NRA: Not Really Accurate

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There’s some principle much like Godwin’s law at work when the discussion turns to gun control.  Inevitably it reduces to the bad influence of the NRA on our laws, our perceptions, our passions and our discussion thereof.  That makes it difficult to bring facts and reason into many discussions that have nothing to do with the NRA or their policies and statements.

ITAR

I think they like it that way, but certainly when it’s a discussion they started, it will always devolve into a rant against Democrats, (gun grabbers) Liberals (gun grabbers) and at the moment, Barack Obama. I say rant because although the amplitude is high, the facts, when there are any, are invented or grossly distorted.

Today’s e-mail delight, and apparently it’s also on innumerable Right Wing websites, reads:

Even as news reports have been highlighting the gun control provisions
of the Administration’s “Unified Agenda” of regulatory objectives,
the Obama State Department has been quietly moving ahead with a
proposal that could censor online speech related to firearms. This
latest regulatory assault, published in the June 3 issue of the Federal Register,
is as much an affront to the First Amendment as it is to the Second.
Your action is urgently needed to ensure that online blogs, videos, and
web forums devoted to the technical aspects of firearms and ammunition
do not become subject to prior review by State Department bureaucrats
before they can be published.

NRA — Not Really Accurate?  It all is based on ITAR:  International Trade in Arms Regulations, that deep barrel of  rhetoric intended to keep military arms and things like plans for nuclear weapons out of the hands of rogue governments and international terrorists. That the NRA opposes such things rather cements the idea that they are about selling arms to anyone anywhere for any reason and not about promoting safety in their domestic use.

Yes ITAR would restrict  international sale of automatic weapons and military equipment to our enemies and those engaged in terrorism.  No, it doesn’t allow the UN to take our guns or restrict their use, a claim that keeps cropping up. No it doesn’t mean you have to have approval from the Federal government to talk about guns or publish pictures of them or discuss how to load shotgun shells on your blog.  There is no “gag order” and no one from the UN or the Federal Government is grabbing your ammunition, your guns or mine.

Only a deeply dishonest or truly damaged mind would read such things into ITAR.  The NRA however,  is deeply dishonest and dedicated to supporting deeply delusional politics.  Secret plots, nefarious plans, bans that aren’t bans and in this age of information, no one takes time to confirm any of it — and if you do, you’re the enemy even when the dire predictions never, ever come true  — and it seems they never do.

 

About Post Author

Glenn Geist

Glenn Geist lives in South Florida and wastes most of his time boating, writing, complaining and talking on the radio
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8 years ago

The bigger question is what can be done about the NRA and the power they wield? I don’t see gun control anytime soon in the US.

Reply to  Rachael
8 years ago

It will never end as long as their propaganda machine keeps churning out BS that people buy.

Glenn Geist
8 years ago

Pim,

I’m not sure what is taught in grammar school today. I fear it’s not very much, but I’m only guessing. It’s the adults who are kept ignorant and angry because not much is presented by our news media other than scandal and sports and we hate to be informed because it might force us to change our opinions.

The NRA knows very well what ITAR is about, but since one American in a million knows, the NRA can get away with traducing it and because most Americans are so ready to believe anything that will feed their paranoia and anger addiction, they get away with it.

Norman,

You’re right, but one man’s sensible is another man’s hot button and with respect to a universal solution for all, you have to remember that this is a vast country with one part vastly different from another. A very large number of Americans feed their families with a rifle and protect them from wild beasts. Others live in tightly packed cities. But the NRA recuses to accept that there’s anything to talk about and others insist on insisting all we need are “tougher” laws without defining them. Our gun laws are complex, difficult to understand and often apparently contradictory. I’m licensed to carry, but am afraid to because the danger of running afoul of the law unintentionally and the unliklihood of ever needing one. Simply being accused of an infraction can cost you everything if you have to defend yourself in court.

No one seems to be interested in the truth in America and it’s not just about guns.

8 years ago

If I lived in America I’d have a gun I think but only because everyone else has one.

You need an organisation that is willing to talk sensibly about restrictions and, clearly, at the moment, there isn’t one.

Reply to  Norman Rampart
8 years ago

..and that’s the point. It’s like mutually assured destruction.

Bill Formby
8 years ago

The NRA is a servant to the gun makers now and totally dependent on their monies. This is making a lot of money for the hierarchy of the NRA and they do everything they can to keep they membership frightened and stirred up. Fortunately for them their membership is easy to frighten and get stirred up.

Reply to  Bill Formby
8 years ago

Bill you are so right, What was once a good “club” is now a propaganda machine for gun ownership.

8 years ago

I wonder what they’re thinking today? The president made it pretty clear. No doubt their propaganda machine is warming up.

8 years ago

I used to be a card carrying member of the NRA and was even one of their instructors. It was a good organization that was primarily for hunters. And then everything changed and it turned into a political powerhouse that damages America. Their propaganda is right up there with Joseph Goebbels. Both were very effective in lying.

Pim
8 years ago

I don’t understand this. What kind of people make up this “NRA?” How can they not know about ITAR? We learn about this in grammar school. Don’t get America sometimes.

8 years ago

The NRA doesn’t give a hoot about the truth. It is now, unlike when it started, an organization filled with self-serving nutters like Ted Nugent, and leaders like Wayne LaPierre. Of course these loons couldn’t serve up their agenda without their millions of supporters.

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