National Basketball Association is airing anti Second Amendment PSAs

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Bloomberg knows full well that the use of celebrities to influence people's' attitudes is useful in laying the foundation for widespread political change. We're in a culture war to ultimately sway people to vote pro or anti 2A and the Antis are well funded and hire experts in propaganda to win this struggle.
 
JohnBoy-53 said:
How else should we take it?

He, by the grace of God and talent, escaped from Chicago.

We have, and do have, some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. The state was forced to enact a CCW by federal decree. We were the last of 50 states!

Where he grew up, and where I grew up are worlds apart......and separated by a couple of decades. I didn't have friends killed in the street. I also didn't grow up in Chicago.

He escaped by his talent. To try to blame guns? Let's blame the fact that most of the "gun violence" perpetrated in Illinois is from the Chicago area. It is also from people that can't legally own or possess a firearm in the Communist State of Illinois.

Explain that one to a resident of Southern Illinois.
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Correction: It is still impossible get a carry permit in NJ, MD and Hawaii. Not all states have CCW for anyone. It is 47 states out of 50. Illinois is a sportsman's paradise compared to those other states.
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happygeek said:
*IMHO this has nothing to do with race per se, and everything to do with gangs and the War on Drugs.
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I has everything to do with our failed attempt at prohibition and the ensuing failed "war on drugs". If you want opiates today you have two basic paths:
  • If you have money you go to the doctor and get a prescription for hydrocodone, oxycodone, or one of the other opiate drugs legally produced and distributed in the US
  • If you don't have money you go to the bad part of town and buy heroin from a dealer.
One is of a known purity and is distributed by people that don't kill each other over turf. The other is the major cause of violent crime in the USA.
 
I don;t see this as an anti 2nd amendment ad.

it's black men speaking to other black men telling them to stop killing other black men.

it might be tidied up a bit for general consumption, but that is the message.

it's a message I agree with.
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I agree that the message needs to be stop being violent and stop killing other people, but it isn't, it's about blaming guns for the actions of people.

They may be anti gunners, or they may be well meaning people being taken advantage of by anti gunners, but either way, it is an anti gun message.

Bloomberg knows full well that the use of celebrities to influence people's' attitudes is useful in laying the foundation for widespread political change. We're in a culture war to ultimately sway people to vote pro or anti 2A and the Antis are well funded and hire experts in propaganda to win this struggle.
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Correct.
 
JSH1 said:
I has everything to do with our failed attempt at prohibition and the ensuing failed "war on drugs". If you want opiates today you have two basic paths:
  • If you have money you go to the doctor and get a prescription for hydrocodone, oxycodone, or one of the other opiate drugs legally produced and distributed in the US
  • If you don't have money you go to the bad part of town and buy heroin from a dealer.
One is of a known purity and is distributed by people that don't kill each other over turf. The other is the major cause of violent crime in the USA.
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It's more complicated than that of course, and when the people with money can't get a script anymore they too go to drug dealers, but I agree that the war on drugs is a failure.
 
Walkalong said:
It's more complicated than that of course, and when the people with money can't get a script anymore they too go to drug dealers, but I agree that the war on drugs is a failure.
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101 years into the war on drugs and we haven't learned yet. Drugs and guns are directly connected. The bulk of the call to regulate guns comes from an attempt to control violence and the bulk of the violence stems from us prohibiting drugs.
 
Drail said:
+1 Ban ANYTHING and all you do is create a black market over night. :rolleyes:
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Well,sure, but a black-market will never come close to equalling the free access we currently enjoy as free citizens. Nor will it protect us from prosecution for being caught with "contraband". This oft-cited argument is completely fallacious and disengenuous.
 
JSH1 said:
101 years into the war on drugs and we haven't learned yet. Drugs and guns are directly connected. The bulk of the call to regulate guns comes from an attempt to control violence and the bulk of the violence stems from us prohibiting drugs.
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They are not trying to control violence by restricting guns. That is all about control, and an excuse to take guns away from law abiding people. While much violence is indeed drug related, gun control won't fix it.
Drugs and guns are directly connected.
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Drugs and violence are directly related. Guns, knives, sticks, fists, it doesn't matter.
 
Walkalong said:
They are not trying to control violence by restricting guns. That is all about control, and an excuse to take guns away from law abiding people. While much violence is indeed drug related, gun control won't fix it.
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If the violence goes away public support for gun control goes away.

Well at least if the perception of violence goes down. Violence is down but the majority of Americans falsely believe it has gone up.
 
Well at least if the perception of violence goes down. Violence is down but the majority of Americans falsely believe it has gone up.
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And why is that? It's all in the inner city ghettos of New Orleans, Detroit , Baltimore, St Louis, etc.. 50 of the Worlds most violent cities and only 4 are in the USA. And why is that? The demographics and the leadership in those cesspools.

Here they are:# 19,23,28 & 40.
 
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Red Wind said:
And why is that? It's all in the inner city ghettos of New Orleans, Detroit , Baltimore, St Louis, etc.. 50 of the Worlds most violent cities and only 4 are in the USA. And why is that? The demographics and the leadership in those cesspools.

Here they are:# 19,23,28 & 40.
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Why do Americans believe violence has gone up? Most likely because media coverage of violence has greatly increased even as the actual levels of violence has gone down.
 
In 1950, with only 145 million people and perhaps 50 million guns, the lead story virtually never ran to blood. Local corruption, illegal gambling, prostitution,and cops on the take was it.

A better America? In many ways yes. Simpler, less hectic, less traffic, less political, better music,movies and all the arts were loftier but...

No internet, no reliable TV,no CD's or DVD'S, no reliable automobiles,no jets, no widespread motel chains, fast Interstates, wide spread segregation, childhood diseases were still rampant.

It was not roses in 1950. But the simplicity and the innocence made it a better time in this Dinosaurs eyes. And we just felt safer. We know now that was just an illusion. But illusions guide our lives.

The political reality of today makes that so ever evident. It makes it a more disillusioning,sadder,depressing world than the high spirits of the post WWII era, when Americans thought all things were possible and we truly felt that we ruled the world.

Times Square, New York City, circa 1950.

Times+Square+late+1950s.jpg
 
I'm sure that every gangbanger and criminal in the country could give the furry crack of a rats behind about these messages.

I already despise the NBA and this is just one more thing to make me despise them even more.
 
Red Wind said:
In 1950, with only 145 million people and perhaps 50 million guns, the lead story virtually never ran to blood. Local corruption, illegal gambling, prostitution,and cops on the take was it.
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That was back when every town of any size had a newspaper staffed with real journalists. All the big city papers had investigative journalist teams and you had reporters assigned to specific areas. Papers had the resources to go out and investigate a story, find and vet sources and spend days, weeks, even months on a good story. That is mostly gone today.Today the "crime" reporter listens to the police radio, runs out to a crime scene to snap some pictures and video and that is the story.

Most local TV news isn't even produced in that location and many have anchors that don't even live in the same state. Instead they are in a studio somewhere and are the "local" anchors for a city in each time zone. The script is the same for each broadcast, basically fill in the blanks: crime, weather, traffic, local sports team.

How does this relate to us? Now that crime is a routine part of the local newscast, it gives the impression that crime is up because we see reports of murder, robbery, and rape EVERY day. This stuff has happened every day for decades but never was considered newsworthy because TV stations and newspapers used to have people out there getting real news.

People being bombarded with crime everyday makes people afraid and is driving two very different responses. It drives some to go out and buy a gun and maybe get a concealed carry permit. People that lived through times with violent crime twice what it is today suddenly feel unsafe and want a gun. Others go the complete other direction and want to ban guns.
 
I think our society peaked between 1946 - 1963. I'd give up all the modern conveniences to live during that time.
 
I have to agree with JSH1. It was the coolest time to be a white male. Everyone else, not so much.

I was 21 in 1963 when the good times began to fade. JFK,LBJ,Vietnam,Martin, Bobby,riots and general chaos.

As Thomas Wolfe said in 1937's "Look Homeward Angel", 'We cannot go home again.'

The truth. We cannot.
 
JSH1 said:
Maybe for male WASPs but not for the majority of the population.
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I think you are wrong. The majority of the population were WASPS or other Europeans that assimilated and looked and acted what was considered "American". Minorities were minorities, and yes there was segregation in the south, but even the black community had a much better family structure, and was on the rise economically, and socially until 1964 and then LBJ's Great Society ruined it, but I digress.

So I will keep my position that our society as a WHOLE peaked in those years.
 
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