Trump was actually in favour of better gun control until he decided to run for the presidency. In 2012 he actually praised Obama for trying to push legislation through following yet another school shooting. Prior to this he had said he was in favour of lengthening the time taken to purchase a gun, improving background checks and putting a ban on the sale of assault rifles. He has now done a 180 degree turn on these views. Obviously he would have stood no chance of being elected if he had continued with his previous view-points so he took the NRA dollar and bowed down at their altar.
Current Affairs The " another shooting in America " thread
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peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
This NRA dollar is a red herring. The sums involved are absolute peanuts compared to the value of the gun industry. The real issue is what you said about obtaining votes, and this is really why no one does anything........
I thought ATF had already said they need supporting legislation as under current classification bump stocks are classed as a part not a gun and therefore not covered by current law?
Don’t get me wrong I’d love it to happen but between the howls this is likely to kick up with the gun lobby and the legal challenges we previously discussed still think there a long way to go to even get this implemented.
It depends how you look at it. For the politicians involved the NRA dollar is very important for their campaign funds etc., even up to presidential level. This pays to influence the people who will vote on any legislation regarding gun control, so having them on board is really important to the NRA. As you say, compared to the value of the gun industry in the US this is peanuts, so they are getting a bargain. I'm not sure if all of the NRA funds come from their member subscriptions or whether they in turn benefit from contributions from gun manufacturers, but whichever way you cut it they are a very powerful lobby group.
The binman chronicles
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To get into the top 10 mass shootings they are looking at a death count of at least 15. A lot of these sickos are aiming for a level of notoriety from these acts, it's the only explaination why so many are being killed in recent years. The sad thing is the bar has been raised so high that it is only a matter of time before we see explosives used in conjunction with assult rifles, just so they can have more than 5 minutes of fame.
Piece of sh_t. But this is only one of many attacks on the teens from the idiots on the right. That pseudo-intellectual Ben Shapiro wrote some similar scree in the National Review, and other outlets are doing their best to discredit the victims because they are--according to these idiot right-wing immoral @ssholes--being coached by their parents to trot out anti-gun views (because apparently being shot at and watching your peers die in front of you isn't enough for a high schooler to have an opinion about guns).
Shapiro isn't a "pseudo-intellectual" and he condemned Dinesh's dumb comments. Ben didn't try and discredit the students, he called them what they are - teenagers dealing with trauma.
This was from last year, feel for the poor dad who was faced with this choice but thank goodness he acted.
http://wjla.com/news/local/father-t...rnal-with-plans-of-mass-shooting-at-md-school
The father of the teen student who authorities say was plotting a mass shooting at Catoctin High School in Frederick Countyreportedly turned his daughter in after finding a detailed journal at home full of attack plans. The Frederick County Sheriff's Office said the father of Nichole Cevario, 18, told officials Thursday about a "potential threat of violence" against the school.
In the journal the father found talk of a shotgun with ammo, bomb material and the school’s emergency plan. Also scribbled inside the journal was a date for the potential attack: April 5. Cevario was taken out of class Thursday and then to Frederick Memorial Hospital for a mental evaluation. The Frederick County Sheriff's Office held a press conference Monday afternoon about the planned attack:When police searched Cevario's home, they say they found the journal, a shotgun, ammunition, pipes and caps, shrapnel, fireworks, magnesium tape and fuse material.
That is a very charitable reading of Shapiro, especially when he trots out as truth something like this: "The whole reason that young people are generally less capable of strong decision-making is that the emotional centers of the brain are overdeveloped in comparison with the rational centers of the brain." (hint: this isn't remotely established and the study he is basing his claims on used ages from 10-18 and a sample size under 20 who were looking at facial expressions, and besides he is simplifying a complex issue for political purposes).
Or this: "What, pray tell, did these students do to earn their claim to expertise?" (hint: no teen is claiming expertise on this issue, they are claiming that something needs to be done--you don't need to be an expert on guns to have an opinion on whether or not you should be murdered in school).
Or this: "The answer seems to be relatively simple: Children and teenagers are not fully rational actors. They’re not capable of exercising supreme responsibilities. And we shouldn’t be treating innocence as a political asset used to push the agenda of more sophisticated players." (hint: none of this "clever" rhetoric remotely matters, because at issue is gun control and this issue is independent of whether emotional teens, sensible adults, or unyielding NRA-funded Republicans are discussing it. Shapiro--far from being an original thinker--is just usings lawyerly words to toe the party line).
I could go on and on... But to give him the benefit of the doubt: Shapiro is having a bad day meeting a by-line and vomitted out some trash in the NR. Or he is consistently off the mark, because he is not an original thinker.
And yes, his whole piece is an attempt to discredit the students. That much is obvious.
This topic draws out emotional response for people. I've long thought that there is no need for someone to own an assault rifle, as well as I have thought Dinesh is a complete idiot. He's useless... The things he says are embarassing.
I'm an admitted conservative, by American terms, but embarrassed by so many of them. We all need to learn to just stop dismissing, judging, and insulting each other. I'm conservative, but I could care less about gun rights, and I think it should be a tougher thing to buy.
I don't understand why you have to take a test to get a driver's license, but their is no test to buy a gun.
The entire theme of the article is that these emotional teenagers are getting a ton of publicity by media entities that wish to use them to promote a gun control agenda. He also identifies the inherent hypocrisy in holding traumatized teenagers up as moral authority on the gun control issue while also promoting gun control based on age.
The idea that he's trying to discredit the students contains the inherent implication that there is something to discredit. If the truth is that these teens are simply telling their story, rather than being used as authorities on a policy issue, I fail to see how Ben's piece is discrediting.
To me it seems more like these kids know exactly who will give them air time and are totally taking advantage of the opportunity spread their agenda.
Pretty smart if you ask me.
Pretty smart if you ask me.
He says, "What, pray tell, did these students do to earn their claim to expertise?" and "The answer seems to be relatively simple: Children and teenagers are not fully rational actors. They’re not capable of exercising supreme responsibilities." in the context of them speaking out against gun control. If you want to see that as not discrediting go ahead. I disagree.
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