Oh, the good old days. Leave it to Beaver, the Andy Griffith Show, and a National Rifle Association that told people to be careful with guns and favored laws that kept dangerous people from buying guns.
We came across this advertisement, from a 1954 NRA publication, on Ebay. But seeing how representative it is of sweeping historic change, maybe it ought to be in the Smithsonian. Because when this advertisement was designed, the NRA actually thought:
Here's the text of the "Pledge" that would-be NRA members were asked to take:
"I certify that I am a citizen of the United States; that I am not a member of any organization which has as any part of its program the attempt to overthrow the government of the United States by force or violence; that I have never been convicted of a crime of violence and that if admitted to membership I will fulfill the obligations of good sportsmanship and good citizenship."
Now, the organization's leaders fight against limiting the access to firearms of people on the government's terror watch list, and oppose eliminating the loopholes that allow convicted felons from buying guns. And NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre argues that "the people have the right, must have the right, to take whatever measures necessary, including force, to abolish oppressive government."
On our side, we're for making it harder for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons. We believe that suspected terrorists and convicted felons shouldn't be able to purchase firearms.
It seems to me the members of the NRA would be well served by looking at this ad and seeing how far things have gotten off track. Watch that muzzle, boys. And be sure of your target.
The fact that they do not support revoking the gun rights of people on the Bush Administration secret terrah blacklists (which you can get on for attending an environmental rally, or having a coworker who once went to the wrong mosque, or for attending an anti-war protest, or simply to meet a quota) is an entirely separate issue, and most progressives agree with them that being secretly blacklisted does not make you a "terrorist".
http://illinoiscarry.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21804
Tells Jews to 'go back where they came from'.
Of course, that was the time that so much of the nation was taken with McCarthyism, and for a firearms organization to omit such a pledge was a certain invitation to speculation of subservice activities.
Only Helmke and the Brady Campaign would look back favorably on the days of McCarthyism.
Only Helmke and the Brady Campaign would look back favorably on the racist days of Saturday night lynching parties.
Paul,
Show us a Brady Campaign publication which advocates safe frearm handling.
Yep, didn't think so.
Paul, how does this contradict what the very founders of the this country believed?
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." --- Thomas Jefferson
Which does not contradict the old statement of "that I am not a member of any organization which has as any part of its program the attempt to overthrow the government of the United States by force or violence".
Has Paul learned his lesson finally and quit calling it the "gun show loophole"? One can only hope that he has finally bought the clue.
According to the Marian Webster dictionary:
" Loophole = a means of escape; especially : an ambiguity or omission in the text through which the intent of a statute, contract, or obligation may be evaded "
In other words, its a gap or opening in a law (or contract) that allows one to circumvent the law.
In regards to the "gun show loophole", people are not circumventing a law that is in place that prohibits private party sales of firearms. Instead, people are exercising their state's law that allows them to make private party firearms sales. The "gun show" just happens to be the location in which they are
Thus, Paul's definition of "loophole" is someone performing an action they are specifically allowed, by law, to do; but that he personally disagrees with. In other words, Paul can't get a state to ban an action he disagrees with, so he calls anyone legally commuting that act a "loophole."
The NRA does not want terrorists to get a hold of firearms, but they adamently oppose using the terror watch lists to accomplish this.
And for good reason. First is that there are 13 such lists, not including the No Fly List, none of which were intended for use in denying people their rights, none of which has any for of due process, which do not have universal criteria for being on the lists, the lists are secret, according to the governement itself up to 90% of the people on the lists have never committed a crime and actually have no ties to terrorism, and the lists rely primarily on names and nothing else.
The day that those problems are fixed, the NRA will fully support using such a list to prohibit people from possessing or purchasing firearms. Until then, such a proposal will not pass Constitutional scrutiny. Even the most liberal Supreme Court justice will quickly declare such a law unconstitutional.
Do you believe that you should lose one of YOUR Constitutional rights because an unknown bureaucrat and an unknown agency places your name on a list with no due process of law, no appeals process, and no process for having your name removed from that list?
In fact, an audit of the terror watchlist by Department of Justice Inspector General’s Audit Division found:
“For 39 of the 101 subjects, the FBI still had ongoing terrorism investigations or was able to provide documented justification for keeping the subject watchlisted even though the case had been closed.
“
“We found that the remaining 59 known or suspected terrorists should no longer be watchlisted because there was no active terrorism investigation and the file did not provide justification for the continued watchlisting of the individual.â€
“During our review of these cases, we found that 31 of the 39 records should have been removed because the investigation was closed or FBI personnel could not otherwise determine why the subject was watchlisted.â€
“As we first addressed in our March 2008 audit, FBI policy allows for the nomination of individuals to the watchlist who are not the subject of FBI investigations.â€
In total, more than 62,000 watchlist records have been created using the FBI’s processes for nominating individuals who are not being investigated for terrorism. Additionally, we found almost 24,000 FBI watchlist records that were based on an FBI investigation but not sourced to a current terrorism case classification. Many such watchlist records that we reviewed were based on cases that had been closed years ago and should have been removed at that time.
http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0925/final.pdf
That right, you can be on the watchlist without being under investigation. So Paul do you still like the idea of losing ****YOUR*** Constitutional rights because ****YOU**** were placed on such a flawed list?
Also, take a White House enemies list, scratch out enemies and replace it with terror. Wasn’t that simple and fun, unless your name is on the list. Dick Nixon would have loved that.
This is what was actually written.
“Certainly Jefferson, and his co-authors of the Declaration, preferred peaceful changes in government. But those four words – "the Right of the People" – state in plain language that the people have the right, must have the right, to take whatever measures necessary, including force, to abolish oppressive government.â€
As they did against the oppressive British Crown. Wayne LaPierre didn’t call for overthrow of the U.S. Government.
“Our Founding Fathers wasted no time in attributing this victory to the right of the people to keep and bear arms. James Madison, the father of the Second Amendment, congratulated his countrymen:
Americans [have] the right and advantage of being armed – unlike citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.â€
“James Madison expanded on this point in The Federalist Papers, number 46, where he downplayed the threat of seizure of authority by a federal army, because such a move would be opposed by "a militia amounting to half a million men."
According to the United States Declaration of Independence “…That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…â€
Paul, you need to take an American History class.