TheAgitator.com
Public Choice in Action
Friday, June 27th, 2008Now that we have a decision in Heller, it’s worth reminding gun owners that the most well-known “gun rights” organization in America opposed this project from the outset.
Might keep that in mind when it’s time to renew your NRA dues. Utah gun owners might read the linked article before sending Orin Hatch your next campaign donation.
Well, duh. If the gun question was ever settled, the NRA wouldn’t have a job.
It’s the same reason that conservative politicians don’t *really* want Roe overturned. If it ever was, what would they run against every few years?
t’s the same reason that conservative politicians don’t *really* want Roe overturned. If it ever was, what would they run against every few years?
Gay marriage, drugs, puppies, Colts fans…
Why do you assume that everyone who is happy with this ruling is a dues-paying member of the NRA?
I have never owned a gun (and have only practiced with one twice while on active duty…..once in 1982, and again in 1998), and never intend to, and therefore, never expect to be a member of the NRA.
I am very happy with this ruling for the simple reason that it should be every American’s right to CHOOSE to own a gun. (….and if a woman CHOOSES to have an abortion, I hope she’s also willing to allow her fellow woman to CHOOSE to give a child up for adoption, as well……..that’s what CHOICE should be all about).
I think some people forget that sometimes…….
I, too, am tired of the trope that, as a gun-rights advocate, I must also be beholden to the NRA. The NRA is a great organization for hunters and sportsmen, but as a 2A advocate in terms of liberty and its defense, they’re a bust.
Um, from what I see the NRA was just worried that the case might be lost at the SCOTUS level - which leads me to believe that they are smarter than you think given the 5/4 split on a decision that should have been (for a court composed of literate justices) 9/0, or 7/2 with a couple of braindead liberals on the court.
I am as big a gun rights advocate as one will find anywhere…
…but I’m not an NRA member.
The NRA compromises at every turn. If someone wants to kick me in the nuts twice and I convince them to only kick me in the nuts once, the NRA would consider that an acceptable compromise.
Not me.
I’m much more active and much more involved at the state level. I think state-level gun rights groups are where the real changes and progress get made.
I’m a member of http://www.GeorgiaCarry.Org GCO is only two years old, but we have over 1600 members and an already stellar record of getting things done for gun rights in GA. GCO also filed an amicus brief in Heller describing the racist roots of gun control in the US.
I didn’t say everyone who supports this decision is a dues-paying member of the NRA. I’m just saying that the NRA sometimes promotes an agenda that’s not always consistent with gun rights.
Hah!
Yesterday I was discussing the ruling with my family who are all ardent victim disarmament supporters.
They were complaining about the NRA’s victory and were shocked when I told them that the NRA had opposed the complainants.
They had really no clue as to who brought the case on and why.
I did get a kick out of saying, “The NRA promotes gun control - not opposes it. They hope that if they play ball that the regs will end up being slightly less onerous. All that noise they make about ‘cold dead hands’ is intended to rile up the rubes and get money out of them.”
I should have played Duran Duran’s cover of “911 is a joke” to drive my point home.
Ben G.: “If someone wants to kick me in the nuts twice and I convince them to only kick me in the nuts once, the NRA would consider that an acceptable compromise.”
Good analogy, but in practice it’s more like this: You have already been kicked in the nuts and are determined to not let it happen again. When the kicker opines that they would like to do it again, the NRA swoops in and proposes that they slap you across the face instead. The NRA then claims victory for this “compromise”, because you didn’t get kicked.
It was far from settled that you were going to get a second kick; the kicker hadn’t even drawn back his foot. But they were more than happy to take the NRA up on their offer to let you be slapped.
And then they probably gave you a wedgie to boot.
The NRA opposed the effort because until Samuel Alito was sworn in as a justice to the Supreme Court in 2006 this case would have been fruitless. Many people, not just at the NRA, recognized that Sandra Day O’Connor wasn’t likely to uphold an individual-rights interpretation of the 2nd.
Furthermore, if either John Kerry or Al Gore had defeated George Bush, gun owners would be stinging from a 6-3 smackdown right about now because both Justices Roberts and Alito would likely have been replaced by anti-gun judges.
I realize NRA-bashing is a quick and easy way to make oneself appear urbane and hip to members of the gun community, but in reality it’s juvenile and getting rather tiresome. No other gun-rights group even comes close to doing what the NRA does for gun owners, both in terms of legislation and education.
PS: Speaking of Utah, back in 1995 the Utah GOA affiliate openly opposed Utah’s shall-issue Concealed Carry law, calling the permit system “gun control in disguise”. I was there, I remember.
If we had listened to them Utah’s widely-accepted permit system — considered by many to be the closest thing to a de facto national carry permit — wouldn’t exist, and instead of over 100,000 Utah permittees there would only be a handful of well-connected elites allowed to carry.
Radley said: ”I’m just saying that the NRA sometimes promotes an agenda that’s not always consistent with gun rights.”
You are absolutely correct.
Given the shenanigans that have gone down under the gold dome here in GA over the last couple of years, I have seen their agenda in action and is not based on what is best for gun owners.
The NRA is more concerned about being on the winning team than doing the right thing.
Organizations like GOA, SAF, JPFO and the myriad state-level groups are much more focused on the real issues.
I hate the NRA. And I’m a life member.
Back in the late ’80’s, when our Republican president, George Bush the elder, was backing the assault weapons ban, pro-RKBA folks didn’t have a lot of choices. Or rather, despite the choices, it seemed like a good idea to stand behind the largest pro-gun group in the country.
At times, their highly strategic approach has worked well, but I seem to recall them backing away from the principles of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in favor of hunters, the police, and stocking gun dealers.
Not saying that I agree with the NRA here, but it isn’t nessasarily inconsistant with being for gun rights.
Being concerned with always being on the winning team can certainly be important. Losing this SCOTUS decision would have been probably more devastating than the rights granted by winning it.
If the decision had gone the other way wouldn’t that free up every single city council in the US to ban handguns in thier town? If thats really the outcome I wouldn’t want the case to go before the supreme court until I was sure it would win.
Hmm… a blogger recently wrote “[the] ruling gave the right a rhetorical victory… but I’m not sure what it accomplished in actually protecting Second Amendment rights”. Given this statement, perhaps the NRA was correct in its opposition?
Wayne LaPierre and the rest at the NRA are more like partisan Republican lap dogs. If I hear Wayne support one more “reasonable” infringement (like his support of keeping universities victim-disarmament-zones), I’m gonna puke.
I give to Gun Owners of America, and I should (will) support the JPFO (those people really don’t compromise, for good reason).
Captain Holly and Michael Chaney are dead on. The NRA opposed, and tried to torpedo, this lawsuit because they thought there was a good chance they would lose. And they were right. Heller was decided by **one vote**.
I often think the NRA is too accommodating, and I tend to prefer the GoA or the JPFO. But if anyone thinks we would have made as much progress on gun issues as we have in the last 20 years or so without the NRA is, in my humble opinion, crazy.
Heller was filed in 2002. We have had 2 new Justices since then, both chosen by the president elected in 2004.
Had the election gone the other way, this case would almost certainly have been decided AGAINST Heller. It worked out ok, but the NRA was certainly justified in trying to avoid this fight.
The NRA has its pros and cons, but as a 20 year member I have seen first hand that the NRA has been a major reason for the retreat of the gun-control groups. I’m not sure why Radley Balko posted something snarky about them, but then, I also don’t know how Balko, a libertarian, could say with a straight face that Clinton was a better president than Reagan. While I enjoy this site, I don’t trust his judgment.
1. The NRAs opposition was based on long term strategy, not an aversion to the 2nd amendment as a guarantee of individual gun owner’s rights.
2. Given Radley’s own analysis of the victory as being fairly hollow, it seems the NRA was quite correct in it’s opposition, since not much was gained, and there was much more to lose. It seems odd to me that someone who recognizes a victory as hollow would also criticize a group that came to the same conclusion before the victory even occurred.
let me try that with blockquotes…..
————————-
Because those at the NRA do ingratiate themselves to political factions at the expense of American liberties. There are a lot of purists out there like Levy, Gura, and grassroots activists (like David Codrea) who do seek to advance liberty without trying to master the sleezy political “game.” It’s annoying to see the NRA mentioned in every single article by an ignorant mainstream “journalist.”
THe part of the decision that bothers me is when they say the first clause of the 2nd amendment has no legal effect or meaning. Is anyone else bothered by the spectre of supreme court judges picking through the constitution this way? I mean if you can say that about one phrase why can’t you sat it about another?
Of course Wayne La Whatshisface NRA was all over the TV on all the news coverage I saw talking about how this was such a great day in American history or some BS.
//THe part of the decision that bothers me is when they say the first clause of the 2nd amendment has no legal effect or meaning.//
The first part of the Second Amendment makes abundantly clear that “Arms” doesn’t just mean “hunting or sporting” weapons.
Ahem. The Bill of Rights doesn’t “grant” rights.
The NRA’s opposition to this case was yet another reason I don’t support them. The primary one is, of course, that they are strong supporters of the War on Drugs. Read through the NRA/NRA-ILA press releases and you will see that. This is why I support JPFO rather than the NRA. The JPFO’s only focus is firearm ownership, not defining what should and shouldn’t be a crime.
“…it seems the NRA was quite correct in it’s opposition, since not much was gained, and there was much more to lose.”
NOT MUCH WAS GAINED! Anyone thinking this crap needs to put yourself in the shoes of fellow citizens that have been living under tyranny in the DC suburbs. This ruling gives those citizens the ability to defend their freaking homes, AND YOU CALL IT NOTHING???
If that isn’t an “I’ve-got-mine-attitude” I don’t know what is. And if you are someone that defends the NRA for leaving an unconstitutional gun control “law” on the books for 32 years, (only to build traction and support by anti’s throughout this country), I have absolutely no compassion when tyranny lays up in your backyard and NO ONE lifts a finger after 32 years of getting YOUR nuts kicked in.
Ahhh, Radley. Your advice regarding Utah’s fine citizens and their contributions to Sen Hatch led me to open-secrets-dot-com’s rundown of his campaign finances. For what it’s worth:
Xango LLC (which is a Utah based fruit juice/beverage co.)
BlueCross/BlueShield
Cerebus Capital Mgm’t
St Paul/Travelers
Bear Stern
J P Morgan
Dell
Hewlett Packard
Oracle
Good neighbors–depending on your committee assignments.
[...] Then Radly Balko faults the NRA for not pushing Heller from the start while saying, at the link above, “I’m having a hard [...]
To the person who said:
“Of course Wayne La Whatshisface NRA was all over the TV on all the news coverage I saw talking about how this was such a great day in American history or some BS.”
Can’t the NRA say that this was a great decision, but still believe, given the risks at the time, bringing the case wasn’t a good move?