Are the Brady bunch actually wrong? (Bear with me)

[keeleon]

From their website:

Q.: Is Brady a "gun ban" organization? Are you really just trying to make all guns illegal in America?

Brady believes that a safer America can be achieved without banning guns. Our stand is simple. We believe that law-abiding citizens should be able to buy and keep firearms. And we believe there are sensible gun laws that we can and should insist upon when it comes to gun ownership.

First and foremost, we should try to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them, including criminals and children.

Does anyone here disagree with the idea of not letting children or violent criminals just walk into a store and buy a gun? I know this is what gets alot of the folks here: "I don't want my name on their damn list, I ain't done nothin' wrong". But we can all agree, even here, that GUNS ARE DANGEROUS. Just like CARS ARE DANGEROUS. We seem to have a pretty decent system for making sure people are smart enough to operate those right? And it's REAL hard to pass a driver's test . If you feel your 17 year old is responsible enough to have a gun, then you go buy it for them. Just like if you feel your 10 year old is responsible enough to have a motorcycle, you buy it for him. I doubt any dealership would sell a dirt bike to a 10 year old (don't know the law).

Second, there are certain classes of weapons that should be out of bounds for private ownership. They include Saturday-night specials, which are used almost exclusively for crime, military-style assault weapons like Uzis and AK-47s, and .50-caliber sniper rifles, which serve no ordinary sporting purpose.

I do disagree with this part very much. All of those have just as much sporting purpose as a monster truck or a set of throwing knives. They are fun to play with and could possibly serve multiple purposes. But, if we pass their background check and prove we aren't criminals, children or "mentally unstable", it shouldn't matter what we have.

Third, we believe that those who do own guns ought to be held to the highest standards of safety. They should be well trained in the use of their weapons and they should be required to keep weapons secure, so that neither innocent children nor prohibited persons can get a hold of them.

This sounds like pretty good logic to me. I do my best to keep my weapons safe and secure and out of the hands of people I don't trust them with. If my son is 6, I probably shouldn't leave my guns laying around. If he is 15, and has been trained properly, then I can leave them where ever the hell I want to.

Of course, this all assumes that this statement is in fact true, which it isn't. Wouldn't it be nice if this really were all they were after. I would love to play devil's advocate, and see what the actual arguments against these statements are.

 

[Gordon Fink]

Prepare to be spanked.

~G. Fink

 

[Winchester 73]

Into the early 1960's in hardware stores all over America young teenagers could legally buy a .22 with no problem whatsoever,with no parent around .
Do you remember the school and neighbourhood shootings we had back then because of this "insane" practice.There were none.
Children in big cities including NYC, rode the buses and subways with their rifles and shotguns beside them to high school gun meets.Not a peep or word of dread from their fellow passengers.
Why?It was a different world with parental rules and where violence hadn't taken over the movies,airwaves and broken down into a permissive society in general.
As the man said,prepare to be spanked.

 

[ColinthePilot]

I agree with much of what the Brady's believe. Bad, crazy, and young people should not have access to guns. Gun owners should be held to a high standard of safety. We should all keep our guns secure and be safe when we use and carry them.

The major difference between me and the Brady's is that I don't believe its the government's job to make it happen. I believe we need to police ourselves or else we give them fuel to take our guns away and restrict them further. They believe we are too stupid to regulate ourselves, so they want to do it for us. They also do not seem to grasp, like most pro hunting- anti gunners, that the 2A is about defending against oppressive government, and that "shall not be infringed" means "shall not be infringed."

 

[DoubleTapDrew]

Second, there are certain classes of weapons that should be out of bounds for private ownership. They include Saturday-night specials, which are used almost exclusively for crime, military-style assault weapons like Uzis and AK-47s, and .50-caliber sniper rifles, which serve no ordinary sporting purpose.

I don't recall which part of the Second Amendment refers to a sporting purpose. I don't think the founding fathers had guys tromping through marshlands in blaze orange caps with a duck call and double barrel shotguns in mind, considering they had just overthrown an oppressive government.

We have reasonable laws already. No guns for felons (although I'd rather see that say violent felons, but whatever). If they break that basic law they'll break any other law we throw on top of it, therefore, these "reasonable restrictions" only restrict the law abiding.

The Bradys can talk about how they don't want to take our hunting guns away until they are blue in the face but it's not hard to see what their true goals are, and there's no compromising because they will never be satisfied and let the issue go. These are basic human rights we are dealing with.

 

[NeoSpud]

This sounds like pretty good logic to me. I do my best to keep my weapons safe and secure and out of the hands of people I don't trust them with. If my son is 6, I probably shouldn't leave my guns laying around. If he is 15, and has been trained properly, then I can leave them where ever the hell I want to.

Except you're not regulating the training... the state is (if the Brady's get their way). Remember, they don't trust you to know the "highest standards of safety."

Sure, at 18 he can legally apply for a permit to take a class so that he can be certified to enter a gun store, where he may purchase a suitable "sporting" rifle, assuming he passes the background check, his character references check out, he hasn't bought cough medicine in the last month, a sheriff and two deputies sign the application in triplicate, he passes a polygraph, and can recite the alphabet backwards in less than 10 seconds.

The Brady's probably don't want a ban... they'd be satisfied with making guns so insanely difficult to get that we just say, "screw it" and make them ourselves from PVC pipe.

 

[irishscott]

sorry man,anything the bradys come up with is garbage.how many 50cal sniper rifles ever been used in a crime.ZERO.they don't want us peasants owning anything,just in case there's ever a peasant up rising.our politicians are selling our country right out from underneath us and they don't want us to be able to a damn thing about it.PERIOD.screw the bradys and all their supporters.

 

[akodo]

First and foremost, we should try to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them, including criminals and children.

Lets keep our criminals in jail and our kids in 2 parent homes and this becomes a moot issue.

aside from that, we should keep a list of who is NOT allowed to ahve guns, and unfortunately, if you cannot tell if someone is on the list or not, you must assume that they HAVE THE RIGHT unless there is solid evidence to the contrary.

Second, there are certain classes of weapons that should be out of bounds for private ownership. They include Saturday-night specials, which are used almost exclusively for crime, military-style assault weapons like Uzis and AK-47s, and .50-caliber sniper rifles, which serve no ordinary sporting purpose.

Here is my system of classification. If the weapon is so deadly you must infringe on a person's right to free speech and freedom of the press and stop them from discussing it except with a few highly vetted people, then yes, you can restrict ownership.

if it isn't necessary to restrict their first amendment rights regarding the weapon, then it should be legal to own.

Third, we believe that those who do own guns ought to be held to the highest standards of safety. They should be well trained in the use of their weapons and they should be required to keep weapons secure, so that neither innocent children nor prohibited persons can get a hold of them.

Are you ready to tell a person who has a deranged killer after them "Sorry, you scored only 88 on the urban room clearing drill, you needed a 90 to pass..."

Parents need to be responsible for their kids, this includes leaving out guns, drugs, chainsaws, etc. The existing laws for leaving children in a dangerous environment are sufficient. The individual gets to decide what god they want to pray to, and where/how to store their firearm for those moments of crysis. If you are giving/selling them to prohibited people (wait, if we don't trust them with guns, we shouldn't trust them to be walking around) then sure, throw the book at them. Prohibited person goes and gets ahold of your gun on their own? Full blame lies on the prohibited person, and whoever was responsible for prohibited person still being at large in society

 

[TCB in TN]

A stopped clock is also right 2 times a day! Seriously though the 2A is NOT about sporting puposes, our society WAS safer when children can buy guns, and personal responsibility in all things should be our concern! Not what someone could or might do! Looking for something that the Brady's are right on is a WOT!

 

[keeleon]

Prepare to be spanked.

I am very. Keep in mind, I very much dislike the Brady's and am not defending the lies and bullcrap they have consistently pulled. I am only "defending" the logic of the statements that they claim are the reasons they exist. Know thine enemy.

Do you remember the school and neighbourhood shootings we had back then because of this "insane" practice.There were none.
Children in big cities including NYC, rode the buses and subways with their rifles and shotguns beside them to high school gun meets.Not a peep or word of dread from their fellow passengers.

I can't comment on this specifically, as I am only 26 and have lived in CA my whole life. The problem with this is that society HAS changed, and it will take alot more than a few laws being revoked and some good feelings to go back to those "happier" times. For all we know there were alot of crazy kids going around doing stupid things with their .22s after school. I don't believe this is true, but it was a different time, and we didn't have the internet to spread the news quickly, or the mass media to blow things out of proportion.

I believe we need to police ourselves or else we give them fuel to take our guns away and restrict them further.

That is a problem I see with their statements here as well. As long as they claim they just want these specific limitations, then alot of people will follow them. Then when they accomplish these goals they can move onto their next conquest. they certainly aren't going to cross their arms, smile and fade into the background like "Quantum Leap".

If they break that basic law they'll break any other law we throw on top of it, therefore, these "reasonable restrictions" only restrict the law abiding.

But many of the opponents of the Brady campaign want to remove even those restrictions, with the logic, that "they'll get them anyway, so why make it illegal". It's a catch 22. If we concentrate on removing the laws, then they claim we are making it easier for criminals. If we concentrate on enforcing the laws, they will have proof that the laws helped reduce crime. they know this unfortunately.

Except you're not regulating the training... the state is (if the Brady's get their way). Remember, they don't trust you to know the "highest standards of safety."

And that really is the crux of the argument, isn't it? They would prefer to make it so stupidly hard to get the proper permits that most folks would just give up. And they will do this without conceding that a car can be just as dangerous, and a DL is the stupid-easiest thing to get.

I say regulate guns similar to the DMV, and let us buy all the monster trucks, lamborghinis, and flying cars we want!

 

[che_70b]

shall not be infringed

 

[Grizzly Adams]

There's an old saying, "The proof is in the pudding".

Look at what the Brady Bunch has tried to do in the last 25 years. They haven't just tried to keep kids safe, or keep guns our of criminal's hands they have tried every way possible to restrict what we honest, grown (in age any way), non-criminals can and can not buy in the way of guns, ammo, and components.

They want to force their belief system and morals onto each and everyone of us. They want to have the constitution interpreted the in a way that fits their agenda. They can't sit down and listen to any other point of view but their own.

If you want to believe their propaganda that's your choice, but I don't trust them any farther then I can throw a bull elephant.

 

[Dorryn]

They present a very moderate public face in order to encourage individuals to assume theyre rationale and logical. The truth is that they persist in a very exclusivistic, emotional, and restrictive policy that aims to destroy private firearm ownership.

 

[chris in va]

Keeleon I, like yourself, try to be open minded and see both sides of an issue. The Brady Campaign certainly likes to present that statement, but they don't stop there and call it a day. Instead, they show their true colors in this manner...

 

[Ash]

The Brady campaign has actively opposed Eddy Eagle. If they wanted to protect children, why would they oppose that? As to the training requirement, that is defacto permission from the government. You have to go to training in order to purchase a firearm - else you cannot. That means, of course, that you do not have the right to purchase the firearm, that you must meet certain education requirements to get permission from the government to purchase a firearm. The end result is that the right no longer exists, it has become a privilege.

Ash

 

[keeleon]

They present a very moderate public face in order to encourage individuals to assume theyre rationale and logical.

That is what we really need to be concerned about. The majority of the "ignorant" public hears the things that they say. the things that I am defending here as being logical and rational, but the reality is that this is not what the Bradys actually exist for. they really do want POWER and to be in control. They present themselves in a way that they are trying to help us be safer. When in actuality they are insulting us, by confirming that they don't think we can be trusted, and that they know what's good for us.

They want to force their belief system and morals onto each and everyone of us. They want to have the constitution interpreted the in a way that fits their agenda. They can't sit down and listen to any other point of view but their own.

Which is the main problem I have with the organization. I can understand that they do not like guns and that they are afraid of them. But what gives them the right to dictate to us (the people who pass their silly "background checks") how we can or can't live their lives. My main argument to "fence sitter" antis, is it's not about the guns, it's about how one organization can interpret the Constitution however they want to further their agenda. Even if you don't like guns, if you let them get away with the control they want on guns, what is to stop them from then interpreting the other amendments in a way that makes them feel "safer"?

"The forefather couldn't have predicted machine guns when they wrote the 2nd amendment, just like they couldn't have predicted the internet when they wrote the first."

The Brady campaign has actively opposed Eddy Eagle. If they wanted to protect children, why would they oppose that?

That is a brilliant question. It seems like a very logical and rational thing to do, promoting gun safety to children. After reading the Brady's history, I am surprised that her 6 year old son didn't hurt somebody with the gun that he found just laying in her relatives truck. How come her kid didn't kill somebody or himself since it apparently happens all the time? Perhaps she should blame the guy who shot her husband or the dumbass who left his gun in his truckbed (***?), instead of "gun show loopholes" and "backroom dealers". I would love to hear the rest of that story. It seems to me that Sarah Brady just went into overprotective mom mode and hasn't been able to realize that maybe she should just worry about her own kid.

It would be really nice to actually have a chat with the people that come up with some of the theories and "facts" on their website. Like an actual person in charge that really believes this stuff. But they are so high up in their crystal tower, that their is no reaching them I would guess. I would love to be able to send a freindly letter to them, and have it legitimately answered by a real person.

 

[Winchester 73]

keeleon,From the horse's mouth:The respected Walter Williams:

Jewish World Review April 25, 2001
Walter Williams


Kids and guns

EVERY time there's a school shooting, there are demands for greater gun control measures that range from longer waiting periods and mandated gun locks to stricter licensing and restricted sales. With all the political posturing and demagoguery that follows, a hysterical public buys into the seeming plausibility that reduced availability of guns, especially to children, will reduce gun violence.


The facts of the matter are just the opposite. Yale University legal scholar John Lott demonstrates this in his book "More Guns, Less Crime"


Lott's brilliant study destroys one falsehood after another about guns, but I want to focus on one of his findings -- gun accessibility and gun violence. But is gun accessibility the problem?


The fact of the matter is that gun accessibility in our country has never been as restricted as it is now. Lott reports that until the 1960s, New York City public high schools had shooting clubs. Students carried their rifles to school on the subways in the morning, then turned them over to their home-room teacher or the gym coach -- and that was mainly to keep them centrally stored and out of the way.


Students would retrieve their rifles after school for target practice. Students regularly competed in citywide shooting contests for university scholarships. In Virginia, rural areas had a long tradition of high-school students going hunting in the morning before school, and sometimes storing their guns in the trunk of their cars during the school day, parked on the school grounds.


For most of our history, a person could walk into a hardware store, virtually anywhere in the United States, and buy a rifle. Few states even had age restrictions for buying handguns. Buying a rifle or pistol through a mail catalog, such as Sears and Roebuck, was easy. Private transfers of guns to juveniles were unrestricted. Often a 12th or 14th birthday present was a shiny new .22 caliber rifle, given to a son by his father.


These facts of our history should confront us with the question: with greater youth accessibility to guns in the past, why wasn't there the kind of violence we see with today's much more restricted access to guns? Might it be global warming? Or, might it be children playing cops 'n' robbers and cowboys 'n' Indians too much? And how do we solve today's gun violence: more gun locks, longer waiting periods, more gun laws, more psycho- babbling by school psychologists?


Maybe we should have greater school zero-tolerance policies, where bringing a water pistol, drawing a picture of a pistol or pointing a finger and shouting "bang-bang" produces a school suspension or arrest?


That kind of unadulterated nonsense will continue to produce disappointing results. We will not make inroads into the gun-violence problem until we acknowledge the underlying causes of youth behavior today, compared to yesterday. As I discussed in last week's column, we must come to the realization that laws and regulations alone cannot produce a civilized society. It's morality that is society's first line of defense against uncivilized behavior.


Moral standards of conduct have been under siege in our country for nearly half a century. Moral absolutes have been abandoned as a guiding principle. We've been taught not to be judgmental -- that one lifestyle or value is just as good as another.


More often than not, the attack on moral standards has been orchestrated by the education establishment and liberals. School shootings just might represent chickens coming home to roost where they were born.


If we refuse to seriously ask why young people weren't shooting one another at a time when guns were far more accessible than they are today, we do so at our peril.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams042501.asp

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

I think it is a valuable and intelligent exercise to evaluate the other side's position as objectively as possible. The people who run arond saying they are 100% wrong and offer little more than repeating the cliched memes of "shall not be infringed" and "cold dead hands" rarely add any significant value to the RKBA movement.

 

[Nomad101bc]

The problem with society today is not something you can legislate out of existance. The issue today seems to be we have forgotten what it means to be human. The best we can do is be prepared against the cultural trend which serves to remove our human dignity and equate us to animals. Some politicians beleive cats and dogs deserve the right to sue...

 

[WildeKurt]

I agree with Nomad. The Brady Bunch, while much of what they espouse above is reasonable sounding (but not all) there are a couple of problems: First, they are of the belief that societies ills can be cured by enacting laws that try to treat the symptoms. Sort of like taking cold medicine; it won't cure a cold but it will mask the symptoms. Only problem is, with society, if the core causes are not dealt with, the sickness spreads.

Secondly, they never acknowledge the true purpose of the 2nd amendment. As with many, they bring up this 'sporting' nonsense in order to appear nonthreatening to who they believe are the core RKBA people. This is ultimately where they will fail too I believe.

 

[george29]

The Gun Control agenda is really People Control, the real solution is that any and all that pass a background check should be allowed to purchase in a non discriminate manner but since we know it is really People Control, their true intentions are to slowly wear away at us, all the time hiding their true agenda. Look to the posts here with the youtube link to the Australia gun ban crowd.

 

[jerkface11]

Even barring convicted felons from owning firearms is wrong. If they are too dangerous to trust with a gun why let them out of prison? If it's safe to let them out then they deserve all of their rights back.

 

[antsi]

You are confusing two very different things.

You are reading what the Bradys SAY their agenda is. Of course their own portrayal of their agenda doesn't sound like a fanatic "ban all guns and pointed sticks everywhere" policy. If they said that, they would alienate a lot of their support.

However, it would be a fatal error to confuse the Brady's propaganda about their goals, and their actual goals.

One thing this does highlight: though I despise their goals, the Bradys are fairly good propagandists. They are not concerned with "ideological purity" - all they care about is trying to craft a message that will win them support.

Of course there are a lot of hard core "ban all the guns" activists out there; probably a majority of Brady supporters. But you don't see them trashing their own organization just because for propaganda purposes they are currently pretending to support some remnant of highly restricted gun ownership. Instead, they all stay on the bandwagon to meet their next goal. Once that is done, they will anounce their "one more step," and then one more step after that.

We in the gun owner rights community could learn from this. We have no patience for working step by step to our ultimate goal. And anyone who supports our short term goal but, for propaganda purposes decides it is best to keep quiet about the more ambitious longer term goals, we will tar and feather and brand a betrayer.

 

[EAdams]

The Bill of Rights states that "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people..."

Even if it is not explicitly stated like this exactly in the Constitution, here is the Truth -

I have the RIGHT to defend my home, my self, and my loved ones with any force necessary, with any tools necessary, and with any means necessary. WORDS on a piece of paper will not comfort or save the ones I love when threatened with harm or death.

We are blessed with a Bill of Rights that does a really good job of describing this Truth. It has taken 230+ years of parsing, lying, and bribing to try destroy what was built upon the blood and sacrifice of many good men and women.

The Brady Campaign and others have shown what they wish to do through their actions, and none of their words will ever change what I know in my heart. They will not compromise or stop until every citizen is disarmed or priced out of owning guns and easy prey for the predators.

 

[3fgburner]

Q.: Is Brady a "gun ban" organization? Are you really just trying to make all guns illegal in America?

Brady believes that a safer America can be achieved without banning guns. Our stand is simple. We believe that law-abiding citizens should be able to buy and keep firearms. And we believe there are sensible gun laws that we can and should insist upon when it comes to gun ownership.

Two words: They're lying.