales of AR-15s.

I think that you miss the point worse, @zenvelo. Let’s look at something aside from weapons for the moment. Let’s talk about drugs.

Recreational drugs – specifically narcotics – have been outlawed and use of and traffic in them prosecuted for decades all around the world. Yet people still get high. People die from overdoses, from adulterated drugs, and even from the herbicides used to attempt to stop the growth of the plants from which drugs are derived. Gangs become rich from the illicit trade, and police, prosecutors and court systems become corrupt. Whole nations have fallen because of corrupt drug kingpins who control the judiciary, the police and the military with their manipulation and machinations – and wholesale murder and extortion. Billions of dollars changes hand annually in the US alone – maybe trillions around the world – on products that nearly every government has outlawed, and which are still prosecuted “vigorously”. (I use the scare-quotes because we don’t really know how much prosecution is honest, by those who work to limit the effect and scope of drug trafficking, and how much is “limiting competition”.)

Mankind has been making weapons for the length of its time on Earth. It’s one of the defining attributes of our species. You can, of course, attempt to enforce another Prohibition. If we haven’t learned from our earlier attempts to enforce prohibition of alcohol (which we seemed to learn fairly soon, though at huge cost) and now drugs (which still astonishes me – that we haven’t learned the lessons of the past century?), then perhaps we never will.

If you think Drug Prohibition is deadly, you should see what will happen if Weapons Prohibition is attempted.

But it seems to me that a more liberal, open and honest marketing of weapons, as well as standardized treatment of the hardware and handling policies (like automotive laws, for an example, where drivers from coast to coast can navigate and operate deadly vehicles with relative assurance that the rules are “pretty much” the same on all roads) – and strong enforcement reserved for violations of common norms – would go a long way to continuing to make us a more peaceful society.

As it is, “gun-free zones” are killing fields, and those who would like to be ruled by and follow coherent, understandable and rational laws are the only ones who could make things better by being armed, but don’t because laws are made – and enforced – mainly against the law-abiding.

@CWOTUS You start by equating drugs with guns. That is a classic “apples and oranges” comparison. Unless you are saying pro gun people are addicted to weapons.

Why is everyone so fascinated by having a weapon in their hands that they ignore the actual data? Australia has not had a mass shooting since strict gun control was put in place. And no one is smuggling guns to Australia!

A single political death in Great Britain has everyone saying “gun control doesn’t work”. But the number of shooting deaths in the UK is minuscule compared to the U.S., and yet it started to rise when the UK relaxed some gun laws.

I’m not actually equating drugs with guns; I’m using drug (and alcohol) prohibition to illustrate some points about prohibition itself.

The point to be made about gun murders in Australia or Scotland and other parts of Great Britain is more one of culture than “gun murder”. Guns are not part of the “common folks” culture in Great Britain that they are in the USA. Shooting sports in the UK have generally, historically, been enjoyed only by the upper classes.

Or compare Switzerland. Why do gun prohibitionists never remark about the fact that Swiss law requires adult males to have weapons and to have a certain proficiency with them? Yet the Swiss are one of the most crime-free nations on Earth? (Somewhat more peaceful than the USA, in fact, which is also “relatively” peaceful, or at least non-violent – despite the headlines.)

Although people often think of the UK as peaceful, because they don’t seem to have the gun homicide numbers / rates that the US has, the society in general is actually more violent than the USA. That’s partly because criminals have a very strong reliance upon the fact that their victims will not be armed with lethal weapons. (Also, it is exceedingly difficult to compare US and UK murder rates, because “murder” as a crime disposition in the UK is not assigned until after a criminal conviction resolves the issue. And homicide as a crime is just as difficult to solve – and prove – in the UK as it is in the US. So if there are an equal rate of “killings”, but if suspects are charged at the same rate as in the US, and let’s say that the conviction rate is also comparable to US conviction rates, then the UK “homicide rate” would be reported as much lower than it would be in the USA. But don’t take my word for it, you could look it up. It’s hard to make apples-to-apples comparisons across different cultures and different legal systems.)

@zenvelo You bet I do. It isn’t even the most powerful sports rifle out there. Anyone who thinks telling me I can’t buy one is going to have any effect on mass killings is operating on fumes.