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Yeah it's totally irrational to seek the most obvious way to prevent recurrence of the shooting massacre of 20 children, which happens with a marked regularity.

Yeah it's totally irrational to seek the most obvious way to prevent recurrence of the shooting massacre of 20 children, which happens with a marked regularity. Only a New World Order could explain why people want to ban guns.

damoncali 14y ago
The snark is unnecessary. Gun control advocates have had these goals for decades - long before Newtown - and openly speak about them. There is no tinfoil hat, no new world order. Just a political agenda by a minority of the political spectrum that uses tragedy to their advantage without apology.
- reader5000 14y ago
  That still doesnt make any sense. It's like say in nuclear energy. There are two camps: one side says it is safe the other says it isn't. However, if evidence of more and more nuclear tragedies accumulate, one side looks more and more correct than the other. That side isn't "using" a nuclear tragedy to "further their own agenda", they are simply using it to demonstrate they are correct.
  - damoncali 14y ago
    I'm just responding to the claims that there is an orchestrated attempt to use Newtown emotion to further gun control and confiscation. There undeniably is, and it's not some crazy notion of the tinfoil hat crowd - but the admitted and public goals of some people in power. They have stated that they need to act now or they will lose the emotion required to pass such laws. That is not demonstrating that they are correct - it's the equivalent of "act before we have time to calm down and think, because we know we are in the minority on this."
  - Turing_Machine 14y ago
    Anti-nuclear hysteria is another good example. Which "tragedies" would those be, by the way?
- rooshdi 14y ago
  The same can be argued against the NRA: http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/16/behind_the_nras_money_gun_lobby http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/16/behind_the_nras_money_...
  - damoncali 14y ago
    Absolutely true. They use propaganda and emption as much as the anti gun crowd. But that link is way off base. The NRA is as pure a grass roots organization as exists in American politics. The gun industry is tiny. The NRA's lobbying budget is no where near the top of the list of political spenders. But they have roughly 4 million members (give or take - it grows in times of need) who are extremely passionate. They open their wallets, they vote, they organize, and they have an uncanny political memory. They terrify politicians (as the citizens should) because they are a well organized, focused group of single issue voters without party affiliation. When someone from the NRA sends a letter saying "don't vote for this or I won't vote for you" it really means something. They're not like the suburban housewife who demands that politicians "do something about guns" and then forgets about it a month later. That is where the NRA gets it's power. The gun industry and their money is peanuts.
    - rooshdi 14y ago
      Then why doesn't the NRA support most of its members when the vast majority of them want background checks on all gun sales? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/01/31/nra-leadership-members-divide-on-universal-background-checks/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/01/31/nr...

damoncali 14y ago

The snark is unnecessary. Gun control advocates have had these goals for decades - long before Newtown - and openly speak about them. There is no tinfoil hat, no new world order. Just a political agenda by a minority of the political spectrum that uses tragedy to their advantage without apology.

reader5000 14y ago
That still doesnt make any sense. It's like say in nuclear energy. There are two camps: one side says it is safe the other says it isn't. However, if evidence of more and more nuclear tragedies accumulate, one side looks more and more correct than the other. That side isn't "using" a nuclear tragedy to "further their own agenda", they are simply using it to demonstrate they are correct.
- damoncali 14y ago
  I'm just responding to the claims that there is an orchestrated attempt to use Newtown emotion to further gun control and confiscation. There undeniably is, and it's not some crazy notion of the tinfoil hat crowd - but the admitted and public goals of some people in power. They have stated that they need to act now or they will lose the emotion required to pass such laws. That is not demonstrating that they are correct - it's the equivalent of "act before we have time to calm down and think, because we know we are in the minority on this."
- Turing_Machine 14y ago
  Anti-nuclear hysteria is another good example. Which "tragedies" would those be, by the way?
rooshdi 14y ago
The same can be argued against the NRA: http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/16/behind_the_nras_money_gun_lobby http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/16/behind_the_nras_money_...
- damoncali 14y ago
  Absolutely true. They use propaganda and emption as much as the anti gun crowd. But that link is way off base. The NRA is as pure a grass roots organization as exists in American politics. The gun industry is tiny. The NRA's lobbying budget is no where near the top of the list of political spenders. But they have roughly 4 million members (give or take - it grows in times of need) who are extremely passionate. They open their wallets, they vote, they organize, and they have an uncanny political memory. They terrify politicians (as the citizens should) because they are a well organized, focused group of single issue voters without party affiliation. When someone from the NRA sends a letter saying "don't vote for this or I won't vote for you" it really means something. They're not like the suburban housewife who demands that politicians "do something about guns" and then forgets about it a month later. That is where the NRA gets it's power. The gun industry and their money is peanuts.
  - rooshdi 14y ago
    Then why doesn't the NRA support most of its members when the vast majority of them want background checks on all gun sales? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/01/31/nra-leadership-members-divide-on-universal-background-checks/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/01/31/nr...