5 ms·

Why the gun industry should support net neutrality

41 points by rsingel 9y ago

temp-dude-87844 9y ago
Presaged by HN user vorpalhex three weeks ago [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15749774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15749774
pxeboot 9y ago
Seems like a good idea. Many online services (like PayPal/Facebook/Craigslist) prohibit firearm and accessory sales, so it's already much more difficult to do business in this area online.
andrewl 9y ago
In a previous discussion, user craftyguy said "The NRA would be all behind this the first time someone reports a 'suboptimal experience' when trying to access their site to become a member, or order ammo from some random M&P gun shop." That's certainly possible. But they might also try to get laws passed that just benefited their own interests. Like forcing traffic to any gun-related site to be given high priority based on a convoluted reading of the second amendment concluding that doing otherwise would be a restriction of gun rights. I don't see the NRA being generally a friend of free and accessible information. They have, for instance, lobbied to prevent epidemiological research into gun violence.
- brians 9y ago
  As I understand it, they’ve only lobbied to prevent biased, underhanded research: none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control. CDC can discover facts and make observations all they like, but is barred from advocacy. Why did they stop all work after that? Don’t they have any work on violence and guns that was inquiry rather than advocacy?
  - jogjayr 9y ago
    > Why did they stop all work after that? I didn't have any knowledge of this before now but apparently the answer might be "fear". The CDC (or more accurately the researchers there) think any gun violence research is a sure way to have your funding cut or career curtailed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/why-the-cdc-still-isnt-researching-gun-violence-despite-the-ban-being-lifted-two-years-ago/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/...
  - Coding_Cat 9y ago
    It would be consistent with the funding though. >funds made available for injury prevention and control Say that research shows that more guns => more injuries. It would be reasonable to then hypothesis that gun control could lead to less injuries (injury prevention) and that would bring research into effective methods of gun control into their scope. (and the verification that it leads to less violence).
  - mturmon 9y ago
    This is not a fair summary. The NRA lobbied Congress in the 1990s, and Congress reduced the CDC budget by the amount that had been used to study gun related deaths. This resulted in the CDC no longer funding research relating guns to deaths. Congress has specifically rejected amendments that would allow such work. The research that was de-funded was peer reviewed and appeared in the NEJM. https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-02/quietly-congress-extends-ban-cdc-research-gun-violence https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-02/quietly-congress-exte...
- krapp 9y ago
  >But they might also try to get laws passed that just benefited their own interests. The NRA is a gun advocacy group - that's exactly what they would try to do, because that's their purpose.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
    It may (hopefully) be easier for them to advocate for things that help everyone else at the same time than to try and only help themselves. One would think it would be harder to only help yourself and not help others than to just help everyone at once, but maybe not.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  Woah, someone quoted me! Yea, this could certainly go both ways. I picked the 'optimistic' sarcastic scenario instead of the super depressing one you bring up here.
Simon_says 9y ago
Basically anybody with unpopular opinions or opinions that the powerful fear should support net neutrality.
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
  Or opinions that ever could become unpopular. Like privacy, you have to defend against the future, too.
- njarboe 9y ago
  Or just people with one or two possible broadband internet providers (80% of Americans?).
- caseysoftware 9y ago
  Except under the current "Net Neutrality" rules, we've seen Cloudflare shut down Stormfront because the CEO woke up in a bad mood. If Net Neutrality really worked the way everyone described, it would be great and I would be all for it. As is, it appears to be more of a religious mantra instead of an actual policy.
  - zachwood 9y ago
    Cloudflare isn’t an ISP.
  - zaarn 9y ago
    Cloudflare is not directly an ISP (they do operate their own network and BGP though, so they are) for this case, rather, they were the hosters and Stormfront were the customers. While I'm personally not happy that they killed a site they don't like, the site was still just a customer and it has nothing to do with Net Neutrality.
    - caseysoftware 9y ago
      So if a service provider can take any content offline, it doesn't matter if ISPs block content or not. That renders the entire "it protects controversial ideas!" point seems moot.
Shivetya 9y ago
Net Neutrality or whatever this fantasy name actually implies is more likely to see the Justice department and the rest of government including other non elected officials dictate what you will be allowed to do or see. What protocols down to eventually what countries. plus we were fine the 15 odd years leading up to the rule change and if anything it will stagnate high speed internet even more because there will be zero incentive to try except where they are told to go. like your speed or not, it will be all you will have because competitors won't have any reason to try to take down cable or phone companies. oddly the content providers who will stand against or represent wrongly places like guns.com and have an outsized influence higher than any cable company (facebook/google/twitter) are all very much pro government less freedom except where THEY are concerned. They certainly don't like your pro gun stance
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
  Pretty sure that would drag them into the purview of the 1st amendment.
asdjasldkjkljd 9y ago
Solid angle to try to get the gun lobby involved. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
hackeraccount 9y ago
From what I've read Net Neutrality will do anything. The absence of it will take everything you don't like about interacting with the Internet 10 times worse. If it's in effect however the everything will be cheaper, faster and more free then it's possible to imagine. If it's this simple why are we limiting this line to just networking on the Internet? Why not car regulation - every car will get 100 mpg, cost $100 and drive you to a hospital should be the need arise.
- TheDong 9y ago
  The equivalent of "net neutrality" for cars would be "road neutrality"; any car can drive on any road, regardless what the contents are. If you have a dog in the back seat, you can still drive on every road. Cat? Same deal. If you have some railroad tracks in your trunk, which obviously means you might be competing with the roads, well, you can still drive on them. That's the more "honest" comparison.
  - mindslight 9y ago
    A more compelling exploration of that analogy would be the state taking land to build a road through eminent domain, and then selling or long term leasing to a private company to build a toll road. The corporate owner of that road then signs an agreement with certain car companies (say Chevy) to have discounted tolls for that brand of car, while raising tolls on the other brands to prohibitive levels.
junkscience2017 9y ago
The NRA is no longer seen by many gun owners as a pro-2nd amendment org...they have become a mouthpiece for the gun INDUSTRY and will periodically support curtailing rights in favor of increased sales for gun manufacturers I don't know why America thinks gun owners universally support the NRA
- krapp 9y ago
  >I don't know why America thinks gun owners universally support the NRA The only organization I've ever heard gun owners talk about when also talking about the second amendment is the NRA, and the NRA is the only organization known by the general public that claims to speak on behalf of gun owners. Americans believe it because the NRA has been very successful at branding itself as the de facto voice of Second Amendment politics, and gun owners haven't put forth any effective opposition to that.
  - junkscience2017 9y ago
    it is true that they dominate the media...but the tide is turning. we need net neutrality to counter the well-funded and sometimes-anti-2nd-amendment voice of the NRA
    - eigenstuff 9y ago
      They more than dominate the media as the loudest pro-second amendment voice, they straight up have your elected representatives by the balls and bullied into submission. This episode of Fresh Air from a couple months ago about the NRA is pretty horrifying. https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555859571/nra-backed-gun-laws-have-found-success-in-state-legislatures-across-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555859571/nra-backed-gun-laws...
mizchief2 9y ago
The way the rules are written you have two choices. 1) Private ISP can potentially limit content or 2) the federal government can limit content. By requiring ISPs to get a broadcasting license in conjunction with the anti-propaganda act passed right before Obama left office, the Feds can call any website "propaganda" and order it blocked by the ISPs under the threat of pulling their broadcasting license.

41 points by rsingel 9y ago

Presaged by HN user vorpalhex three weeks ago [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15749774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15749774

pxeboot 9y ago

Seems like a good idea. Many online services (like PayPal/Facebook/Craigslist) prohibit firearm and accessory sales, so it's already much more difficult to do business in this area online.

andrewl 9y ago

In a previous discussion, user craftyguy said "The NRA would be all behind this the first time someone reports a 'suboptimal experience' when trying to access their site to become a member, or order ammo from some random M&P gun shop." That's certainly possible. But they might also try to get laws passed that just benefited their own interests. Like forcing traffic to any gun-related site to be given high priority based on a convoluted reading of the second amendment concluding that doing otherwise would be a restriction of gun rights. I don't see the NRA being generally a friend of free and accessible information. They have, for instance, lobbied to prevent epidemiological research into gun violence.

brians 9y ago
As I understand it, they’ve only lobbied to prevent biased, underhanded research: none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control. CDC can discover facts and make observations all they like, but is barred from advocacy. Why did they stop all work after that? Don’t they have any work on violence and guns that was inquiry rather than advocacy?
- jogjayr 9y ago
  > Why did they stop all work after that? I didn't have any knowledge of this before now but apparently the answer might be "fear". The CDC (or more accurately the researchers there) think any gun violence research is a sure way to have your funding cut or career curtailed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/why-the-cdc-still-isnt-researching-gun-violence-despite-the-ban-being-lifted-two-years-ago/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/...
- Coding_Cat 9y ago
  It would be consistent with the funding though. >funds made available for injury prevention and control Say that research shows that more guns => more injuries. It would be reasonable to then hypothesis that gun control could lead to less injuries (injury prevention) and that would bring research into effective methods of gun control into their scope. (and the verification that it leads to less violence).
- mturmon 9y ago
  This is not a fair summary. The NRA lobbied Congress in the 1990s, and Congress reduced the CDC budget by the amount that had been used to study gun related deaths. This resulted in the CDC no longer funding research relating guns to deaths. Congress has specifically rejected amendments that would allow such work. The research that was de-funded was peer reviewed and appeared in the NEJM. https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-02/quietly-congress-extends-ban-cdc-research-gun-violence https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-02/quietly-congress-exte...
krapp 9y ago
>But they might also try to get laws passed that just benefited their own interests. The NRA is a gun advocacy group - that's exactly what they would try to do, because that's their purpose.
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
  It may (hopefully) be easier for them to advocate for things that help everyone else at the same time than to try and only help themselves. One would think it would be harder to only help yourself and not help others than to just help everyone at once, but maybe not.
craftyguy 9y ago
Woah, someone quoted me! Yea, this could certainly go both ways. I picked the 'optimistic' sarcastic scenario instead of the super depressing one you bring up here.

Simon_says 9y ago

Basically anybody with unpopular opinions or opinions that the powerful fear should support net neutrality.

yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
Or opinions that ever could become unpopular. Like privacy, you have to defend against the future, too.
njarboe 9y ago
Or just people with one or two possible broadband internet providers (80% of Americans?).
caseysoftware 9y ago
Except under the current "Net Neutrality" rules, we've seen Cloudflare shut down Stormfront because the CEO woke up in a bad mood. If Net Neutrality really worked the way everyone described, it would be great and I would be all for it. As is, it appears to be more of a religious mantra instead of an actual policy.
- zachwood 9y ago
  Cloudflare isn’t an ISP.
- zaarn 9y ago
  Cloudflare is not directly an ISP (they do operate their own network and BGP though, so they are) for this case, rather, they were the hosters and Stormfront were the customers. While I'm personally not happy that they killed a site they don't like, the site was still just a customer and it has nothing to do with Net Neutrality.
  - caseysoftware 9y ago
    So if a service provider can take any content offline, it doesn't matter if ISPs block content or not. That renders the entire "it protects controversial ideas!" point seems moot.

Shivetya 9y ago

Net Neutrality or whatever this fantasy name actually implies is more likely to see the Justice department and the rest of government including other non elected officials dictate what you will be allowed to do or see. What protocols down to eventually what countries. plus we were fine the 15 odd years leading up to the rule change and if anything it will stagnate high speed internet even more because there will be zero incentive to try except where they are told to go. like your speed or not, it will be all you will have because competitors won't have any reason to try to take down cable or phone companies. oddly the content providers who will stand against or represent wrongly places like guns.com and have an outsized influence higher than any cable company (facebook/google/twitter) are all very much pro government less freedom except where THEY are concerned. They certainly don't like your pro gun stance

yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
Pretty sure that would drag them into the purview of the 1st amendment.

asdjasldkjkljd 9y ago

Solid angle to try to get the gun lobby involved. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

hackeraccount 9y ago

From what I've read Net Neutrality will do anything. The absence of it will take everything you don't like about interacting with the Internet 10 times worse. If it's in effect however the everything will be cheaper, faster and more free then it's possible to imagine. If it's this simple why are we limiting this line to just networking on the Internet? Why not car regulation - every car will get 100 mpg, cost $100 and drive you to a hospital should be the need arise.

TheDong 9y ago
The equivalent of "net neutrality" for cars would be "road neutrality"; any car can drive on any road, regardless what the contents are. If you have a dog in the back seat, you can still drive on every road. Cat? Same deal. If you have some railroad tracks in your trunk, which obviously means you might be competing with the roads, well, you can still drive on them. That's the more "honest" comparison.
- mindslight 9y ago
  A more compelling exploration of that analogy would be the state taking land to build a road through eminent domain, and then selling or long term leasing to a private company to build a toll road. The corporate owner of that road then signs an agreement with certain car companies (say Chevy) to have discounted tolls for that brand of car, while raising tolls on the other brands to prohibitive levels.

junkscience2017 9y ago

The NRA is no longer seen by many gun owners as a pro-2nd amendment org...they have become a mouthpiece for the gun INDUSTRY and will periodically support curtailing rights in favor of increased sales for gun manufacturers I don't know why America thinks gun owners universally support the NRA

krapp 9y ago
>I don't know why America thinks gun owners universally support the NRA The only organization I've ever heard gun owners talk about when also talking about the second amendment is the NRA, and the NRA is the only organization known by the general public that claims to speak on behalf of gun owners. Americans believe it because the NRA has been very successful at branding itself as the de facto voice of Second Amendment politics, and gun owners haven't put forth any effective opposition to that.
- junkscience2017 9y ago
  it is true that they dominate the media...but the tide is turning. we need net neutrality to counter the well-funded and sometimes-anti-2nd-amendment voice of the NRA
  - eigenstuff 9y ago
    They more than dominate the media as the loudest pro-second amendment voice, they straight up have your elected representatives by the balls and bullied into submission. This episode of Fresh Air from a couple months ago about the NRA is pretty horrifying. https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555859571/nra-backed-gun-laws-have-found-success-in-state-legislatures-across-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555859571/nra-backed-gun-laws...

mizchief2 9y ago

The way the rules are written you have two choices. 1) Private ISP can potentially limit content or 2) the federal government can limit content. By requiring ISPs to get a broadcasting license in conjunction with the anti-propaganda act passed right before Obama left office, the Feds can call any website "propaganda" and order it blocked by the ISPs under the threat of pulling their broadcasting license.