In case you weren't sure, the gun lobby is the criminals' lobby:
A bipartisan Senate bill preventing a federal shutdown would make four long-standing gun protections permanent, including one preventing the Justice Department from requiring firearms dealers to conduct inventories to make sure weapons haven't been stolen, congressional aides from both parties said.Just in case you can't understand the point of provision #3, Jennifer Steinhauer of The New York Times clarifies it:
Another provision made permanent would prevent the government from changing the definition of antique guns, which can sometimes be easier to obtain than modern weapons. Two others would block the department from denying a license to firearms dealers who report no business activity, and require the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to include language in firearms data stating that the information can't be used to make conclusions about gun crimes.
[The] amendment would prevent the A.T.F. from refusing to renew a dealer's license for lack of business; many licensed dealers who are not actively engaged in selling firearms can now obtain a license to sell guns and often fly under the radar of the agency and other law enforcement officials, which gun control advocates argue leads to a freer flow of illegal guns.These provisions, as Steinhauer reminds us, have been added to appropriations bills since 2004; this just makes them permanent. Senate Democrats
reluctantly agreed to make them permanent to stave off what they saw as an even more far-reaching House version of the bill.The gun lobby wants there to be a free flow of guns in high-crime cities like Chicago. The gun lobby wants guns to flow freely across the U.S.-Mexico border.
The House offering contained a new rider that would prevent the A.T.F. from requiring gun dealers on the Southwest border to notify the agency when selling two or more long guns -- semiautomatic rifles, higher than .22 caliber with detachable magazines -- to the same buyer within five days. These firearms are the preferred weapons of Mexican drug cartels, Senate aides said.
The gun lobby wants its core audience to be afraid The gun lobby especially wants its audience to be afraid of Mexicans and criminals from big cities: fear sells more guns to suburban, exurban, and rural white people. This isn't just about keeping guns available -- it's about spreading the notion that controlling crime is hopeless except via massive private ownership of yet more guns. And we sure don't want the government ever crunching the data and demonstrating that this is how the game works.
I wish gun-control advocates would focus a little more on educating the public about insane gun laws like these. I think only a tiny percentage of Americans have any idea. I don't think NRA members have any idea. We would be able to get some real change on guns in this country if a significant number of gun owners quit the NRA in disgust. But I don't see any sign that that's ever going to happen.
3 comments:
Uhm... Steve... If NRA members DID quit in substantial numbers, how would we know?
The NRA sure wouldn't tell us!
They'd tell the MSM the opposite instead, and the MSM, lazy, cowardly, compliant, and too often complicit, would just take down what was said, and report that the NRA was getting swamped, 'SWAMPLED, we tell's ya, you decide!", with applications!
And our MSM won't look at the gun stats that the government IS capable of tracking, which is, that while there are significantly LESS people who own guns now, but the ones who do still own guns, own MORE of them.
New Bubba's and Bubbette's aren't being formed every day!
It's the same Bubba's and Bubbete's who are up-arming, by buying still more guns, ammunition, and ever larger magazines, or clips, or whatever the damned things are called.
And the Republicans LOOOOOOVES them some guns, because many in their base are Jesus-freaks, TeaBirchers, and gun-nuts!
If they lose any part of that base, "Katy, bar the House doors!", they'll lose the only leg of our government they still have control of.
You're absolutely right: the higher the crime, the better off the NRA is. Why? Because the NRA is nothing but a shill for gun manufacturers. Therefore, anything that causes fear among the ignorant masses: a perceived rise in crime, a black man getting elected presdient, etc., will cause gun sales to spike.
The gun manufacturers love it because demand increases, which means they have more money to fund the NRA, and the whole process repeats itself.
http://libprofessor.blogspot.com
TERRA TERRA TERRA : TERRA ALL THE TIME Be afraid Be verrrry afraid. Obama binElectedTwiceNow and his gang of gay mexican muslims are comin' t'getcha. Gonna' rape all the (white) women and steal all the jobs.
Had my best hit count ever with that one.
No fear...
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