NRA is Dangerous

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

[William Thornton]

The gun control issues are a mixed bag. I have no objection to some of the proposals.

There is a substantial disconnect between the culture of some of the tofu-eating Californians, eastern political liberals and others who think a gun is a pit viper alive and dangerous, and generations of gun owning families who understand guns are inanimate and harmful only when improperty used.

In my world it is routine for parents to make a big deal out of buying a son his first gun (less commonly, a daughter) at the age of 7 or 8 or 10. My brother and I both received Christmas presents of single shot 22 cal rifles around the age of 10 or 12. From day one, we were given instruction in the most serious manner about the handling and use of the guns. My experience is typical, legal, and perfectly acceptable.

What has changed in a half century is that hunting licenses now require gun safety certification courses, so dads take their sons to such a course in addition to the parental instruction. I have no objection to that.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

[Dave Roberts]

I have been a gun owner brought up in much the same culture William addresses. I would never join the NRA again because they have ceased to represent reasonable gun owners and have taken every extreme position that can be imagined in the name of the Second Amendment. A little reason would go a long way to making them credible in my eyes.

[Haruo]

[James]

If the NRA and right wing extremists continue to insist on blocking the will of the majority in relation to reasonable restrictions on gun ownership, they may loose the whole war. Afterall, we no longer have any state militias anywhere in the US wherein people can be called out by the governor or the president in response to an emergency and bring their own personal weapons to the assembly point. We now have a national guard, who when called out, assemble and take charge of government issued weapons. Since we no longer have the kind of militian we had when the bill of rights was ratified, we no longer need the second amendment.

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

For Haruo: I think we should all obey the law concerning guns.

[Haruo]

[ET]

[Sandy]

The NRA is advocating government overthrow and is inciting violence. Both LaPierre and Porter are extremists, and they have been bought and paid for by the gun lobby. If LaPierre and Porter want to gain support, they need to stop telling lies and they need to stop advocating government overthrow. The list of lies they told at the convention this weekend is long. They are nothing more than paranoid, right wing extremist thugs. LaPierre lied through his teeth about Boston, saying that police ordered people to stay in their homes and that a police state was instituted. Not the case. But you wouldn't expect the source to be truthful.

I'm just curious, ET, where you plan to get the money to pay for armed security guards in schools. Take it away from the educational process itself? Tax the middle class again? Because your rich friends aren't going to cough it up. It costs, by the way, over $100,000 a year to put one armed security guard in a school. Maybe gun manufacturers and sellers could operate a security company and add to their profit by charging schools to "rent" their security guards who will get a third of what they collect as a salary.

Apparently, Ronald Reagan didn't think background checks or restricting access to certain kinds of weapons affected individual second amendment rights. He passed more laws restricting ownership of certain kinds of weapons than any other president, and tightened both gun registration and background checks. Guess getting shot had an effect on him. And that was a shooting that would have been prevented with the Toomey-Manchin bill.

[Haruo]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

[Haruo]

Not all Californians intentionally ingest bean curd.

[Haruo]

[ET]

[Mrs Haruo]

(I'm a Washingtonian, not a Californian, but I did eat a marinated tofu sandwich today at the New York Deli in Downtown Seattle.)

[Haruo]

Ah, but she lived in California for many years and may have acquired the habit during said residency.

[ET]

[ET]