Does anyone think its possible to politically separate the NRA from gun policy?

[Stinky The Clown]

I was shocked to hear, just today on the radio, that funding for gun safety research by the Centers for Disease Control has been cut by NINETY SIX PERCENT since a mid 1990s agreement between the NRA and the Clinton administration.

Everywhere one turns when one looks into gun safety, gun proliferation, increasing gun deregulation, there is the NRA.

They are no more about sporting firearms use than the DoD is about competitive ballroom dancing.

Kudos to Biden for working more seriously on gun issues than anyone I can recall ever doing before. I am grateful for that. I understand that it is pretty much required that a talk with the NRA has to be on his agenda, too.

And *that* is what I'm wondering about. Can we find a way to keep them away from the table?

I don't think Obama can do it. I don't think any one person can do it. But I do think if there was a concerted effort by everyone who is anyone and who is in favor of common sense gun laws to discredit the NRA, we'd be far better off.

Ditto, by the way, for the National Sport Shooting Association, the NRA's silent but equally influential, equally monied, lobbying group.

Yeah, I know. A pipe dream.

By the way, I'd really like that CDC funding to be restored.

[Buzz Clik]

1. They are a lobbying organization. Nothing else.

They will always be there.

They did not always used to be that way, but no question about it now.

[rhett o rick]

2. We are not doing what is needed to solve the problem of gun-need.

Like drugs, just arresting those that partake isnt going to solve the problem. As a society we need to find out why so many of us need to turn to drug (or guns) and fix that.

[thucythucy]

8. Are you saying gun ownership

is an addiction? That it is a physiological dependence caused by chemical changes in the brain, induced once the user has imbibed enough times to develop such a dependence? That taking guns away from people will induce withdrawal symptoms that will have to be controlled through medication and therapy?

If that's the case, maybe we can come up with something like a methadone program. Instead of lethal firearms, perhaps we can get gun owners to turn in their guns for something less lethal, like, say, a security blanket?

My point is that the guns = drugs analogy is spurious, and is generally intended to demonstrate the supposed impossibility of controlling guns.

We live in a violent, fucked up society, but I don't see it as any more violent or fucked up than, say, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Australia... We DO have a much higher rate of gun violence and gun deaths--because we have more guns.

Let's work on reducing the immediate availability of guns, while at the same time examining the demented souls and twisted emotional needs of gun owners, as per your suggestion.

The one approach shouldn't preclude the other.

[rhett o rick]

13. I absolutely agree we need to reduce the number of guns. But the problem is that we

have a great number of our citizens that think they need a gun. Why is that?

[thucythucy]

14. In general, I would say the perceived need arises

from several sources:

1. Changes in society that make many uncomfortable, leaving them with a feeling that they're not in contol of their lives. These would include demographic changes (percentage of white men going down, percentage of most everybody else going up); social changes (rising acceptance of GLBTs and gay marriage, among other things); economic changes (outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, the gutting of pensions and benefits); changes in race relations, epitomized for some by the election of the nation's first African American president:

2. Various fears and apprehensions which have been stoked for decades now by a billion dollar gun industry and its lackeys at the NRA, and right wing media outlets such as Fox News. Much like the tobacco industry paid huge dollars for advertising and product placement, and employed a veritable army of PR flacks and lobbyists to both promote their product and stymie attempts to regulate it, the gun lobby, through advertising and other marketing techniques, and through the clever manipulation of the above factors in item #1, and through the use of strategic lobbying, has both created a perceived need for their product, and prevented anything approaching a sensible public policy to minimize the attendant social damage. In addition, we have innumerable TV shows and movies that portray America as a crime ridden dystopia, where criminals are given free reign by "liberal judges" and the like--many people see these programs ("Law and Order" "Criminal Minds" and such) as being factually accurate, as opposed to being what they are--that is, fiction; and

3. A long history in this culture of using and portraying violence as the ultimate cure for all problems foreign and domestic. This third factor however is in no way unique to American culture (though it is perhaps stressed more than in most). But obviously any solution to violence in general will have to include both an examination of and amelioration of our culture of violence.

The above is just off the top of my head, but it's my sense of where much of this horror comes from. It is no doubt superficial, and I'm sure there are other factors that could be added, but it's a start.

Best wishes.

[rhett o rick]

16. My point is that taking away guns is only treating a symptom. We need to fix the cause.

Doesnt mean I dont also want to take away guns.

[thucythucy]

17. Well, I think guns are both a symptom

and a root cause. Their possession can foster both a false sense of security, and an increased risk for violence.

But it seems fundamentally we agree. I would say rational gun control is one issue we have to address, perhaps the easiest to address, but we definitely need to address these other areas as well.

[Hoyt]

3. NRA leadership includes Norquist, Bolton, Ollie North, Nugent, gun profiteers, etc.

They own many in Congress over more than just guns.

[1-Old-Man]

4. No, you can't keep them or any other constituents from the table

They have just as much right to access to their elected representatives as anyone including you and me.

[GreenStormCloud]

5. There are alternatives to the NRA.

Here is a list of national gun organizations:

Second Amendment Foundation
Gun Owners of America (“The only no compromise gun lobby in Washington” That’s what they call themselves.)
Gun Owner’s Action League
Second Amendment Police Department (Cops who are pro-RKBA)
National Association of Gun Rights
Students for Concealed Carry
Students for Second Amendment
Constitutional Rights Enforcement & Support Team
Second Amendment Sisters
Pink Pistols (Armed gays don’t get bashed.)
Armed Females of America (They want to repeal ALL gun laws including NFA 1934)
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (They are a “never again” group)
Liberty Belles
Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership
Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws (Note: Not same organization as above but both have the same purpose. Strongly pro-gun)
Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Mothers Arms
The Paul Revere Network
NRAWOL (They think the NRA is AWOL in the fight for gun rights.)
The Liberal Gun Club

[SwankyXomb]

10. Are any of those SANE alternatives? n/t

[madinmaryland]

6. The NRA is bought and paid for by the Gun Industrial Complex. Anyone spouting their talking points

is a fucking republican.

FUCK THE NRA.

[MotherPetrie]

7. Because it can't be said often enough -- FUCK THE NRA!

[Hekate]

9. KnR, Stinky

I'd like to see the CDC funding restored too.

[B Calm]

11. Having the NRA at the bargaining table

will not make things any better. Regardless of the outcome of the meetings, the NRA will still be at war against the democratic party.

The NRA have nothing good to add by having them at the table for common sense gun law regulations!

[Recursion]

12. Sure: campaign finance reform, overturn citizens united, and public funding of campaigns

That would take the wind out of LaPierre's sails right fast, along with all the other K street scumbags. Though also the K street good guys, but there aren't nearly as many of those.

[Paladin]

15. And The ATF Has Been Without A Director For Six Years, Courtesy Of The NRA.

Way too much power for an extremist organization.

[spanone]

18. they are the grover norquist of weapons...