Thursday, June 26, 2008
Why NRA?
I try to be open-minded. I don't want to be so open-minded that I lose my brain and some things I think are worth sticking to your guns about (some pun intended) so I'm looking into joining the National Rifle Association. Yes, Don (both of you), I am thinking about it. The motivation climaxed this morning with the news of the Supreme Court doing the right thing by upholding the Second Amendment in Washington D.C. and I realized just how fragile our gun rights are. In deep reflection, I think my stubbornness to avoid the NRA comes from an idealistic view of the world where we should not have to lobby for automatic weapons and grenade launchers just to counter the other side who are lobbying for us to lose our right to keep and bear arms all together. In my naive world, there is a middle ground that is obvious to everybody and the NRA is not really necessary. Maybe I have been wrong. Maybe I have changed and the world has changed and maybe the NRA has changed. I'm willing to at least be that open-minded and check it out. I'll let ya know.
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4 comments:
Todd:
I applaud your reasoning, and will welcome you with open arms to the NRA if you so choose, and will continue to call you friend if you don't.
DR
Todd, Ted here. Hey, why don't you join up with the NRA before Obama and his cronies try to get a Stranglehold on your 2nd Amendment rights?
If you kill it, grill it!
- Ted
I'm an avid shooter, but not an NRA member. I am a member of GOA because they are not as wishy-washy as the NRA wimps. The NRA made me mad when they kept falling back on the "legitimate sporting purpose" argument, as if the 2nd Amendment is about hunting and there is no right to own a rifle which is not suited to shooting animals.
Whoa there D²! I understand what you're saying about the language not being as forthright as you and I might always like. As Walter Williams said of the 2A, "it ain't about duck hunting!"
But let's not forget that this is a struggle fought not only in the halls of Congress, but in the minds of a great many who fail to grasp the differences (some might mistakenly say nuances, but we know it's more substantive than that) between rights and privileges. If we lose those MOR folks, we can be right as rain, and still lose the war.
No, I don't care to water down the argument, but it's preferable to losing. As the hoplophobes euphemize "responsible gun ownership" to mean bans and confiscation, I don't think the NRA loses its moral compass by reminding people of sporting purposes. Again, may not go as far as you & I'd like, or be as ideologically pure, but you have to also look at what the NRA-ILA is doing to get our issues in front of decision makers, and getting the word out regarding candidates' stances on 2A.
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