"The N.R.A. Protection Racket" by RICHARD W. PAINTER at the NY Times

[applegrove]

The N.R.A. Protection Racket

by RICHARD W. PAINTER at the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/opinion/the-nra-protection-racket.html?_r=2&

"SNIP.............................................

FOR years, protection rackets dominated dangerous urban neighborhoods. Shop owners and residents lived in relative security only by paying off or paying homage to organized criminals or corrupt cops. Anyone who dared to stand up to these “protectors” would not be around for long.

...............................

The most blatant protection racket is orchestrated by the National Rifle Association, which is ruthless against candidates who are tempted to stray from its view that all gun regulations are pure evil. Debra Maggart, a Republican leader in the Tennessee House of Representatives, was one of its most recent victims. The N.R.A. spent around $100,000 to defeat her in the primary, because she would not support a bill that would have allowed people to keep guns locked in their cars on private property without the property owner’s consent.

The message to Republicans is clear: “We will help you get elected and protect your seat from Democrats. We will spend millions on ads that make your opponent look worse than the average holdup man robbing a liquor store. In return, we expect you to oppose any laws that regulate guns. These include laws requiring handgun registration, meaningful background checks on purchasers, limiting the right to carry concealed weapons, limiting access to semiautomatic weapons or anything else that would diminish the firepower available to anybody who wants it. And if you don’t comply, we will load our weapons and direct everything in our arsenal at you in the next Republican primary.”

For decades, Republican politicians have gone along with this racket, some willingly and others because they know that resisting would be pointless. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the N.R.A. spent almost $19 million in the last federal election cycle. This money is not just spent to beat Democrats but also to beat Republicans who don’t toe the line.

..............................................SNIP"

[_Liann_]

1. By all means keep the NRA on the defense rather than offense, and ruin their brand value.

The NRA is the public relations office of the munitions industry. The NRA is the armed wing of the republican party. They need their name to push their agenda. Throwing mud on their name is a fair tactic, and may even feel good some of the time.

Serious people might engage in that but know that they need to go much deeper.

In the congressional fight over the "DISCLOSE ACT" to track dark money in elections there were exceptions. The NRA was excepted and Unions in tradeoff were excepted. Donors don't like being revealed for assorted reasons, but mostly because information is power. You don't need to go after the NRA if you can divide-to-conquer and pick off their big backers one by one. The unions source of funding is fairly understood and was a meaningless bone thrown to make it look like parity of some kind. It was known as the "NRA EXCEPTION", putting to rest who benefited most.

Putting an end to dark money will not happen until we return to one-party rule again, with serious filibuster reform or curtailment.

Equating the NRA with mobsters protection racket, or accessory to murder, is only useful if it alienates enough members. It it is just preaching to the choir it will not change anything. Democrats need to be distinctly separate from the NRA. Democrat members should quit in public media events. Democrat politicians should never talk about the NRA other than the NRA-GOP. There is no daylight between republicans and the NRA.

We need to assemble our own arsenal. Our weapons are facts and arguments. We need concise arguments that can fit on bumper stickers, or at least Twitter. Let's call these "memes", or easily distributable epiphanies.

We need to examine their tactics and devise hard responses to stymie them every point.

One thing about conservatives is they are predictable -- they hate change so much that they can't change and adapt to contrary tactics, they have to do the same old thing too long.

We know they are going to hide behind the 2nd Amendment. Be prepared to argue that well, concisely, effectively.

We know that they are going to scream about private property rights.

We know they are going to demonize "gun control".

We can collect the arguments that they use easily enough, see TownHall.com.

We can build our own depot of memes to pry off supporters to thin their herd.

[applegrove]

2. +100

[Up2Late]

3. Sounds like a job for RICO!

Just looking through the RICO Act, I see several areas of the law that could probably be applied to these jerks at the NRA.