NRA evp on NBC today

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OOOOOPs!!
Double posted thought I had deleted that first post and rewrote it,
well we'll let the moderated decide which one sounds more treachorous.
Jim we might agree on this one if every state in america didnt beleive it was an individual right we could have long ago been imprisoned or sued for such 'illegal' possesion of weapons.
Good thing Clinton didnt want to pass a particualr bill this past year because we all see where the NRA plans to hold their ground...ummm
OK we dont but Im still looking.
JIm would you mind posting the post that shows that the NRA filed a friend of court statement on behalf of the Emerson case for us or send a link.Ive seen it from LEAA,SAF and GOF(GOA) but missed the one from the NRA.


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"those who sacrifice
liberty for security deserve neither"
 
There IS an NRA Emerson brief, I think it was written by Don Kates in whole or in part. I might be wrong on the author...I'll have to dig it up tomorrow. Been busy today - apartment building burned down :(. No joke - I'm in a motel and can't sleep. sigh.

Ponder this: the Calif. Supreme Court just ruled against NRA lawyers fighting the Roberti-Roos "assault weapons" ban. In their judgement, they made their antipathy to a "personal RKBA" flat-out clear - per them, it simply doesn't exist.

So in this state, per both the CA Supremes and the 9th Circuit, there's *no* constitutional barrier to total disarmament any time the legislature can get the votes together.

The only thing preventing Mexico-level gun control passing THIS YEAR is that there's still a strong enough conservative vote around that would backlash against the all-Dem Governor/Assembly/Senate cabal, and vote GOP come November.

That is NO JOKE.

The NRA wants to grab the lower house of the state legislature (the Assembly) for the GOP this year. That way they can prevent an all-Dem gerrymander swinging all future elections to the left, and put up the same "gun control roadblocks" at the state level they've been doing at the fed.

You know, given the alternatives that seems like a damned fine idea to me - PENDING a win with Emerson under a Bush-built Fed Supreme Court.

Then it's our turn.

Seems to me fighting against this is...not smart.

Jim
 
OK, so the bottom line is, the NRA is NOT fighting to win, they're engaged in a strategic retreat, fighting to lose slowly, while waiting for a miracle to save our asses.

The problem being that every compromise they sign onto makes that miracle, that Supreme court ruling, less likely. Because how can we plausibly claim that X, Y, and Z are unconstitutional, when we ourselves have agreed to them?

The other problem is that they haven't ADMITTED to us that that's the strategy. And that obvious disconnect between the NRA's actions and it's rhetoric is fueling a great deal of distrust and anger, as can be seen here.

If that miracle does come sometime before our rights are entirely gone, the NRA will look wise in retrospect. If it DOESN'T, (And 60 years of Supreme court history suggests it won't.) we'll have passed up the oportunity to make a fight of it while we still had a chance. We'll have retreated right into the ocean. (And I can hear the surf not far behind me now!)

This whole strategy of gradual retreat is predicated on the notion that we can't win a frontal confrontation. How can we know that, when we never try? The most powerful weapon the civil rights movement had is something the NRA flatly refuses to resort to under any provokation: Civil disobedience! Would we really have to retreat if the big guns hadn't been spiked by our own leadership?

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Sic semper tyrannis!

[This message has been edited by Brett Bellmore (edited July 27, 2000).]
 
Battler wrote "the NRA would not have much membership if gun rights were not at stake so it's in their best interests for it to continue."

Battler have you also thought that if there were no more guns (banned) there wouldn't be much of a membership either? If there is nothing to protect there aint no money going to protect it.

Ruger, lets cut to the chase, is the NRA Anti-gun?, you seem to see all things black and white why dont you make the call, yes or no.

Coin, quoteing the constitution in not going to repeal any laws, do you actually have faith that any of these politicos have any respect for or any desire to understand "shall not be infringed". I have very little faith in them.

Another thing many of you seem to miss is that it is the politicians that ultimatly cast the votes depriving us of our rights not the NRA. If these men had any sense of right and wrong the NRA wouldn't be needed to try and make them see the light. And since this country has delegate the supreme court as the highest law of the land I think they are the only ones who can swing this country back.

I respect all your views and am atleast as oppressed as any by my state of residence, I don't see how bashing the NRA will solve all the abuses of our rights that have occured so far.

As to civil disobedience and the civil rights movement, there is a difference beteween the two. When you have thousands or millions of people disobeying that are all armed it is termed an uprising or revolution not civil disobedience. And you know that if it were supposed to happen without arms someone would bring some and start something, probably the anti's. Once some shooting started the whole group would be labeled right wing neo nazi skinhead miliatia members controled by the NRA. The public would throw a hissy and that would be the end of everything, by then we would all have to lock n load or lose it right there.



[This message has been edited by oberkommando (edited July 27, 2000).]
 
The NRA's counterpart in Australia, SSAA has its highest membership ever, even though the licencing prohibits pretty much anyone from having more than a single-shot, and all the decent repeating rifles have been confiscated (or buried same thing).

NRA will have 10 million members when the "line" gets shifted back to where it f**ks with hunters. (and it will)

Battler.
 
Oberkommando: Are you perchance under the impression that the civil rights struggle was free from bloodshed???? Even bloodshed perpetrated by law enforcement officers and our military?

Here's an example of why we're losing; For many "Second amendment activists", being "law abiding" is a higher value than defending our constitutional rights, even where the laws in question are illegitimate usurpations of power. While our foes have no scruples at all about violating the law.

What, for example, is to stand in the way of the NRA simply asking it's members to refuse to obey gun registration and confiscation laws in places like Kalifornia? No violence, even implied, no threat, just don't fill out those forms. And dare them to find enough jail space to imprison us all!

Why doesn't the NRA distribute to it's members plans and instructions on how to manufacture guns, to establish that even banning their manufacture wouldn't cut off the supply? Easy enough to do, and protected by the First amendment!

I'll tell you why they won't do that: For the NAACP, winning the civil rights struggle was more important than the survival of the organization. They were accordingly willing to take the risk that the NAACP would be declared a criminal organization, and destroyed by the government; They knew that the struggle would go on anyway, that they were just a tool, not in any way irreplacable.

The NRA won't take that chance, that if they counsel civil disobedience the feds will bring a RICO suit against them and destroy the organization. They think of the organization as irreplacible, and winning the struggle as secondary to that. After all, even if we lose the fight, the NRA will continue to exist as a historical society with a nifty museum. And THAT is why no civil disobedience, THAT is why we've ruled out use of our most powerful weapon. Because they'll pay any price in lost liberties, but the NRA must go on, even if it's in a nation devoid of legal guns!

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Sic semper tyrannis!
 
NRA diehard? I just joined a year ago, and became a lifer a few days ago. I get no money from the NRA, in fact I'm SENDING them quite a few dollars of my own.

ruger45, why do you hate the NRA so much? Are you a member of a competing organization? How can tearing down the NRA be constructive? Every person you convince not to support the NRA is an ally that we lose...

My thinking is support all the pro-RKBA organizations. What's wrong with that?
 
Battler, good point I did not know membership went so high there. But do you think that the nra is trying to get guns banned to increase their membership as SASS did?

Brett I agree that sending out a statement refusing to register would be a good thing but am still uncertain about marching the streets with weapons, maybe if there were enough people do do it it could work but as I stated before some idiot will start shooting at LEO'S and it will hit the fan completely. I will agree with you that there are not many options left. Well you can be happy that I will be one of the first to figure it out as I live in KA, and have seen the rifles vanish from store shelves, I am not unaware of such going ons. See ya.
 
oberkommando:

I have TWO NRA memberships - I am not trying to put them down.

Just that you and I might look at an a/w or handgun ban from a "survival" point of view. The NRA is never fighting for survival - if it loses it grows stronger (even though things get worse).

As someone else said above - they DO have a problem with accepting laws already passed (e.g. A/W ban) as not violating the second, and do seem averse to suggesting the extra-legal, or even the politically incorrect (i.e. how often do you see Heston in an NRA mag with an AR15.)

I don't know. . . .

Battler.
 
They had a problem challenging Fed law because they didn't have precedent to back any such claim.

Look, take the Fed "assault weapon" ban. (please :))

How do you challenge it? You could try directly suing prior to anybody being charged but first, how do you gain standing? And how do you FORCE the court to review it?

If somebody does get charged, they can either plea to a fine (in the case of, say, illegal importation of high-caps) or they can fight and risk 10 years jail. Big risk if there's no solid precedent to work from!

To say that the NRA "supports" existing bans is BS. Mind you, when necessary they'll use the existance of such existing law as "PR bait" in the never-ending verbal war with the grabbers. And wherever possible, they DO fight bad laws tooth and nail, such as the massive fight in Calif. over Roberti-Roos and now SB23.

But to REALLY kick butt, we need precedent. Guess who can give it to us via picking the right Supremes?

A dude name of Bush.

Jim
 
Well, I have read a whole bunch of opinions, all seem to have points to make, I like a lot of what was said on both sides. This, that and so on. They were all good points, but what it comes down to is.
Thier can be no compromise on our rights. (To keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.)

Why can`t we all work together to stop the Socialists from taking away our rights. Article 2, of The Bill of Rights is just the first rights they want to take from us, the rest we, will lose if they defeat us on this one.

Lets stop fighting each other, over the NRA/GOA etc. I am a member of both and will probly continue with both. My thoughts on eather do not matter at this point, give your donations to all or none, but let us work together in the last months to defeat the Socialists Democraps, do you want HelgeS to win? I don`t think so.

You all know what to do,do it.

Yes, I know the debate will continue.

This may seem like a dumb post but it is how I feel.



[This message has been edited by B9mmHP (edited July 28, 2000).]
 
B9, it's not a dumb post.

I've been pondering what should happen when the SCOTUS gets close to either deciding a straight RKBA case, or is about to pick the next year's allotment of cases and there's a good RKBA case in the mix.

Somehow we need to let the SCOTUS know that people CARE, that this isn't the sort of "dead issue" that the 3rd Amendment (no fair housing soldiers in people's homes) is percieved to be.

One answer is a march on Washington. But there's real peril there; a small handful of COINTELPRO types could create total chaos that would be blamed on us.

Another is the single largest letter-writing campaign the US has ever seen, with the GOA, NRA and *every* other group throwing full joint support into the effort. When US postal trucks are lined up at the Supreme Court building with letters measured by the metric ton, we just might get their attention.

Remember, among our most fundamental rights is the "right of petition", to directly ask the Fed gov't for reforms. No court has even hinted at curtailing that right, in war or peace.

That and the right mix of Supremes crafted by the guy that just brought you Dick Cheney and who's daddy put in Clarence Thomas...and we have a chance.

Then we have some fun, in every court in the nation :D.

Jim
 
And another thread tops the 100K mark.

Dang, I need a break!

My locking finger is getting tired. ;)

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RKBA!
"The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security"
Ohio Constitution, Article I, Section 4
Concealed Carry is illegal in Ohio.
Ohioans for Concealed Carry Website
 
Jim; I like the letter writing, it makes since.
I think a march on DC is OK, but we can get more letters, than marchers, I am some what ignorant on how to proceed on this process of letters to our Reps in Congress, but maybe you or some one here can start it. Hell, I can`t even find spell check. But I will help anyway I can.
Let us make this happen.
 
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