NRA - is not the problem...

[Jon Estes]

I am not a member of the NRA and I do not own a gun. I enjoy target shooting and am pretty good at it -- or I was before I had to start wearing glasses.

The NRA gets a lot of heat from the press and many others but the NRA does not make laws or change laws concerning guns or anything else.

The blame or target of our complaints needs to be lawmakers. If they vote the way the NRA wants because they get money - expose this. There are too many politicians hiding behind the blame of anyone or anything else that can be blamed when they know the laws being made are in their hands.

Take the fight to where the change can be made.

[JE Pettibone]

Ed: Jon, In large part the NRA supported largely by politically right wing professing Christians is the problem behind the assault weapons market glut, because of their spending huge money to buy those politicians . Question; Why do they spend that money? Answer; The love of Money.

[Jon Estes]

[Dave Roberts]

The NRA is so anti-government that it makes no sense for politicians (who are the government) to cozy up for donations. Will Rogers was right (in the 1930's) when he said, "The way I see it, we Americans have the best politicians money can buy." That is proven in many areas. The ones who can give the most bucks get the biggest bang.

[JE Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

[Jon Estes]

[Haruo]

The NRA's general approach in recent decades has been to be as obstructionist as it can, and to encourage (bribe?) lawmakers to do likewise, against any and all efforts to institute a wide variety of legal limits on the kinds of weapons and the conditions under which they may be "kept and borne", citing the Second Amendment in all cases and supporting the conspiracy theory that liberals and/or government want to implement these limits as the first stage in removing all guns and making both insurrection and subsistence hunting impossible.

[Jon Estes]

[Dave Roberts]

The NRA also contributes to the efforts of several other groups to gerrymander so that favorable candidates get elected which makes "one man, one vote" a sick joke.

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

Not sure where those figures came from. Here's the website on the NRA.

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summar ... cycle=2016

Same website for Planned Parenthood.

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summar ... D000000591

[Dave Roberts]

I must say that the NRA is much better at enforcing their desires like late night meetings in the WH and at the RNC. I'm not really a fan of either in some areas.

[KeithE]

The biggest problem I have with Jon’s post title is the word “the”.

Most frequently with all social ills, we have several “problems” and thus several solutions. Among the problems contributing to mass murder are sinful anger, rapid fire guns, violent movies and video games, poor parenting, mental illness, bad policing , ... Among the solutions to mass murder are multi-round gun control (ban assault rifles), better identification of the mentally ill (for gun registration), better point-of-violence security ... and more foundationally better spirituality/ethics, less violence in movies/videos, better parenting, better mental health interdiction.

All solutions need to be considered and the easy ones that do not unduly hurt liberties should be enacted soon. Banning assault-stytle, rapid-fure guns (not needed for hunting or self-preotection) and universal registration are a good start. Banning handguns (replacing them with non-lethal weapons) could help with the broader murder/suicide prevalence in this country.

Jon can hope for those more foundational solutions take total effect. Existing attempts have not been very effective - anger still abounds. That is why we have laws and law enforcement.

The NRA with their zeal for more gun profits (said to be due to the 2nd Amendment “gun rights") is tying the hands of law enforcement in several ways. The NRA is the largest problem at this time.

Of course if law enforcement wants more armaments/guns, the NRA are all for that - that is why they are all for arming teachers.

[Haruo]

[Jim]

[Rvaughn]

[Haruo]

[Jon Estes]

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[Neil Heath]