Timeline for Why is there no effective anti-gun lobby in the United States?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
22 events
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| Nov 9, 2017 at 19:57 | comment | added | jamesqf | @stannius: Actually, the number of NRA members (4-5 million) is quite a bit less than 10% of gun owners (100 million or more). | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 19:17 | comment | added | user1530 | Let us continue this discussion in chat. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 19:16 | comment | added | Jerry Coffin | @blip: You're starting to take at least a little more defensible position, but it's still pretty weak at best. First of all, the DoJ (for one example) has studied this for years, with (obviously) government funding. The problem is that they've come to the "wrong" conclusion: gun regulation has little effect on gun violence. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 18:30 | comment | added | user1530 | @JerryCoffin that can be spun any number of ways, though. For example, there's plenty of proposed legislation to better collect data on these issues...which is also blocked by the NRA. It's disingenuous to claim that gun regulation is "only about getting rid of guns". There are plenty of organizations that truly want to better regulate it all to specifically reduce gun violence. It's just that they can do very little due to the success of the NRA's lobbying. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 18:19 | comment | added | Jerry Coffin | @blip: Of course nobody's publishing such a proposal--the fact that the NRA wants people to believe it exists points to exactly why nobody with an IQ higher than their shoe size would publish such a thing--it would only strengthen opposition. The reality, however, is that they've pushed hard for regulation that everybody knew before hand couldn't possibly have much effect on crime (e.g., the assault weapons ban, even though assault weapons account for only a tiny fraction of a percent of gun-related crimes). This indicates opposition to guns in general, not attempts at reducing crime. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 18:06 | comment | added | user1530 | @JerryCoffin can you point to any real proposals to ban guns wholesale? Again, this is something the NRA wants us all to believe...but it really doesn't exist. There's a big difference between proposing gun regulations (sales, tracking, data collection, safety regulations, etc) and proposing we ban guns outright. The latter isn't really a thing. There isn't any significant sizable group of people that are pushing for that. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 17:40 | comment | added | Jerry Coffin | @blip: As far as I can see, the "gun control/regulation" lobby really is largely just an anti-gun lobby. Although the reason the give publicly is crime reduction, when you get down to it most I've talked to simply dislike (or outright hate) guns. Their current targets are just that as well--based on personal discussions and (for example) some leaked internal memos, it's apparent that the ultimate goal of many is to prohibit all private ownership of firearms--and others go even further, wanting all governments to give up firearms as well. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 17:26 | history | edited | Jerry Coffin | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 9, 2017 at 17:12 | comment | added | user1530 | @stannius I'm obviously confused too. Maybe I need more coffee. :) | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 17:03 | comment | added | stannius | @blip I'm confused since that is exactly what I wrote, that only 10% of US gun owners are NRA members? And the article I linked to, though I only linked it to provide that one number, actually delves into data about the ideological differences of the 90% of gun owners who aren't in the NRA and don't agree with the NRA. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 16:55 | comment | added | user1530 | @stannius except "gun owner" and "NRA member" aren't synonymous. There are plenty of gun owners who want nothing to do with the NRA. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 16:44 | comment | added | stannius | @LangeHaare actually it is relevant. According to these estimates about 10% of US gun owners are NRA members. So "tip of the iceberg" is the correct description of the ratio. washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/10/15/… | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 16:26 | comment | added | user1530 | I believe you are talking about 'gun regulation/control' lobby--not an 'anti-gun' lobby. It's also incorrect that the NRA isn't the cause of stopping a lot of legislation. They are the primary blocker to a lot of gun regulation proposals. Via direct or indirect pressure on politicians. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 16:07 | comment | added | LangeHaare | Irrelevant point: the full iceberg is usually about 10 times the size of the tip en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg#Overview | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 14:49 | comment | added | Jared Smith | @JerryCoffin agree with Drunk Cynic: statistics have the imprimatur of science, it's why misinterpreting them is so effective. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 14:41 | comment | added | Drunk Cynic | Allowing people to continue with a misunderstanding of the statistical relevance of the numbers being used is irresponsible. Supporting the misrepresentation of the statistics and the influence they have is worse. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 14:21 | history | edited | Jerry Coffin | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 9, 2017 at 14:15 | comment | added | Jerry Coffin | @DrunkCynic: If this were a statistics site, I'd agree. But it's not--it's a politics site, and it appears (at least to me) that the public and vast majority of politicians accept correlation as implying causation sufficiently that the difference has little effect on current political opinion/climate. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 7:49 | comment | added | Drunk Cynic | This answer would be improved by specifically addressing the difference between causation and correlation. Neither side in this argument has proven causation, relying mostly on correlation. | |
| Nov 9, 2017 at 7:34 | history | edited | Jerry Coffin | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Nov 9, 2017 at 7:32 | review | First posts | |||
| Nov 9, 2017 at 8:00 | |||||
| Nov 9, 2017 at 7:28 | history | answered | Jerry Coffin | CC BY-SA 3.0 |