can't really put the title here- it might offend a gun lubber. good article on the birth of the nra.

[farminator3000]

"I grew up with guns, and despite a couple of bad episodes involving guns and a drunken violent stepfather, I have a reflexive contempt for people who haven’t gone shooting and tell you that gun control laws are the answer.

Well, guess what? Their knee-jerk solution is more right than mine. "

https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/newtown

[TheBlackAdder]

1. The Birth of the NRA... Didn't I see that movie in high school? nt :-)

[Fumesucker]

2. Ask Bertha Venation

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=132998

[farminator3000]

12. yes you did!

chilling, wasn't it?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

3. Yikes

[PETRUS]

4. Interesting hypothesis. From the article:

<snip>

Looking back at Big Business’ violent reaction against the New Deal and the political culture that it created: a more "collectivist" political culture, as the libertarians derisively call it, where people were more deeply involved with each other and their communities, and with that involvement in their politics and communities came greater trust in their communities. That political culture — where people were more involved in their politics and trusted government more than they trusted business — was a big problem, according to pollsters and PR experts hired by business lobby groups in the postwar era, groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce.

Much better is to pour arms unrestricted into the population, give them legal cover and political encouragement to take political matters into their own hands with laws like "Stand Your Ground". That way you wind up creating a political culture of atomized, fear-fueled citizens who think they’re literally at war with each other, and their only way out is to fend for themselves and their family.

<snip>

From the oligarchy’s perspective, the people were thoroughly neutralized by the false sense of political empowerment that guns gave them. Guns don’t work in this country — they didn’t work for the Black Panthers or the Whiskey Rebellion, and they won’t work for you or me either.

It takes years to cultivate a political mindset that voluntarily neutralizes itself by convincing itself that its contribution to world revolution comes down to purchasing a few guns at K-Mart, then blogging about it. That’s what reactionary plutocrats like the Koch brothers understood about the deeper politics of gun fanaticism, and why their outfits like the Cato Institute have been at the forefront of overturning gun regulations and promoting "Stand Your Ground" vigilantism as a substitute for political engagement: That by poisoning the political climate, it poisons the minds, which circulates back to the external environment, and back into the minds, until you lock the culture into a pattern in which you always get more and they always get fleeced, which makes them more fanatical and you more powerful...

[farminator3000]

6. after all

"Stand Your Ground" vigilantism " is BS


it is OUR ground. a ground called america?

[OneMoreDemocrat]

5. That was a fantastic read...

Thank you very much for posting.

Tons of information to digest, but one thing that jumped out was how things have been twisted so much that owning a gun becomes a form of radical subversive politics...I think that is most certainly the mindset of a lot of folks who join militias.

And that "...the more batshit disconnected from demonstrable reality your message is, the more fanatical and organized-for-war your organization will be", is a really good explanation for LaPierre's 'press conference'.

[farminator3000]

7. thanks!

things have been twisted so much that owning a gun becomes a form of radical subversive politics...

that jumped out at me to.

can you believe LaPew gets almost a million a year?

[OneMoreDemocrat]

9. Honestly, I'm surprised he doesn't make more...

considering both how much they rake in and how well loved he appears to be amongst the rank and file.

[farminator3000]

10. how do you bust a non-profit? it's just one part of it, but..

In 1990, NRA made a dramatic move to ensure that the financial support for firearms-related activities would be available now and for future generations. Establishing the NRA Foundation, a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt organization, provided a means to raise millions of dollars to fund gun safety and educational projects of benefit to the general public. Contributions to the Foundation are tax-deductible and benefit a variety of American constituencies including youth, women, hunters, competitive shooters, gun collectors, law enforcement agents and persons with physical disabilities.

um? from their site.

[shintao]

8. I can't repond,...........

The jury would find it offensive and ban me from the thread.

[farminator3000]

11. sure ya can

just don't be a jerk!

[shintao]

17. LOL!

I thought they were being jerks when they banned me from the other thread without any complaint lodged by the poster, or a jury decision. Somehow that makes me the jerk? LMAO! This place has a click running the jury and protecting their favorites.

[HarveyDarkey]

13. That's a good read

thanks for posting

[UTUSN]

14. Excellent history, connecting gun/racists dots from FDR-haters to RAYGUN-lovers

*************QUOTE*************

http://nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/newtown

From: Mark Ames
TO: The Shootings Desk
Date: Dec 17th, 2012

[font size=5]From "Operation Wetback" To Newtown: Tracing The Hick Fascism Of The NRA[/font]

.... ...no longer possible for me to ignore the National Rifle Association, and its hick fascism politics that’ve been poisoning our culture ever since the [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]NRA’s[/FONT] infamous [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]"coup" in 1977[/FONT], when the NRA was taken over by far-right fanatics [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]led by a convicted murderer[/FONT] and onetime US Border Guards [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"](Border Patrol) chief[/FONT] named [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]Harlon Carter[/FONT] — whose previous claim to fame was when he led a massive crackdown on Mexican immigrant laborers called [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]"Operation Wetback."[/FONT] That’s not a typo by the way.

Two decades before Harlon Carter led "Operation Wetback" he was convicted of murdering a 15-year-old Mexican American boy, sentenced to a three-year prison term (Harlon was under-age himself), before being inexplicably acquitted of all charges and allowed to walk free as if it had never happened. It probably didn’t hurt that Harlon Carter’s daddy was himself a ranking Border Guards official, and that his fate was in the hands of the [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]Texas "justice"[/FONT] system. ....

When Harlon Carter seized control of the NRA in 1977 from the more moderate leader, a Mormon named Maxwell Rich, it wasn’t so obvious that these resurrected Coelocanth monsters were anything more than a grotesque yet passing curiosity, a stark reminder of how rancid America might’ve been without the cultural revolutions of the 60s and 70s. Little did they know. ....

What the establishment didn’t get about [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]Harlon’s new souped-up NRA gun-cult[/FONT] until too late — in fact what most still don’t get — is that the more batshit disconnected from demonstrable reality your message is, the more fanatical and organized-for-war your organization will be. If you can get people to make that leap of faith —well, then you’ve got real power. [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]Reagan understood that[/FONT] sort of [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]power well: Pandering to the far-right John Birch Society[/FONT] cult won him California’s governor’s seat in 1966, and in 1980, he promised to implement Harlon Carter’s radical pro-gun agenda as soon as he took office. Unfortunately that pro-gun push got delayed by an assassination attempt on Reagan’s life, but nearly bleeding to death didn’t change Reagan’s mind (or what passed for Reagan’s mind). ....

One of FDR’s first and most powerful opponents in the 30s and 40s was a New York lobbyist and public relations heavyweight named [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]Merwin K. Hart[/FONT]. He was the brains and organizing force behind far-right big business groups like the [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]American Liberty League[/FONT], the isolationist [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]America First Committee[/FONT], and the far-right [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]National Economic Council[/FONT], fighting labor unions and waging nonstop war on democracy, which Merwin Hart equated with Communism. He also served as [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]PR flak for Spain’s fascist dictator[/FONT], publishing a fawning book on Franco in 1939 titled "America, Look At Spain" completely whitewashing the hundreds of thousands of Spaniards his client the Generalissimo had just finished slaughtering. ....

And just before he died in 1962, Merwin [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]Hart organized[/FONT] fringe gun groups like [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]the Minutemen[/FONT] -- a Southern California gun-cult that claimed to possess hundreds of automatic weapons and had "information" of an impending invasion by Chinese troops massing on the Mexican border. Together, they successfully killed a bill that would require handgun registration. Hart used language too extreme for that era’s NRA: "Any congressman or senator who votes for the Anfoso [gun] bill knowing its real purpose would disqualify himself from ever again expecting to be called an American." ....

*************UNQUOTE*************

[UTUSN]

16. Let's have a look see at what these a-holes look like

Apparently eBay graphics can't be copied/posted (the HART), looks like a typical '30s/'40s fatcat. He graduated in FDR's Harvard class and became the bitter enemy.


Harlon CARTER Merwin K. HART
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Photo-MERWIN-K-HART-Portrait-/00/s/ODY0WDg2NA==/$(KGrHqR,!oQE-yuj4iNQBP+Mbp!ymQ~~60_35.JPG

[farminator3000]

18. nice

your highlights condensed: (with tanget)

me:
Why can't people understand how the NRA became such a bad influence on our society? The organization was taken over by a pardoned murderer/lunatic Border Patrol guard that ran something called Operation Wetback. He didn't go to jail for murder because he had connections. He made the NRA much more radical, and crazy. People didn't really take them seriously until Reagan, who was elected governor of California in 1966 by crazy conservative people, was shot by a crazy man with a Saturday Night Special, and then started to reduce gun control laws. Ten years later, Reagan changed his mind about that.

holy fuck look what i just found on wiki!: (footnote #61 is screwy on wiki, but i fixed it. he didn't say the sentence right before 61. if you look REALLY closely at the actual ny times link on page 2, there's a really faint line there at the end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_assassination_attempt

wiki:
"The shooting of Reagan widened a debate on gun control in the U.S. that the death of John Lennon in December 1980 had started. Reagan expressed opposition to increased handgun control following Lennon's death and re-iterated his opposition after his own shooting. However in a speech at an event marking the assassination attempt's 10th anniversary,[60] Reagan endorsed the Brady Act":

Ex-Pres. Ronald Reagan in 1991-
""Anniversary" is a word we usually associate with happy events that we like to remember: birthdays, weddings, the first job. March 30, however, marks an anniversary I would just as soon forget, but cannot...

four lives were changed forever, and all by a Saturday-night special – a cheaply made .22 caliber pistol – purchased in a Dallas pawnshop by a young man with a history of mental disturbance.

This nightmare might never have happened if legislation that is before Congress now – the Brady bill – had been law back in 1981...

If the passage of the Brady bill were to result in a reduction of only 10 or 15 percent of those numbers (and it could be a good deal greater), it would be well worth making it the law of the land..[61]"
Ronald Reagan (March 29, 1991). "Why I'm for the Brady Bill". The New York Times. Retrieved January 3, 2009.

[riderinthestorm]

15. K&R nt