NRA/Why is it?

[Rebar]

So what difference does it make in the long run?

This does not apply to RKBA. In this area, the Democrats are clearly on the wrong side, the republicans are clearly not.

Imagine if you can, if Gore won, or if Kerry won. For sure the AWB would have been extended permanently, with stricter guidelines too. National registration wouldn't be far behind, more activist liberal judges would be nominated and seated. We'd be well on the road to a UK/Australian confiscation nightmare, if the Democrats had their way.

So stop already with the rediculous statements that the Democrats and republicans are "the same" already. The liberal/left wants your guns, the republicans do not. Big difference.

 

[Gung-Ho]

The liberal/left wants your guns, the republicans do not.

Lets see.....A Republican governor just became the first ever to ban an entire class of firearms just because of the size of the hole in the end of the barrel. So what if the Republicans let the AWB expire. If they were truly a friend of the RKBA, they would be doing a LOT more than that while they had power. When was the last time you heard a Republican campaign on the RKBA issue? Face it, gun owners are an embarrassing pain in the rear end for MOST Republicans...they wish we would just go away.

 

[Rebar]

You can't pull something one RINO does, and paint the whole party with it.

AS A WHOLE - the republicans are far, far better than the Democrats AS A WHOLE on the RKBA issue. This is indisputable.

 

[Chrontius]

Oh really?

Actually so many of them hate GWB, they're starting to understand what the 2nd Amendment is really for. It's kind of cute but I'm not really scared of Revolution yet.

Wait until the digital TV changeover next year when basically every TV set more than a few years old or smaller than 3' stops working. Then you'll have your revolution ^_^

 

[Gung-Ho]

This is indisputable.

Yeah, right.

 

[cookekdjr]

Why is it that Democrats seem to think that the NRA is simply a pro-Republican organization out to upset Democrats at any cost? Why is it hard for them to understand that the NRA endorses based on the candidates stance on guns and nothing else? Why is it that they think that Democrats who support gun rights won't get nominated?

Why can't they just understand that the ratings are based on gun rights, and if Democrats would change their stance, they'd get nominated as much as the Republicans?

Why? Go ask former Georgia Congressman Buddy Dardin, a Democrat.
Buddy was very pro-gun, did everything the NRA asked him to, then the NRA stabbed him in the back and backed Republican Bob Barr.
Barr won a narrow victory with the NRA's help.
The NRA does not give a D--- about you if you are a Democratic candidate.
Some consultant probably told them to only back Republicans and so they did it. I watched the results in action.
-David

 

[jefnvk]

Wait until the digital TV changeover next year when basically every TV set more than a few years old or smaller than 3' stops working.

Huh?

I guess what I am seeing now, is that there is a bit of political favoring going on, unfortunately.

But I still don't quite buy into their claims. Last year's US House race for Michigan, 2 of the races had a Democrat ranked higher than the Republican, 4 had the Republican higher, and two were tied. Hardly an unbiased support for Republicans. All the rest had one or more candidates ranked as '?'. Furthermore, the Dems had the only A+ rated candidate.

 

[crucible]

To answer the original question: the Democrats have purposely allowed the leberal left to take the lead within thier party. Accordingly, since the liberal left in power hates the fact that people disagree politically with them have the power to keep that disagreement at arm's length via the power that firearms give the citizen, they have made gun control, and all it's ugly anti 2nd amendment elements, to be a hallmark of thier party.

To which the NRA is an organization made up of people who vehemently disagree, and who's purpose is to ensure the 2nd amendment and it's freedoms survives. Many, perhaps most, of the members of the NRA are not Democrats for that reason.

The NRA-along with other pro-gun freedom groups-has stood in the way of the Democrats by-in-large for this reason, and have thwarted them time and again, and addition to educating and organizing the populace who care aout such issues, but otherwise wouldn't care enough to do anything about it. In recent years, that issue, have cost the liberal Democrats bigtime-largely because of the members of groups such as the NRA, and the NRA itself.

Of course the liberal Democrats hate the NRA and demonize it's members-they are, among others, the personification of their inability to gain total and complete power-which can't be gotten if the citizenry have the power to resist themselves.

Sucks to be them.

While the pendulum is swinging a bit in the other direction within the Dems (look at Hillary-she's talking of things she herself would have villified a Republican for only a few years ago), I doubt the Democrats will smarten up that much and take back thier party from the radical left.

 

[Doctor Suarez]

Having once been a blindly pro-gun-control Democrat, I can tell you that, at least as far as we rank-and-file peons were concerned, gun control was never about clearing the way for our "agenda".

Statist Liberalism is fundamentally cursed by its inability to trust people to make decisions, and to differentiate among types of citizens. Liberals refuse to believe that there is a criminal class, and yet there is so much crime. Confronting criminality along its true demographics would place liberals in the position of being "racists", so they have to confront other aspects of crime that are not protected classes of people. This, coupled with the liberals' classic disregard for human agency, creates a situation in which it is simply easier to target the means of crime, rather than the tough, un-PC human factors such as parenting and culture.

We city folk are used to expecting the mayor's office to solve everything that plagues us. Urban individuals, as shown in numerous sociological studies and incidents, display a shocking lack of responsibility to the problems around them. Remember Kitty Genovese? Have you ever seen those experiments where they place a fake stricken man on the sidewalk? Rural Americans pounce on him to offer aid, while New Yorkers stroll right past him for HOURS.

This diffusion of responsibility, naturally, bleeds into the arena of self defense. Individuals believe society is responsible, since society takes care of every other essential function. Thus, someone who wishes to take responsibility themselves is seen as anti-social. Also, when people see privately owned guns, they are painfully reminded that such objects are needed, and therefore, that the dangers really exist. This is uncomfortable, and the mind does amazing things to reduce that discomfort.

And keep one thing in mind: Since 1968, the populist, fair-shake-for-the-working-man Democratic Party Leadership has been extinct, replaced by the leaders of the Peace Movement. Pacifists are known for their total inability to differentiate between predatory and protective violence. When all violence is evil, then all means of violence are evil as well.

Just one former gun bigot's opinion...

 

[Barbara]

But I still don't quite buy into their claims. Last year's US House race for Michigan, 2 of the races had a Democrat ranked higher than the Republican, 4 had the Republican higher, and two were tied. Hardly an unbiased support for Republicans. All the rest had one or more candidates ranked as '?'. Furthermore, the Dems had the only A+ rated candidate.

That House race was one of the times I voted Dem over Joe Schwarz..She was an Ann Arbor liberal with a carry permit and he was a gun-nabbing butthead whose very presence makes me itch. The NRA gave her a good rating and Nugent endorsed her, too, for what that's worth. At one of the SAFR meetings they attended, Schwarz got literally booed out of the room and she got two standing ovations. Didn't expect to see that, for sure.

Schwarz won, though.