Universal Background Check and Universal Gun Registration-Breitbart

[LeverGunFan]

Where I got the membership numbers
https://www.thetrace.org/2018/09/nra-membership-dues-decline-2017/

The linked article makes some assumptions about membership, but it does not actually have any reliable data on the number of NRA members. Typically when the NRA raises membership dues, it offers a multi year plan to lock in the old dues before the price increase. So it's conceivable that some members took advantage of those plans in 2016 and did not need to renew in 2017. Year to year changes in revenue from dues would only be an accurate measure of membership if every member paid dues yearly, and there were no multi year or lifetime plans. Concluding anything about NRA membership from that linked article is questionable at best.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

USNRet93 has a good grip on the issues. A shrinking total demographic is not going to be countered by increased membership from a shrinking pool.

Here's one take: https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...troduced-bold-gun-control-legislation/581191/

The gun world has to come up with a message suitable for our current times of why gun ownership is a positive benefit to counter the readily available images of the negative side of gun usage.

Most of the current gun organization arguments that are usually posted work for those already committed to the cause to send a check. They have little power outside their defined marketing slice.

Other demographics might be amenable to the human rights message for gun rights but the welding of gun rights by the NRA (for instance) to conservatism as a necessary condition, precludes that appeal.

 

[zukiphile]

Maybe a skewed vision of what's going on, from gun forums. Lots of the 'sky is falling' type posts. A very cursory trip thru just the titles of this section and it seems like the 'gun grabbers' are on the doorstep. 9 of the first 12 subjects/threads concern the possible losing of gun rights.

It is always possible is ways both large and small, and there are surely people who have that goal. That doesn't mean they are prevailing.

What's a better description [than tyrant] for people who seek to extend federal power over individual rights in a manner contrary to constitutional text?

Poor choice, I guess..not a fan of being called a 'libetard'. But I wouldn't use 'tyrant' or 'traitor' to describe anybody in Government(but very common descriptor). Too quick to label and pigeon whole..IMHO, which just makes the 'otherside' angry and loud.

Your complaint was about NRA messaging. Are they calling you a Libetard or traitor?

Tyranny is a word that describes unfair and arbitrary exercise of government power. Is it apt in describing those who would disregard your most basic civil rights?

The idea that the NRA welded conservation of 2d Am. rights to conservatism gives them too much credit. The re-alignment on this and other issues over the past several decades has been forced by rejection of and intolerance for positions that were considered moderate and ordinary even in the democrat party not too long ago.

If one end of the American political spectrum is conspicuously opposed to the limitation of constitutional text, it isn't a matter of textualists welding a political message to their 2d Am position. It's a natural congruence.

 

[rickyrick]

Governments have always gone tyrannical, it’s the natural course for those that govern to take. There’s tyranny very much still alive around the world today.
Even our own United States government has killed millions of civilians around the globe and even within our own borders. The only thing that has SLOWED the United States government from turning tyrannical has been the now antiquated document we know as the constitution and the bill of rights. The bill of rights has been eroded over time for “our safety”; many cases merely to protect us from ourselves, supposedly.

The constitution is decaying at an ever increasing rate. There’s no one really standing up for it any more. The real patriots have died off... they should really just eliminate the Oath of Office all together, it’s meaningless in this age. Anyone who tries to sound the alarm or speaks of patriotism is considered to be a fringe hack. Everyone else is scared.
If you want gun control, now is the time. No one will give it any real opposition or strike down any laws that come from it. We could save some tax money and chop them all up ourselves, that’s what we are doing here anyway.

 

[zukiphile]

The constitution is decaying at an ever increasing rate.

I would never deny that there is cause for concern; whether there is cause for panic or dispair is open to greater dispute.

I dislike straightline projections both because where one begins to draw the straight line will influence the direction one sees, but also because such a projection will be right just up until it isn't.

Within the larger trend of increasing federal power since the early 19th century, we've seen spasms of great increase in the power, but we've also seen the exercise of that power recede in spots. The National Recovery Act in the 1930s was a mind bendingly exhaustive price control scheme. Prior to the de-regulation of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the FAA regulated what condiments an airline could serve on a sandwich. I don't think anyone in the mid 1970s would have suggested that state licensed concealed carry would become common. Lots of people did work that disturbed the straightline trends of the period.

Vigilance is a virtue. Resigning oneself to loss may not be.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

But, let's be clear..the 'pro gun' group is losing the messaging 'war'..like politics in general, the middle, 'un affiliated', gun owners and enthusiasts but who see that 'something's gotta be done', left leaners...is the largest group, by far. Calling them names, like 'tyrants', doesn't help.

Are we losing the messaging war or is the message being directed at media you don’t use and therefore don’t notice. For all this talk about “winning the messaging war”, the future of RKBA doesn’t read the NYT, Bloomberg, or even watch a lot of news. I see more people getting interested in guns via Call of Duty or Red Dead Redemption these days. News comes through various online news aggregators or streaming apps like Twitter.

And pointing to the drop in NRA revenues as it sold out on bump stocks and red flag laws doesn’t necessarily equate to losing the messaging wars, though it once again demonstrates the futility of the common ground argument.

As for the middle/unaffiliated, you make the classic error of thinking those people matter in politics. At best they might swing a close election if you can briefly herd enough cats in the same direction. In general, people in the middle don’t care about your issue enough to do something about it - even something as minor as voting. So unless you box your issue with something they do care about AND give them a shove in the right direction, they’re useless.

People who are true believers will show up. They’ll donate money. They’ll walk the precincts and talk you up in their community organizations. There are 100 organizations that can outspend the NRA. The NRA is feared because it has a giant, nationwide network of true believers.

To use an analogy, if one side shows up with a thousand troops and 900 of them are mainly concerned with resolving the battle peacefully and without harm, and the other side shows up resolved to carry a thousand heads back on pikes, who wins?

 

[rickyrick]

Concealed carry licenses do seem to give us more freedom. But carry of firearms is not a right that government possesses to grant. By accepting the permission from the government, you have capitulated that right the government. Most of us have paid fees to the government to exercise such “right”. Do you have to pay $50- $200 dollars to pray, to speak, to vote. We are paying to avoid getting arrested for some permission the government doesn’t have the authority to grant. Somehow all of this is going to keep me from committing an unknown crime at an unknown place at some future date in circumstances we don’t know yet?
Somehow we can peer into everyone’s minds and see the future, by looking at the past.
Sure, someone that commits serious crimes repeatedly will probably commit more crimes... that just means that the previous punishment wasn’t effective.
But me, who’s never committed a crime has to hope I don’t accidentally cross some internal border with an inanimate object, or one too many bullets in a magazine.... or the wrong magazine.

 

[zukiphile]

Concealed carry licenses do seem to give us more freedom. But carry of firearms is not a right that government possesses to grant. By accepting the permission from the government, you have capitulated that right the government.

I concur in your first and second sentence, but believe you are mistaken in the third.

Conceptually, you are correct; letting someone hand you a license is inconsistent with asserting that you can perform the licensed activity as a right. The wrinkle is that political action isn't logically consistent over time. Accepting a relatively restrictive license today doesn't actually keep you from asserting greater rights later. To the degree that you and many others carry without the gutters flowing with blood, normal people become more used to the idea.

I don't see conceptual and logical vigor as the necessary enemy incremental improvement; without that vigor, one doesn't know what he is incrementally moving toward.

 

[JN01]

Where I got the membership numbers
https://www.thetrace.org/2018/09/nra-membership-dues-decline-2017/


I guess I'm in the 'there must be something that can be done, some common ground', camp..maybe(probably) being pollyanna about it considering the political climate of today.

But, let's be clear..the 'pro gun' group is losing the messaging 'war'..like politics in general, the middle, 'un affiliated', gun owners and enthusiasts but who see that 'something's gotta be done', left leaners...is the largest group, by far. Calling them names, like 'tyrants', doesn't help.

You do know that The Trace is funded by Michael Bloomberg's Everytown For Gun Safety, right?

 

[44 AMP]

Maybe a skewed vision of what's going on, from gun forums. Lots of the 'sky is falling' type posts. A very cursory trip thru just the titles of this section and it seems like the 'gun grabbers' are on the doorstep. 9 of the first 12 subjects/threads concern the possible losing of gun rights.

Perhaps you're right. Or perhaps its just a sign of the times that no one pays attention UNLESS they think the sky is falling...

No one was paying attention at all in 1934, and we got the NFA.

Not enough people were paying attention in 1968 and we got the GCA.

Some who paid attention worked hard to correct some of the traps in the GCA 68, and wound up having to accept the end of adding machineguns to the legal civilian registry in order to get protections in other areas.

Too many people were paying attention to the WRONG things in 94, but at least enough were paying attention to the right things that there was a sunset provision.

So, ok, it does sound all gloom and doom sometimes, and I do admit the NRA constant tirades about losing all if we don't act (and give them money) get tiresome, but most of us basically tune it out. ON the other hand, with (some) on the other side constantly screaming how we're all murderers or want to be because we own guns or belong to the NRA there is an ironic degree of balance from time to time.

Are we losing the "message war"? why not. We're horrendously outnumbered by both the "news" media AND the popular entertainment industry. We get movies and shows with people shooting people 24/7 for fun or profit. And, instead of maybe seeing a movie once a week, this is in our homes 24/7. Doubt the effectiveness of "training videos??" We're living in one, and we don't get to write the script...

 

[cannonfire]

UBC w/o registration for Suppressors no longer being NFA.... that's the only deal I would take.

 

[USNRet93]

It is always possible is ways both large and small, and there are surely people who have that goal. That doesn't mean they are prevailing.



Your complaint was about NRA messaging. Are they calling you a Libetard or traitor?

Tyranny is a word that describes unfair and arbitrary exercise of government power. Is it apt in describing those who would disregard your most basic civil rights?

The idea that the NRA welded conservation of 2d Am. rights to conservatism gives them too much credit. The re-alignment on this and other issues over the past several decades has been forced by rejection of and intolerance for positions that were considered moderate and ordinary even in the democrat party not too long ago.

If one end of the American political spectrum is conspicuously opposed to the limitation of constitutional text, it isn't a matter of textualists welding a political message to their 2d Am position. It's a natural congruence.

On another gun forum I was talking about 'messaging', the NRA's message and was told in no uncertain terms that I should be shot as a traitor..

That's a matter on interpretation...some will see it as tyranny, others will see it 'for the common good'.

I go back to what I said before and what Glenn mentioned..the largest 'segment' in these political discussions are the 'unaffiliated middle'..the far right already despises and far left and vice versa. I think the discussion should be aimed at making the pie bigger..not reinforcing the views of each extreme, which won't change anyway. Make the tent bigger..

BUT calling 'the other side' names, helps nothing...

 

[rickyrick]

On another gun forum...

Was it the FAL files? Because-

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy

 

[USNRet93]

You do know that The Trace is funded by Michael Bloomberg's Everytown For Gun Safety, right?

Nope, didn't know that but....
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/09/nra-in-the-red-for-2nd-straight-year/

The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) is a non-profit, nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C., that tracks the effects of money and lobbying on elections and public policy.[3] It maintains a public online database of its information.[4]

Its website, OpenSecrets.org, allows users to track federal campaign contributions and lobbying by lobbying firms, individual lobbyists, industry, federal agency, and bills. Other resources include the personal financial disclosures of all members of the U.S. Congress, the president, and top members of the administration.

CRP was founded in 1983 by retired U.S. Senators Frank Church of Idaho, of the Democratic Party, and Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, of the Republican Party.

 

[USNRet93]

So, ok, it does sound all gloom and doom sometimes, and I do admit the NRA constant tirades about losing all if we don't act (and give them money) get tiresome, but most of us basically tune it out. ON the other hand, with (some) on the other side constantly screaming how we're all murderers or want to be because we own guns or belong to the NRA there is an ironic degree of balance from time to time.

Those of us in the 'middle', who own guns, really enjoy the leisure time activity of guns but 'lean left', tune the above bolded stuff out also. About somebody screaming at me that I'm a murderer. Most in my circle don't even know I own a gun let alone have a CCW..

I think another large part of the 'message' is the constant reference to CCW, confronting the bad guy, being prepared..Rather that emphasizing the enjoyment of owning, shooting..just not the always, 'be prepared when ya gotta shoot at people', part.

YES, it's important to be prepared, trained, knowledgeable of your 'tool', how to use it but even tho that's the most extreme and most unlikely use for a firearm, That's the one thing that gets emphasized the most..to include EDC a gun that may be hard to carry, hard to shoot. That's the one thing the 'gun grabbers' see all over youtube and any pro gun website or publication. Emphasis on addressing threats and violence rather the fun of shooting.

 

[USNRet93]

Was it the FAL files? Because-

NO..PM me if you wish to know the forum and topic.

Part of his comments

Either that or you are simply an evil person.

Either way, your views are despicable and destructive.

Please go away.

Non unlike this discussion but FL way more 'civilized, IMHO.

 

[zukiphile]

On another gun forum I was talking about 'messaging', the NRA's message and was told in no uncertain terms that I should be shot as a traitor.

So it wasn't the NRA's message that you are a traitor.

Tyranny is a word that describes unfair and arbitrary exercise of government power. Is it apt in describing those who would disregard your most basic civil rights?

That's a matter on interpretation...some will see it as tyranny, others will see it 'for the common good'.

Those who think unfair and arbitrary exercise of government power are justifiable through an appeal to the "common good" are precisely the people against whom the BOR ideally protects.

That proponents of tyranny, grand or petty, think their efforts are for the good doesn't shed them of tyrannical character, right?

I go back to what I said before and what Glenn mentioned..the largest 'segment' in these political discussions are the 'unaffiliated middle'..the far right already despises and far left and vice versa. I think the discussion should be aimed at making the pie bigger..not reinforcing the views of each extreme, which won't change anyway. Make the tent bigger.

People who think that individuals maintain rights against the state aren't extremists. To see two sides to an issue and flee to a putative mid-point is so weak, such a false moderation, that few could actually believe it. See Bart Roberts analogy a few posts up.

BUT calling 'the other side' names, helps nothing...

Assessing and drawing conclusions about the abridgement of civil rights serves the clarity that is necessary to contemplate and reach reasoned conclusions about the issue itself, rather than the search for others to whom one might acquiesce on the way to complete defeat.

The beauty school of advocacy involves guessing what the bulk of the uninterested, dull and unreflective already think, then pretending you agree with them. There is no energy to it, and people can't really follow it because there isn't anything substantial to it.

 

[rickyrick]

I won’t call names. I even understand the desire to have some effective measures towards gun safety. I just don’t think that any of the measures would have any appreciable effect. The only true way UBCs would work is 100% registration. 100% registration would require the military and law enforcement to scour every square inch of the United States and 100% seal off of the border.
How can the government know if a gun has changed hands if the government doesn’t know where every gun is? I mean everyone is going to have every part of thier property ransacked by government officials.
The states that have enacted their own UBC laws have turned right around and started banning types of guns and increasing the age to buy rifles.
Most politicians have abandoned the “no one is taking your guns” line of just a few years ago and have starting admitting to wanting to take the guns.
Nothing good has followed UBCs. They should just rip the bandage off and ban the guns, save us the middle nonsense.
As a child I could have possessed a magazine. As an adult a magazine could land me in legal hot water some places in my own country.

 

[44 AMP]

The only true way UBCs would work is 100% registration. 100% registration would require the military and law enforcement to scour every square inch of the United States and 100% seal off of the border.

This is not true, and we have discussed this before. It is, however true that every UBC plan we are being offered would not work without registration.

How can the government know if a gun has changed hands if the government doesn’t know where every gun is? I mean everyone is going to have every part of thier property ransacked by government officials.

Again, the difference between the raw concept and the package they are feeding us. Why does the govt need to know if a gun has changed hands? It Doesn't. The base concept of the UBC is to check the "hands" a gun is going into. The PERSON receiving the gun. NOT what gun, not being able to prove or track that a specific gun had the check run when it was transferred.

There is no need to know what person has what gun. Only that the person getting a gun gets checked. All the rest of the crap in what we are offered is not required to carry out the core idea of checking PEOPLE to see if they are prohibited. Its not needed. It is in there only because the sponsors of the bills WANT IT THERE, and they don't want it there because it is needed to perform background checks, they want it there because it is needed to set up registrations and provide a foundation for future regulation and confiscation efforts.

The states that have enacted their own UBC laws have turned right around and started banning types of guns and increasing the age to buy rifles.

Yes, they have. But they have done it with separate laws, not connected to the background check laws, other than by being promoted and supported by the same people.

Democracy is both the boon and the bane of our system. ALL well and good, until the mass of people, believing the propaganda they have been fed (on any issue) votes to do away with your rights. 3 Wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner is democracy, too.

Might that have been a reason the founders established a republic, NOT a democracy?

 

[davidsog]

Democracy is both the boon and the bane of our system. ALL well and good, until the mass of people, believing the propaganda they have been fed (on any issue) votes to do away with your rights. 3 Wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner is democracy, too.

Absolutely right.

Might that have been a reason the founders established a republic, NOT a democracy?

We have both a Republic and a Democracy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...mocracy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.671653eaaeed

Off topic though

But, let's be clear..the 'pro gun' group is losing the messaging 'war'.

Absolutely. We need to alter our message to appeal to a new generation. One that did not grow up hunting or shooting but rather grew up in Starbucks texting their friends on Snapchat while being told by every authority figure how great they are....

A gun is something seen in the movies killing people to solve some protagonist problems by them.

If we do not reach them, then our rights will be eroded away to meet their perceptions.

Finding that connection is a strategic goal that must happen.

That does not take away from the tactical goal of defeating attempts to erode those rights today.