Socialist in the title means immediate death of the organization from having any traction (meaning there will be no backlash.) Also EveryTown is already a very very large organization counter to the NRA. The NRA is powerful not because of its donations, it rarely ever does that...it's because a lot of people own and like guns. Until people come to grips with that, we'll never have real reform.
> Also EveryTown is already a very very large organization.
Is it? I have never once met anyone involved in it.
> The NRA is powerful not because of its donations, it rarely ever does that...it's because a lot of people own and like guns.
I think it's fair to say that a lot of gun-owners despise the NRA. Selecting Olly North as a figurehead is not a way to please a libertarian-leaning constituency.
>Is it? I have never once met anyone involved in it.
Their website claims they have more than 6 million supporters, although I suppose that could include things like Facebook likes and change.org petition signers. I'd suspect that their funding is a bit less grassroots than the NRA's (since so much comes from Bloomberg) but I haven't really looked into it.
However Everytown is drastically outspending the NRA in terms of campaign contributions, and looks on track to outspend them overall in the next year or two.
I have met people involved in the NRA, GOA, and NAAGA just going about my routine - people at the grocery store, lyft drivers, sitting next to me on the plane, etc. If I see someone wearing a baseball cap or t-shirt of a political organization, I always ask about their involvement, and in several cases, people wearing a logo of these three organizations has turned out to be a fairly committed activist.
But of the two people I have seen wearing Everytown apparel, neither were involved in any material way.
I suspect that it is a tiny organization with a large budget.
Why is that? Socialism is on the rise, and a very popular sentiment. Most people maybe are confused about what it entails on both sides of the argument - Most on the right think socialists want cold-war-era USSR-like government. Most on the left including self-described socialists just want social democracy and not true marxist socialism.
There are some though who are devout marxists, which has never actually been put 100% into action. Most socialistic attempts have turned into dictator rule.
I'm not an expert on the subject, I just know every argument about socialism spends half the time trying to nail down what socialism is, and then the other half is back and forth about how many people have died under one or the other when there's really no way to quantify it because fuck tons of people have died under socialistic and capitalistic regimes (including the U.S.A -- victims of globalization and war profiteering, poverty, even school shootings because of a lack of medical and mental health accessibility).
But my main point was that word no-longer elicits fear, and contempt like it once did, and for many in America it elicits hope - because capitalism has failed them, so socialism couldn't be worse. So, for some they won't join because of it - for others they will join just because it's a socialist promoting org.
After all Bernie Sanders is one of the most popular politicians, definitely the most successful progressive/left-leaning politician we've ever seen (since FDR), and he gladly wears the title socialist, though I'm pretty sure he means democratic socialist not full socialism as well. <end rant>
> Most on the right think socialists want cold-war-era USSR-like government. Most on the left including self-described socialists just want social democracy and not true marxist socialism.
Even the ones that want Marxist socialism don't want Cold War USSR-like government, which is Leninist, an authoritarian adaptation of Marxism to bypass the prerequisite in Marx’s theory of developed capitalism and broad working-class class consciousness.
> democratic socialist not full socialism
“Democratic socialism” is not “like socialism, but reduced strength”.
1) Nobody can own a gun until they complete 40 hours of training in usage, safe handling, safe storage, tactics and law, and demonstrate proficiency in each area to an impartial test proctor.
2) Each weapon purchased must include a certificate of insurance that will reimburse $10,000,000 to any innocent individual harmed by that weapon.
3) No restrictions on cosmetic appearance of weapons, as long as personal firearms are incapable of firing more than 10 rounds in 20 seconds.
1) That's a blatant violation of the Constitution of these United States.
2) Any bolt-action rifle is capable of firing 10 rounds in 20 seconds. Any revolver is capable of firing 10 rounds in 20 seconds. A single-shot long gun is capable of firing 10 rounds in 20 seconds.
1) States today require a written proficiency exam. (At least, California does). I don’t see the argument for why any reasonable level of making sure people know how to use their guns properly is unconstitutional.
Things like large license fees and mandatory expensive classes will disproportionately impact poor people and minorities. Not everyone gets a week of paid vacation so that they can take a class. Some would argue that this is by design. It actually reminds me a lot of voter ID laws (and imagine if you had to pay $400 and spend 40 hours studying your voter guide to vote in an election!).
Regardless, it's not clear to me that this 40 hour class would be the best way to save lives. Accidental gun deaths have already been rapidly decreasing for decades. Assuming the classes were equally effective, you'd save an order of magnitude more people by requiring someone to take a 40 hour swimming class before setting foot in a pool.
> 1) That's a blatant violation of the Constitution of these United States.
Only under an unrestricted interpretation of the Second Amendment. We already have a large number of restrictions on gun ownership [0] (see question 11 for a convenient list) in addition there are whole classes of 'arms' that private citizens can't own, it's impossible to own a modern automatic weapon (built in the last 20 years).
All of those are largely accepted exemptions to a literal reading of 'shall not be infringed' in the Second Amendment and have also survived direct Second Amendment challenges.
The 2nd Amendment only covers weapons available in 1791. Anything after is not covered and people who want those weapons are lucky they slipped under the radar with these poor interpretations that nuclear weapons and bazookas were to be covered by the 2nd Amendment.
We did ban most of those weapons (a 2nd Amendment violation according to the unrestricted interpretation), but we didn't quite get the regulation for the remain for guns and magazine sizes.
The 1st Amendment only covers publications available in 1791. Anything after is not covered and people who want those ideas are lucky they slipped under the radar with these poor interpretations that wrongthink and hatespeech were to be covered by the 1st Amendment.
Your imagined "right" to having a dirty nuke is not equivalent to freedom of speech, and you're fully aware of that.. merely frustrated about it. The schools are still open for enrollment, it's better to develop your mind than imagining what you can do with weapons of war.
Ironically enough, gun culture fetishes that lead people to think weapons are solutions to their problems are being defeated by those of us utilizing our 1st Amendment rights. The weapons you hold so dear to your heart can no longer be used as a tool of the 2nd Amendment to prevent the rest of us from utilizing our 1st Amendment right any longer, outside of a mass shooting. No matter how much that pains you.
>1) Nobody can own a gun until they complete 40 hours of training in usage, safe handling, safe storage, tactics and law, and demonstrate proficiency in each area to an impartial test proctor.
40 hours is pretty fucking lot. Are you sure you'd not be okay with like 4 hours lecture and exam based on the lecture and then like 5 two hour training sessions?
>2) Each weapon purchased must include a certificate of insurance that will reimburse $10,000,000 to any innocent individual harmed by that weapon.
Ah, you are not actually honestly in this, you are just trolling.
>3) No restrictions on cosmetic appearance of weapons, as long as personal firearms are incapable of firing more than 10 rounds in 20 seconds.
Yeah, that last time the US got major changes in gun laws that stuck was when the Black Panthers and some other civil rights groups started getting serious about getting guns in the hands of southern African-Americans for self defense.
> [NRA President David] Keene points to an ugly truth about American history: Gun control has historically been used for racist purposes.
> And the NRA’s president should know: His organization was intimately involved in this history, promoting gun control laws that were tainted with racism.
See how fast law enforcement starts worrying about armed militia groups again if they start including left-wing ideology not just white supremacist/separatist credos.
Thanks, this is really informative and appealing to me as an aging non-white anarcho-synd. I've been interested in owning some firearms but the conservative gun culture is a serious turnoff.
Yeah, it's important. Gun ownership is probably one of the biggest single-issue voter topics in the US. If the left (and I mean, the real left, not the Democrat party) gets a chunk of gun users, it could change preception of the ideas in the US. Bernie almost had this in 2016, but the idiots at the DNC decided to run "Abuela" instead.
We are working class and poor people dedicated to educating our class in the safe use of firearms for personal and community self-defense as well as recreation and subsistence hunting.
Quote from article on their site:
Gun Myths: Australia
School shooters are particularly interesting. Wealthy suburbanites living in gated communities are alienated from the struggle of the working-class and inevitably raise children who lack empathy for poor people.
It is easy to gun down other people if their humanity has been reduced to labor value.
Absent class consciousness, the working class are dehumanized and transformed into commodities valued only by their production.
So the ludicrous idea that school mass shooters are mostly rich kids with no empathy.
Jesus Christmas, even the N-R-"it's the video games!"-A wouldn't float something that stupid.
This sounds like a joke in a recent Netflix original of Dave Chappelle. He said "every illegible black person should go out and register for a fire arm. This would bring the gun control to the legislation."
I'm curious why this got flagged? It's a pretty interesting snapshot of the political dynamics around the second amendment, especially with the way other groups have been dealing with them.
34 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 81.1 ms ] threadIs it? I have never once met anyone involved in it.
> The NRA is powerful not because of its donations, it rarely ever does that...it's because a lot of people own and like guns.
I think it's fair to say that a lot of gun-owners despise the NRA. Selecting Olly North as a figurehead is not a way to please a libertarian-leaning constituency.
"Large" in terms of astroturf funding, they mean.
Their website claims they have more than 6 million supporters, although I suppose that could include things like Facebook likes and change.org petition signers. I'd suspect that their funding is a bit less grassroots than the NRA's (since so much comes from Bloomberg) but I haven't really looked into it.
However Everytown is drastically outspending the NRA in terms of campaign contributions, and looks on track to outspend them overall in the next year or two.
But of the two people I have seen wearing Everytown apparel, neither were involved in any material way.
I suspect that it is a tiny organization with a large budget.
There are some though who are devout marxists, which has never actually been put 100% into action. Most socialistic attempts have turned into dictator rule.
I'm not an expert on the subject, I just know every argument about socialism spends half the time trying to nail down what socialism is, and then the other half is back and forth about how many people have died under one or the other when there's really no way to quantify it because fuck tons of people have died under socialistic and capitalistic regimes (including the U.S.A -- victims of globalization and war profiteering, poverty, even school shootings because of a lack of medical and mental health accessibility).
But my main point was that word no-longer elicits fear, and contempt like it once did, and for many in America it elicits hope - because capitalism has failed them, so socialism couldn't be worse. So, for some they won't join because of it - for others they will join just because it's a socialist promoting org.
After all Bernie Sanders is one of the most popular politicians, definitely the most successful progressive/left-leaning politician we've ever seen (since FDR), and he gladly wears the title socialist, though I'm pretty sure he means democratic socialist not full socialism as well. <end rant>
Even the ones that want Marxist socialism don't want Cold War USSR-like government, which is Leninist, an authoritarian adaptation of Marxism to bypass the prerequisite in Marx’s theory of developed capitalism and broad working-class class consciousness.
> democratic socialist not full socialism
“Democratic socialism” is not “like socialism, but reduced strength”.
2) Each weapon purchased must include a certificate of insurance that will reimburse $10,000,000 to any innocent individual harmed by that weapon.
3) No restrictions on cosmetic appearance of weapons, as long as personal firearms are incapable of firing more than 10 rounds in 20 seconds.
2) Any bolt-action rifle is capable of firing 10 rounds in 20 seconds. Any revolver is capable of firing 10 rounds in 20 seconds. A single-shot long gun is capable of firing 10 rounds in 20 seconds.
Regardless, it's not clear to me that this 40 hour class would be the best way to save lives. Accidental gun deaths have already been rapidly decreasing for decades. Assuming the classes were equally effective, you'd save an order of magnitude more people by requiring someone to take a 40 hour swimming class before setting foot in a pool.
Only under an unrestricted interpretation of the Second Amendment. We already have a large number of restrictions on gun ownership [0] (see question 11 for a convenient list) in addition there are whole classes of 'arms' that private citizens can't own, it's impossible to own a modern automatic weapon (built in the last 20 years).
All of those are largely accepted exemptions to a literal reading of 'shall not be infringed' in the Second Amendment and have also survived direct Second Amendment challenges.
[0] https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/4473-part-1-firearms-trans...
We did ban most of those weapons (a 2nd Amendment violation according to the unrestricted interpretation), but we didn't quite get the regulation for the remain for guns and magazine sizes.
Ironically enough, gun culture fetishes that lead people to think weapons are solutions to their problems are being defeated by those of us utilizing our 1st Amendment rights. The weapons you hold so dear to your heart can no longer be used as a tool of the 2nd Amendment to prevent the rest of us from utilizing our 1st Amendment right any longer, outside of a mass shooting. No matter how much that pains you.
40 hours is pretty fucking lot. Are you sure you'd not be okay with like 4 hours lecture and exam based on the lecture and then like 5 two hour training sessions?
>2) Each weapon purchased must include a certificate of insurance that will reimburse $10,000,000 to any innocent individual harmed by that weapon.
Ah, you are not actually honestly in this, you are just trolling.
>3) No restrictions on cosmetic appearance of weapons, as long as personal firearms are incapable of firing more than 10 rounds in 20 seconds.
Sigh.
> [NRA President David] Keene points to an ugly truth about American history: Gun control has historically been used for racist purposes.
> And the NRA’s president should know: His organization was intimately involved in this history, promoting gun control laws that were tainted with racism.
See how fast law enforcement starts worrying about armed militia groups again if they start including left-wing ideology not just white supremacist/separatist credos.
[0] https://newrepublic.com/article/112322/gun-control-racist
Their first point of unity.
We are working class and poor people dedicated to educating our class in the safe use of firearms for personal and community self-defense as well as recreation and subsistence hunting.
Quote from article on their site:
Gun Myths: Australia
School shooters are particularly interesting. Wealthy suburbanites living in gated communities are alienated from the struggle of the working-class and inevitably raise children who lack empathy for poor people.
It is easy to gun down other people if their humanity has been reduced to labor value.
Absent class consciousness, the working class are dehumanized and transformed into commodities valued only by their production.
So the ludicrous idea that school mass shooters are mostly rich kids with no empathy.
Jesus Christmas, even the N-R-"it's the video games!"-A wouldn't float something that stupid.