The thing to keep in mind about the NRA: It originally represented the gun owners. But now? They represent the gun industry. And the gun industry makes the most money when there's fear mongering about "They're gonna take your rights away so buy as many guns as you can while you can!!!" So the NRA does its level best to keep that sort of talk going on. Which is most assuredly not helping the situation any!
Oh, and Hazard asked what the difference between USA and Canada was?
Easy. Samuel Colt. We had him. Canada didn't. And the man was a marketing genius for the time. He made damn sure people were buying his guns and was pretty much the root of America's gun culture.
I mean, seriously, look at this excerpt from the Wikipedia article about the man where they talk about how he marketed his guns...
You want to know how America went so gun crazy? There you go. And there's no real way you're gonna get that genie back into the bottle. Believe me, that's not a hill you want to die on, metaphorically speaking.
But if there were a way to pull the teeth out of the NRA, I'm welcome to suggestions. Though I'm pretty sure that reforming corporate personhood laws here in the USA will go a long ways towards that.
I would like to reiterate: while tougher gun laws may cut down on SOME of these outbursts of violence, it's not going to stop it entirely. After all, even a ten year old can make a pressure cooker bomb with some fertilizer, diesel, a cell phone, and a few sundries from the hobby shop. I shudder to think how much worse the Las Vegas attack would have been if the man had used pipe bombs hidden in discarded drinking cups.
I'm not saying it wasn't horrible. I'm just saying it could have been worse. Yes, I know. It's horrible. It's morbid.
But you know what? IT'S THE FUCKING TRUTH. And we all know the truth sucks sometimes, and that truth is that gun laws are not some magic bullet that's gonna make everything better (pun not intended). Please don't fall into that kind of trap.
I will gladly caveat that the background check system is a fucking mess and it needs to be fixed. I will gladly discuss ways that the background check system can be fixed. But beyond that you need to look at other factors. This is not a simple matter and it cannot be treated as such.
Oh, and Hazard asked what the difference between USA and Canada was?
Easy. Samuel Colt. We had him. Canada didn't. And the man was a marketing genius for the time. He made damn sure people were buying his guns and was pretty much the root of America's gun culture.
I mean, seriously, look at this excerpt from the Wikipedia article about the man where they talk about how he marketed his guns...
Quote:When foreign heads of state would not grant him an audience, as he was only a private citizen, he persuaded the governor of the state of Connecticut make him a lieutenant colonel and aide-de-camp in the state militia. With this rank, he toured Europe again to promote his revolvers. He used marketing techniques which were innovative at the time. He frequently gave custom engraved versions of his revolvers to heads of state, military officers, and personalities such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, and Hungarian freedom fighter Lajos Kossuth. Colt commissioned western artist George Catlin to produce a series of paintings depicting exotic scenes in which a Colt weapon was prominently used against Indians, wild animals, or bandits in the earliest form of "product placement". He placed numerous advertisements in the same newspapers; The Knickerbocker ran as many as eight in the same edition. Lastly, he hired authors to write stories about his guns for magazines and travel guides. One of Colt's biggest acts of self-promotion was the payment to the publishers of United States Magazine $1,120 ($61,439 by 1999 standards) to run a 29-page fully illustrated story showing the inner workings of his factory.
After his revolvers had gained acceptance, Colt looked for unsolicited news stories containing mention of his guns that he could excerpt and reprint. He went so far as to hire agents in other states and territories to find such samples, to buy hundreds of copies for himself and to give the editor a free revolver for writing them, particularly if such a story disparaged his competition. Many of the revolvers Colt gave away as "gifts" had inscriptions such as "Compliments of Col. Colt" or "From the Inventor" engraved on the back straps. Later versions contained his entire signature which was used in many of his advertisements as a centerpiece, using his celebrity to guarantee the performance of his weapons. Colt eventually secured a trademark for his signature.
You want to know how America went so gun crazy? There you go. And there's no real way you're gonna get that genie back into the bottle. Believe me, that's not a hill you want to die on, metaphorically speaking.
But if there were a way to pull the teeth out of the NRA, I'm welcome to suggestions. Though I'm pretty sure that reforming corporate personhood laws here in the USA will go a long ways towards that.
I would like to reiterate: while tougher gun laws may cut down on SOME of these outbursts of violence, it's not going to stop it entirely. After all, even a ten year old can make a pressure cooker bomb with some fertilizer, diesel, a cell phone, and a few sundries from the hobby shop. I shudder to think how much worse the Las Vegas attack would have been if the man had used pipe bombs hidden in discarded drinking cups.
I'm not saying it wasn't horrible. I'm just saying it could have been worse. Yes, I know. It's horrible. It's morbid.
But you know what? IT'S THE FUCKING TRUTH. And we all know the truth sucks sometimes, and that truth is that gun laws are not some magic bullet that's gonna make everything better (pun not intended). Please don't fall into that kind of trap.
I will gladly caveat that the background check system is a fucking mess and it needs to be fixed. I will gladly discuss ways that the background check system can be fixed. But beyond that you need to look at other factors. This is not a simple matter and it cannot be treated as such.