NRA: The new face of the American right?

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Cees,

Het is nu wachten op een radio (Tv broadcasting - al in hun handen en
zenden nog slechts geluid uit - ´beelden´ zeggen immers teveel)
uitzending, waarbij ´den alien(s)´ die zich overdag (vermomd als bijna
normale mensen) door, in en tussen het winkelend publiek van de stad
hebben begeven ... ? ;)

Het - te verwachten enorme - bloedbad voltrekt zich als vanzelf
vanwege de door de schutters zelf opgebouwde spanning.

Eigenlijk zo´n beetje zoals men hier *voor* Europa moet zijn omdat men
anders alle onheil (in het ´onvermijdelijke´ goed- en kwaaddenken)
over zich afroept.

Zal zelfs wel in de sterren staan. :) Zoals ook deze gedachten bij
Raad voor Kinderbescherming zelfs een rol spelen ... maar dat
terzijde, al valt den stomzinnigheid aldaar nu wel al iets beter te
´verklaren´.

(Terug naar het huidige onderwerp:) ´Den Alien´ kan uberhaupt niets
goeds in petto hebben, dus lezen/horen we over enkele dagen/later wel,
welke er ´terecht´ zullen zijn doodgeschoten (goddank werkte dat nog
wel).... en dat door lieden die gewapenderhand zelf op zoek zijn
gegaan naar ´den alien´ die zich in de binnenstad ophield, of nog
erger zich aldaar ´verdacht gedroeg, zoiets dus, Cees ?  ;)

Wat je geschiedenis (angst voor den Indiaan) al niet kan bijdragen in
het hedendaagse ...

Henk Elegeert



2009/5/20 Cees Binkhorst <ceesbink at xs4all.nl>:
> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
>
> De National Riffle Asssociation - In Nederland zouden we zeggen de
> wapenlobby, maar dat gaat in de USA toch niet helemaal op.
>
> Nu stonden de rijen 5 dik om het stadion heen om toch vooral maar wapens
> en munitie te kopen zolang het nog kan.
>
> In januari heb ik over soortgelijke situaties gelezen. De munitie was toen
> al een week uitverkocht. Voor onze begrippen ongelooflijke toestanden.
>
> Ook verhelderend het commentaar van de professor hieronder, dat 'de
> partijen' stuivertje hebben gewisseld.
>
> Groet / Cees
>
> from the May 18, 2009 edition -
> http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0518/p02s04-ussc.html
> NRA: The new face of the American right?
> Key GOP leaders came to woo the NRA's annual convention this weekend, one
> sign of the group's growing clout.
> By Patrik Jonsson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
>
> Phoenix
>
> When Kirby Warner, a trusty Ruger pistol strapped to his hip, sat around
> and shot the breeze with his fellow gun owners here at the National Rifle
> Association's annual meeting this weekend, they weren't just chatting
> calibers and cartridges.
>
> Nor did they stop at other tried and trusted fare, such as President Obama
> and gun control. This year, taxes, bailouts, and the general direction of
> the country was all on the docket. He remembers reading a sign at one of
> the national tea parties: "If First Amendment fails, see Second
> Amendment."
>
> "I like that," he chuckles.
>
> The 47,000 gun-loving Americans who attended the 138th NRA Convention bore
> the hopes of many disgruntled, mostly white Americans who seek to check
> what they see as Washington's liberal trajectory. They represent one of
> the most organized and entrenched groups opposed to the Obama
> administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress, so it's no
> coincidence that Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona, potential Republican
> presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, and GOP chairman Michael Steele all
> spoke Friday at a leadership forum here.
>
> Moreover, they are growing: Membership is booming, gun registrations are
> skyrocketing, and ammunition stores are back-ordered by the millions. This
> success is giving the NRA significant clout in an electorate polarized by
> issues ranging from gun control to government bailouts. In addition, it is
> threatening to merge the organization's firebrand rhetoric – which,
> critics say, sometime verges on paranoia – with a broader band of
> political discontent.
>
> "This is armed conservatism, backing political beliefs with guns, and I
> think that's the key of its emotional appeal," says Joan Burbick, author
> of "Gun Show Nation: Gun Culture and American Democracy." "The gun has
> become the symbol of the conservative vision of freedom."
>
> Going back to the 1977 "Cincinnati Revolt" that launched the modern NRA,
> the gun lobby's membership has ebbed and flowed with the political tides,
> cresting under Democrat presidents. "If President Obama can be credited
> with one thing, it's the boom in gun sales," says Chris Cox, the NRA's
> chief legislative director.
>
> This weekend, NRA leaders were keen to lay out in stark terms the threat
> they see in the Obama administration. Gun owners face "the slickest, most
> aggressive anti-gun White House in history," said CEO Wayne Lapierre.
>
> Other NRA brass predict that the Second Amendment could be repealed within
> the next five years.
>
> They are statements that, by many measures, are at odds with current
> trends in statehouses and Congress. High-ranking Democrats, including
> secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, US Attorney General Eric
> Holder, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of
> California, have promised to "pick the time and place" (in Senator
> Feinstein's words) for more gun restrictions. The NRA points to such
> statements as proof that the Second Amendment is under attack. Conversely,
> they can also be seen as underlining the current strength of the gun
> lobby, which has won several important victories on the legal, political,
> and electoral front.
>
> •Polls show that Americans are increasingly cautious about gun
> restrictions, with support for an assault-rifle ban falling by about
> one-third in the past 18 years.
>
> •A proposal for the Army to stop selling spent shells to reloading firms
> was quickly overturned this spring.
>
> •Mr. Obama stunned gun-control advocates last week when he upheld rules to
> keep gun-buying data secret, reversing a campaign promise to victims of
> gun violence.
>
> •The Supreme Court's Heller decision last year said the Second Amendment
> guarantees the individual's right to own a gun, and the NRA recently won a
> similar court fight in San Francisco.
>
> Despite these successes, Mr. Lapierre, the NRA CEO, spoke almost in
> doomsday terms this weekend about opponents of the Second Amendment. "The
> bomb is armed and the fuse is lit," he said. "They are going to come at us
> with everything they've got, and we are going to be ready for them. If
> they want to fight, we will fight."
>
> To critics, it is rhetoric completely out of proportion to the current
> threat. "Despite the fact that they won their Supreme Court case, they act
> as if they lost," says Josh Sugarmann, founder of the Violence Policy
> Center in Washington. "The NRA uses language as if things occur in a
> vacuum – in the abstract. But for every guy that takes it as inspiration,
> who gets involved in local politics, who believes that the government is
> coming for his guns, there's a growing idea that it's the guys with the
> guns who make the rules."
>
> Saul Cornell, author of "A Well Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers
> and the Origins of Gun Control in America," has simpler take:
>
> "Even when [gun owners] win, they freak out," he writes in an e-mail.
>
> Yet the NRA's ability to mobilize opposition is also one reason that a
> proposal introduced to Congress last week to cut down on gun-show
> "loopholes" that allow "paperless" gun sales will face major hurdles.
>
> The concern is that the amplitude of the rhetoric on the issue of gun
> rights is creating a certain hysteria. At a major gun show in Phoenix two
> weeks ago, Daniel Guier, a gun owner from Chandler, Ariz., witnessed an
> entry queue that snaked around an entire coliseum, people standing five
> abreast.
>
> "There's a paranoia now that I've never seen before due to the
> unpredictability of Washington and the idea that, sooner or later, Obama
> will put up the fight," says Mr. Guier. "Unfortunately, that means that a
> lot of people who probably shouldn't be owning guns are buying guns."
>
> But Bill Peets, for one, isn't buying the argument that gun owners are
> overreacting. The California gun dealer says that liberals want to
> undermine America's gun culture, not with another assault-weapons ban, but
> with "a barrage" of new rules. The theory echoes down every aisle of the
> convention as attendees tell stories of law-abiding citizens – including a
> disabled Iraq war veteran – who were caught up in Byzantine gun rules and
> thrown in jail. Meanwhile, real criminals are getting off scot-free, they
> say.
>
> "The fear is that the government is going to come in and nitpick your
> rights away," says Mr. Peets.
>
> Barry Brummett, who studies rhetoric at the University of Texas at Austin
> and is a gun owner, says he's fascinated by the political shift over gun
> rights in the past half century. In the 1950s and ’60s, he says, it was
> liberal activists who spoke publicly about arming the population for a
> revolution, and "nobody on the left seemed the least bit trouble." At the
> same time, he says, conservatives "were all scared about ordinary people
> getting themselves armed."
>
> Now, Professor Brummett says, "firearms rights and ownership is largely in
> bed with the political right, and that mystifies me, frankly."
>
> Republicans are keen to tap into NRA member's natural distrust of
> Democratic leadership – particularly now, when the party is casting about
> for new ideas and direction. In this context, the NRA could emerge as an
> organizing force among the ranks of mostly white conservatives.
>
> "In itself, the NRA can't win an election, but in any kind of close
> election, they can swing it," says Brian Anse Patrick, a communications
> professor at the University of Toledo in Ohio.
>
> Indeed, for many gun owners, this year's NRA show isn't the beginning of
> any armed insurrection, but rather a part of a conservative soul-searching
> as an out-of-power political minority seeks a new role.
>
> "I want us just to relax and be Americans and not be at each other's
> throats like this all the time," says Junior Sampson, a gun owner from
> Tucson, Ariz. "At the same time, I think a good government is one that is
> slightly scared of its citizens."
>
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