Thank you National Rifle Association.

[billc]

This article captures the truth about what the country owes to the National Rifle Association. After the criminal attack in Colorado, rational people came forward and kept the usual knee jerk reactions from capturing the day. The one group that did the most in this fight for the right of the people to keep and bear arms is the National Rifle Association.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78991.html

No one can doubt the enormous clout of the NRA. But it comes about it the right way. It represents millions of members — including lots of union members and rural Democrats. Its supreme act of influence is defeating officeholders in free-and-fair elections. And its signature victory over the past two decades has been to bring about a sea change in public opinion on gun control.
The NRA won the argument. Its influence is a function of its success in the art of democratic persuasion.
How successful? In the aftermath of the Aurora massacre, with the NRA taking its usual ritualistic beating in the press, the White House scuttered away from the slightest hint of support for new gun laws. Spokesman Jay Carney averred that the administration doesn’t want new laws — it only wants to enforce the ones already on the books.
Never mind that this isn’t quite right. Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder said the administration supports reinstituting the lapsed assault-weapons ban. It is, nonetheless, a sign of how far the cause of gun control has fallen.
In 1959, Gallup found that 60 percent of people supported banning handguns. Now, Gallup doesn’t even show majority support for banning assault weapons. The case for gun control collapsed on the lack of evidence for its central contention that tighter gun regulations reduce crime.

Forty-one states have right-to-carry laws, up from 10 in 1987. Some 80 million people own guns, and about 8 million have conceal-and-carry permits. Yet violent crime is at 40-year lows in the U.S. If the proliferation of guns were the cause of violence, the country would look like Mogadishu.

The nation’s highest-profile champion of gun control is a mayor who presides over a metropolis where guns are all but prohibited — though hundreds of people are killed by them each year. If that hasn’t made New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stop and think, nothing will. After Aurora, he challenged President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to be as unreflective and preening as he himself is on the issue.

Thank you NRA, future generations of Americans owe you a great debt.

 

[Steve]

Or one could say that this article is A great example of the usual knee jerk reactions.


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[billc]

Here is someone with very little wisdom...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2012/07/27/russell-simmons-hypocritical-nra-stance

Russell Simmons recently unleashed a broadside against the NRA in the wake of the tragic Aurora shooting.

If Simmons wanted to really make a difference against black-on-black crime, he’d stop promoting gangster rap and support programs like Project Exile across the country in the inner cities.

In 2002, Bill O’Reilly wrote a syndicated column about the Ludacris controversy, “Scores of grammar school teachers in the inner cities of America have written to me detailing horror stories spurred on, they say, by rap music. One fifth-grade teacher told me that it is common in her class for 10-year-old boys to call little girls “bitches.” And those little boys can quote the lyrics of Ludacris with amazing accuracy.”
Meanwhile, the NRA did take steps to curb shootings long before Aurora by promoting the expansion of Project Exile – which cut murder rates in Richmond substantially by putting away the bad guys. If Simmons wanted to really make a difference against black-on-black crime, he’d stop promoting gangster rap and support programs like Project Exile across the country in the inner cities.
But rap has made Simmons a one percenter, so he may not be willing to give it up. In claiming the NRA is punking the country, he only shows that he is the one trying to punk Americans into giving up their Second Amendment rights.

 

[Cryozombie]

Here is someone with very little wisdom...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2012/07/27/russell-simmons-hypocritical-nra-stance

This asserts that Gun control measures are Racist and meant to keep the "Black Man" Disarmed:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...cret-history-of-guns/8608/3/?single_page=true

Bobby Seale, began to read from a prepared statement. “The American people in general and the black people in particular,” he announced, musttake careful note of the racist California legislature aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless Black people have begged, prayed, petitioned, demonstrated, and everything else to get the racist power structure of America to right the wrongs which have historically been perpetuated against black people The time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late. It was May 2, 1967, and the Black Panthers’ invasion of the California statehouse launched the modern gun-rights movement.

There is actually some very interesting info in that article, including some background on early gun control measures and legislation. I havn't done any fact-checking on it, but it's a worthwhile read in any case...