“As voters are heading to the polls in the Primary, they can be confident in the knowledge that they know exactly where their elected officials stand on the important constitutional right of self-defense. … Republican incumbents who previously had NRA ratings of A or A+ and voted in favor of SB-7026, the so-called ‘school safety’ bill that contained gun control provisions, had their ratings dropped to a ‘C.’ Incumbents who voted against calling a Special Session are eligible for a grade increase up to a ‘B-.'” – NRA Florida lobbyist Marion Hammer in NRA: Florida legislators who voted against stand your ground special session will get a higher grade [via tampabay.com]
Unfortunately the NRA doesn’t really seem to hold itself accountable when it makes mistakes. And Ms Hammer, in particular, goes out of her way to attack “outsiders,” like Adam Kraut, who point this out.
I support the NRA as the big dog, gun-rights-wise, but it’s time for fresh leadership. Ms Hammer, thank you for your service to the gun rights community, but please, stop trying to eat our own, and consider gracefully letting the next generation have the honor of defending these rights we hold dear.
Ditto but I wouldn’t have put it so kindly.
It is interesting (and telling) that the NRA is mute on many issues but launches weaponized grade attacks with impunity. So to the NRA, put on your big boy pants and stand up for something more than pointing fingers from the comfort of your plush office.
Fat chance of that. Burrocrats don’t leave power voluntarily. They either stay forever, till they die in session(think McCain…), or they have it taken away from them. It’s the only two ways anyone ever leaves power.
“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Power is the most addictive drug. No addict gives this habit up cold turkey. Not unless they have it taken from them.
Burrocrats?
I can’t tell if it’s a typo or a deliberate joke about left-leaning government employees.
Either way, it’s funny.
I spell it the way they act. (not mine, Gallagher said it in one of his specials. Back in the 80s)
Yeah, Hammer endorsed part of this legislation before she was against it. Gun Owners have avoided Springfield Armory and Rock River for less than she’s done.
Never send a woman to do a man’s job.. Just more of the pussification of America… MAGA.
Idiot.
Adam Kraut was on the ballot and lost by more than a few votes to put it nicely. Probably due to a lot of negative publicity coming from a number of you tube providers that can’t understand how democracy works, advocating against NRA membership. If you want change then you must be a member in good standing for 5 years and vote. You can’t sit on the sidelines, bitch and rant and expect change. If you are serious about change within the largest lobbying advocate, bar non, including a conglomerate of all else, then the idea should be to join the NRA, become a voting member and then steer it into the direction of the majority. In 5 years maybe the teeny bopper fan base of the you tube providers will mature in experience and understanding of how the grown up world actually works.
The NRA failed when it allowed the National Firearms Act of 1934 to stand without offering opposition, the 1968 Gun Control Act, the “national instant check” system, the “no new machine gun for civilians” ban in 1986, the so-called “assault weapons ban in 1991, and other infringements on the Second Amendment. The next infringement will be a ban on “bump stocks” and other “rate increasing mechanisms”, that the NRA seems to want, offering feeble or no opposition, in the spirit of “compromise”.
Let’s face it. What better way to increase membership than to “allow” infringements to be enacted and then push for a new membership drive. Yes, the NRA has done good, but its spirit of “compromise” will only lead to one thing…confiscation.
If the NRA is truly the premier “gun rights” organization, it must reject ALL compromise…
What you wrote sounds like you’re not familiar with the fact the NRA wasn’t always a Pro-Gun lobby. That didn’t happen until right before the 80’s. And the NRA was very much against the assault weapons ban and were credited by non other than Bill Clinton for republican takeover of the house for the first time in 60 years.
Sounds as if Erik is not familiar with the passage of the National Firearms Act of 1934, not to mention GCA ’68.
This one page should bring you up to speed, should you choose to read it. As always, any information that one refuses to hear will be completely unable to help that one.
http://jpfo.org/articles-assd02/nra-supported-nfa34.htm
Note in particular how proud the NRA was to have helped in passing the NFA: “The NRA supported The National Firearms Act of 1934 which taxes and requires registration of such firearms as machine guns, sawed-off rifles and sawed-off shotguns. … NRA support of Federal gun legislation did not stop with the earlier Dodd bills. It currently backs several Senate and House bills which, through amendment, would put new teeth into the National and Federal Firearms Acts.” —American Rifleman, March 1968, P. 22
I can’t say it any better than the author: “Unless someone has evidence to prove that the NRA lied to its membership in its premier magazine, let the record show that the NRA got behind the first unconstitutional federal gun law in America and then bragged about having done so, many years later”
Is Erik willing to argue that the NRA, who regularly publish their support for all kinds of gun control schemes, including the current debacle over bump stocks(started by the NRA’s publishing that they would very much like to see that happen), is lying to its members for some secret, yet 2A benign, agenda of it’s own?
What in the world might that secret purpose be? I’ll bet whatever theory you can come up with doesn’t make nearly as much sense as the NRA backing gun control, just so that they can raise funds to fight what they themselves started in the first place.
Can you truly not see the power gains for the NRA in such duplicity? Is there anyone so naive as to believe there are humans(particularly those in suits…) who do NOT like money and power?
Negotiating Rights Away since 1934 has a long proud history of aiding in the infringement of the Second amendment, supposedly to protect it.
History
1791: The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified.
The amendment reads:
“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
After That
1871: The National Rifle Association was formed by Union Army veterans Col. William C. Church
and Gen. George Wingate.
After that, they start going the other way
1934: http://www.atf.gov/pub/fire-explo_pub/nfa.htm
1939 http://www.atf.gov/pub/fire-explo_pub/gca.htm
1968: http://www.atf.gov/pub/fire-explo_pub/gca.htm
1986: http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/46hard.pdf
1993 https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5087/text
1994 https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/5087/text
What is an inalienable individual right and what is a privilege?
What does “shall not be infringed” plainly mean?
Does the NRA support the unalienable individual right of the individual to keep and bear arms that shall not be infringed by government or does the NRA support government privileges?
I DO have evidence the NRA has lied to members in its publications!
https://youtu.be/2pk2LqqqtDs?t=4m9s (go to 4:09).
“We have supported the existing law of fully automatic firearms”
Directly contradicts his claims in Volume 13, Number 13, August 15, 1986 edition of The Monitor.
“”Repealing the machine gun amendment tacked on to the McClure-Volkmer bill will be a high priority.” said National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action Executive Director Wayne LaPierre Jr.”
Yeah, the NRA like all political animals, says whatever they think their followers might like to hear at any given moment.
But that wasn’t really the question proposed. As proposed it was: ” lying to its members for some secret, yet 2A benign, agenda of it’s own?”
The real question still stands: Just what could that hidden, yet benign, ‘reason’ be?
And I still lay big odds that nothing anyone can dream up makes half as much sense as; they do it for money and power. Personal gain.
Really, just how weird an idea is it that people will lie and cheat for their own gain? Didn’t anyone else know lots of kids growing up that were gleeful to cheat in even the slightest way, even in a game with nothing riding on it? Gleeful, at least until caught. Then comes feigned innocence, followed by anger and then violence. Anything to distract the listeners from their guilt. OFC, the more riding on the bet, the more the cheats come out of the woodwork, and more extreme the anger. I learned this by the age of ten, through bitter experience. The very best teacher…
Or did I just grow up on a different planet from the rest of Ya’ll?
the NFA was actually a compromise…originally it was a total ban…and included handguns…gangsters were regarded as a biggest threat in those days as terrorists are today.
The problem is, we have allowed the anti Second Amendment crowd to define the terms.
A firearm is a tool which possesses no evil intent on its own. Assigning intent to an inanimate object is the epitome of insanity. Demonizing a weapon on “looks alone” also marks the accuser as an unstable individual who is also insane. Call them out on their illogic and insanity.
Another dirty tactic the anti-Second Amendment crowd uses exposes children to potential and actual harm by putting them in “gun-free zones”. These people care not one wit about children, but uses them for their own nefarious purposes.
We need to TAKE BACK the argument…
When the antis blame the firearm for the actions of a criminal, state that: “a firearm is an inanimate object, subject only to the intent of the user”. Firearms ARE “equalizers” and are used to preserve life and make a 90 lb. woman equal to a 200 lb. criminal”.
When the antis attempt to justify their “gun free zones” counter their misguided argument with “you mean, criminal safety zones” or “victim disarmament zones”.
State that “we protect our money, banks, politicians and celebrities, buildings and facilities with PEOPLE WITH GUNS, but protect our children with “gun-free zone” signs”.
When the antis state that: “you don’t need and AR-15”, counter with, “Who are YOU to consider what I need or want?”
When the antis criticize AR-15s in general, counter with: “you mean the most popular rifle of the day, use able by even the smallest, weakest person as a means of self-defense. Besides, AR-15s are FUN to shoot”. Offer to take them to the range and supply them with an AR-15, ammunition and range time. I have made
many converts this way.
When the antis state that: “You don’t need an AR-15 to hunt with”, counter with “AR-15s ARE used for hunting, but in many states, are prohibited from being used to take large game because they are underpowered”.
When the antis state that: “AR-15s are high powered rifles”, correct them by stating that “AR-15s with the .223 or 5.56mm cartridge are considered medium-powered weapons–NOT “high-powered” by any means”.
When the antis state that: “the Constitution was written during the time of muskets, and that the Second Amendment should only apply to “weapons of that time period”, state that: “by your logic, the First Amendment should not apply to modern-day telecommunications, internet, television, radio, public-address systems, books and newspapers produced on high-speed offset printing presses. Only “town-criers” and Benjamin Franklin type printing presses would be covered under the First Amendment”.
When the antis state that “only law enforcement and government should possess firearms”, remind them of the latest school shooting, as well as Columbine, where “law enforcement” SAT ON THEIR HANDS while children were being murdered, citing “officer safety”, afraid to challenge the shooter, despite being armed to the hilt. Let’s not forget that police have immunity from prosecution for their actions and other protections not afforded to us ordinary citizens. The government-run murderous sieges at Ruby Ridge and Waco are also good examples of government (mis)use of firearms. Let’s not forget the millions murdered under communism by their governments AFTER their firearms were confiscated.
This tome can be used to counter any argument against any infringement of our Second Amendment.
Dragging Ruby Ridge and Waco into a gun discussion with an anti is as effective as passing out tinfoil hats at an NRA convention.
Quite often, firearms owners are their own worst enemies. The duck hunters don’t like the AR-15 “black rifles” so they see no problem if attempts are made to ban them. The traditional rifle owners don’t like machine guns, so they have no problem with them being legislated out of existence. Some pistol owners see nothing wrong with certain long guns being outlawed just as some rifle owners would have no problem seeing pistols banned. You see, anti-gunners want them all. They will chip away a little at a time until their goal of civilian disarmament is complete. They have an excuse for banning every firearm. Scoped bolt-action rifles are defined by anti-gunners as “sniper rifles” because they are “too accurate”. Magazine-fed weapons are suspect because of high (actually normal) magazine capacity. Handguns are suspect because they are “easily concealable”. The gun grabbers want them all and have made (flimsy and suspect) excuses for banning every type of firearm. They don’t care how long it takes. and will use incrementalism to their advantage.
Friends, ALL firearms advocates must “hang together” and realize that an assault on ANY means of firearms ownership and self-defense is an assault on ALL forms of firearms ownership and self-defense.
There is absolutely NO ROOM for complacency among ANY Second Amendment supporters. An attack on one is an attack on ALL…
ALL firearms laws are unconstitutional on their face. Imagine the hue and cry if “reasonable” restrictions were placed on First Amendment activities, especially with the “mainstream media”. The Second Amendment is clear–what part of “shall not be infringed” do politicians and the media not understand…of course, they understand full well…it’s part of their communist agenda…
Yet the machinegun owners never seem to want to ban bolt rifles
However, those civilians that own machine guns often do so as an investment. As a result, they have a financial incentive to ensure that the Hughes Amendment stays, and that a 30/60/90 day amnesty period for NFA items never actually occurs. So, in a way, they are also against the 2nd Amendment, from a capitalistic point of view (machine guns for me, but not for thee).
The number of machine guns and owners is already small, I hear this argument made (by non machine gun others) but I haven’t actually heard a machine gun owner say they are fans of the Hughes Amendment. Maybe they have their own secret web forum or Facebook group? Maybe that Republican donor saying no contributions unless the politicians push for an AWB, will owning his own machine gun collection?
Even if I had $8000 in a transferable Mac or $30,000 in an HK sear…I would want to get another sear or two, or an m16/full auto AR. Or an mp7. Or Ma Deuce, m249, BAR. Full auto APC 9, yes please! I don’t want to lose money, but if it would allow me to get the stuff I really want, eg true freedom, wouldn’t that be worth it?
Similar thing with suppressors and sbrs. Would I have lost a lot of money in stamps, waiting, forms, even cost vs a completely deregulated market, probably yes, but deregulation means I can buy stuff cheaper going forward and get what I want.
Pistol braces wouldn’t exist if you could get the real thing, an sbr, without the hassle and cost. Would it kill the pistol brace market, yep, people would lose money on all those $150 arm braces, but would gladly trash them and put real stocks on.
been that way since 1934…congress won’t support widespread ownership…
I like guns in general, I guess I am a pan-gunist or gun nerd… Anything at least decently reliable or interesting, so historically interesting even if not reliable is ok. I wouldn’t even support a ban of crappy “Saturday night specials” though a friend’s Jimenez was a worthless jamomatic. Machine guns, black powder, grenade launchers, revolvers, 3D printed or milled, semiautomatic, shotguns, bolt guns, single shot, RPG, belt fed, .50 Cal or larger, short barrel or long, pen gun or credit card/phone shaped… Why limit your options?
I don’t understand the guys the media trots out “I own guns, I am former military, I hunt, but no one should have access to those weapons of war…” Of course they are using them for political propoganda, you can find anyone to say anything you want. A lot of those calling for restrictions either don’t use guns, are protected by guns, or are members of the special class of federal/police so they can get their mag limit carve outs, department issued machine guns, silencers, grenade launchers, etc. Easy to call for limitations that don’t apply to yourself.
Machine gun owners also hated bump stocks because they had so much money to lose. They are investors, plain and simple.
Did bump stocks devalue machine guns? I think not. Machine gun owners might be snobbish about owning “the real thing” vs a bump stock, but I don’t think bump stocks or binary triggers hurt them.
Investments created by regulation are fraught with peril.
And yet almost all investments are fraught with regulations… and thus peril. Perhaps this is why the Kondratiev wave goes around wiping the investments of the world out every 75-100 years??????
That’s retarded, to put it nicely. Bump stocks saw the most insane rise in prices for mg’s yet witnessed…largely because bump stocks gave shooters a taste of something sort of like the real thing and increased demand.
The only ‘investor’ MG owners are the ones who never shoot the things, and people who can’t even afford them;
1) Pre- and shortly post-1986 owners who were savvy enough to squirrel away transferrable MGs when they were still available, as an investment. This is a vanishingly tiny number of folks at this point; most of the big owners are collections, like the Knight’s, which are more focused on curation than appreciation. Pretty much all collectors who bothered to hang onto the guns this long are also avid shooters.
2) People who inherited collections from #1; these guys may well not be gun-guys, and realistically may be more focused on the investment aspect. Most of them sell the guns in fairly short order because they have no interest in them, and the prices are already nuts. For those still trying to chisel a few more dimes out of artificial government price fixing…fuck ’em.
3) People who bought their one crummy MAC or Uzi, which they really could not afford in the first place. Now they are out a large amount of cash, can’t afford to shoot them very often, and the only consolation is that “the price can only go up” in the future…so long as the laws don’t change. Frankly, I believe this group to be far & away the biggest offenders in opposing NFA normalization, such that any group is.
Every NFA shooter I’ve met, whether they use 15,000$ DIAS or 10,000$ lightning links, or 40,000$ HK sear packs, salivates at the thought of how much MORE cool stuff they could own, and how much MORE ammo they could shoot, and how much LESS they would have to worry about the cost of wearing out registered items, for the same money they put into the hobby at present. Every gun builder dreams of how much easier resurrecting old parts kits would be if open-bolt MGs could be produced on a Form 1 again.
Fudds who dislike both semi-autos as well as machine guns are the real problem. They’ve ALWAYS been the problem. People who think more than one shot per second is ‘irresponsible’ and should not be available to untrained civilians. There’s a whole lot more of them inside the NRA than people care to admit, just because they have dropped their opposition to some cosmetic features like pistol grips, but the fact remains they are not comfortable with even our current restrictions, and will oppose any legalization efforts. Hammer is well known among this group, along with much of the NRA leadership; whether because they make more money the longer they keep the game going, or because they think legalization would cause a stronger backlash.*
They want to keep the status quo because it’s working for them.
*politics does not work this way; a ‘win’ does not cost resources, it gains resources & acceptance in time. The struggle to get that ‘win’ is what is the drain. Which is why it’s much more important to ‘win’ than to hold off the anti’s efforts against us…yet that’s all the NRA has ever been interested in accomplishing. Hence the gradual decline. The 94AWB didn’t disappear because of NRA efforts, it was accomplished because Strom Thurmond had the sunset provision included at the outside, and the sunset included because that was the best bill the Democrats could get enough support for.
bump stocks were a range toy…until they weren’t…one guy changed all that…..
Any device that allows a semi auto to function like a MG drives the value of a real MG down. If millions of people had slide fire stocks then the value of sub machine guns would go down. An M-60 is not going down in value or an M-2. But a sub machine gun, small like an AR-15, that sub gun would go down in value. There will always be machine gun collectors just like car collectors.
Any gun owner who is against new technology, the slide fire , 3D printed guns, and anything not invented yet, is anti-second amendment. They are just a FUDD. And there are a lot of FUDDs out there.
I see that copy paste is still your preferred form of composition. Are you thinking that maybe people here will read it for the 14th or 15th time and finally realize what they already knew before you copy-pasted it the first time and maybe even before you were born, because you repeated it word for word yet again?
anarchyst is the dude that said the holocaust never happened and that hitler will be vindicated by history.
Nothing he says, cut and paste or not, can be taken at face value.
My eyes glaze over when I see that BS. DITTO for book length responses. Brevity is the soul of wit…the NRA is the big dog. Sorry Floriduh. My own state of ILLinois is going further into he!!. You’re on your own…
The big dog is fat & lazy.
How’s that for brief?
You win the interwebz!😄
This is where I leave this website due to the inordinate number of genius writers spewing on and on about things no one but they find worth reading.
Buh-bye.
SB7026 was a horrible bill.
I’d say voting for it, or signing it into law should drop an A+ to a D.
Voting for SB7026 AND voting to hold a special legislative session to eliminate protections for self defense should drop an A+ to a F.
Under the NRA/Hammer Incumbent Protection Plan™, you can revoke the 2A rights of 20 year old military veterans and still get a B-.
may the bird of paradise fly over their heads and dump its load, then swooping seagulls to follow up
Does it matter? Even if a bunch of these RINO’s got primaried the end result would likley be a mixed bag of freshmen (R)’s and a bunch of (D)’s. Have any of these knee-jerk gun control measures, even with recalls and primaried RINO’s, been scrapped outside court ruling?
I would like some guidance from NRA or anyone else on who to vote for judge here in Florida
My primary ballot has three different judge positions on it and it is a non-partisan race.
I don’t even know who is a Democrat or Republican much less their views on things like gun control and abortion
How do I know which judge to vote for so we don’t get a judge like the one in New Mexico who let the Muslim dad out on signature bond after he rana school for child shooters
I live in SW Fl.
As a rule I never vote for incumbents.
It’s the only way I can support my position of term limits.
That said, I will vote “to retain” if that individual has a proven record that supports my beliefs.
And THAT my friends is how democracy SHOULD work.
(A man can dream, can’t he?)
I would say you should never use NRA endorsements as a voting guide. The NRA really screwed up endorsing the wrong GOP candidate in the recent Georgia primary run off. Fortunately the NRA backed candidate lost.
Check with your state 2A organization for better info.
So the new NRA combats the attack on the Second Amendment by scolding people? Why do you people continue to give them your money? There’s no fight left in that organization.
We need a real simple and short SCOTUS decision against any firearms law. Just 4 words: “shall not be infringed”
In Virginia, instead of backing the very, very Pro-Second Amendment Libertarian, the NRA went with the GOP loser who has little credibility. The NRA rolls over all the time and the GOP knows it and plays them like a fiddle. Gun Owners of America (GOA) are the only no-compromise 2nd Amendment group. I quit the NRA years ago because they refused to stand tall and never back down, just like they waffled the bump stock issue.
The Slide fire stock is not a range Toy.
It is a weapon that kills. As we all saw in Las Vegas it is an effective one. It is as effective as any Machine Gun weapon. A shot gun and revolver hand gun killed many children in a Texas high school. But no gun owner wants to ban them. But many gun owners want to ban NEW gun technology.
The word, ARMS, not the word gun is in the second amendment. Your Remington 700 will not protect you from a tyrannical government in the future. But having the same ARMS that the government has will keep you free.
All the NRA haters out there need to consider just where we’d all be without them today. They have stood up for us for decades, and if we don’t agree with everything they do we are miles ahead of where we’d be without them. But if you don’t like them, then find a viable and effective alternative such as the GOA or the NAGR and be sure to join and actively support your state and local gun rights organizations. too many people on these blogs rant and rave about Democrats, gun control and dis the NRA, but that’s about all they do.
Um:
“Peaceful, responsible citizens are in a position to hold their representatives responsible for legislative foolishness and grandstanding, because their membership organization informed them of what the politicians did.”
Shorter version:
“That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
There. FIFY.
Holding elected things, Republican or Democrat ” responsible for their votes”, the concept is truly amazing.
Comments are closed.