NRA Propaganda at "the Daily Kos"

[SecularMotion]

Over the past few days a new Kossack posted two diaries using genuine concerns about elections and gun safety as cover to push false memes and promote the NRA, here and here.

We can use these kinds of diaries as opposition research. Why? Because the arguments are persuasive to some voters in red states, and may even be persuasive to some in blue districts too. That's why we should take time to understand his claims.

We need to marshal facts, and the links that support them. Not so that we can all post the same material, but so that we can draw from each other as we build an arsenal of facts to rebut false memes. To find our blind spots, the gaps in our own thinking, we must hold our best ideas up to scrutiny. That's how we find our way to better arguments.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/19/1300210/-NRA-Propaganda-at-the-Daily-Kos

[billh58]

1. The Big Picture

From the link in the OP:

Keep the Big Picture in Mind

The simple fact is that hundreds of laws have been challenged and upheld in the lower Courts post-Heller. For nearly six years since Heller only a few laws have been struck down. See e.g. Chicago, Illinois. Many pages in Heller were devoted to explaining that many forms of gun control are constitutional. The NRA would like you to forget that. The Supreme Court has had many opportunities to further expand gun rights into the public sphere and they have thus far declined to do so. Don't let anyone use NRA propaganda to convince you otherwise.

The NRA still wants people to think they have the power to sway elections and prevent good laws from passing. Their influence is waning due to several factors.

* Voters are becoming informed about gun law.

* Third-party organizations with money are entering the fight to hold elected representatives accountable for their votes.

* The NRA is being attacked from the far right by organizations like Gun Owners of America and The Second Amendment Foundation

The right-wing gun lobby is crumbling from its base up, and a new demographic of voters is emerging. In the not-too-distant future, the NRA and its apologists and supporters will be marginalized and made insignificant due to the movement toward sane gun regulation and control.

[CTyankee]

2. Plus, when you see the demographic change in this country, you see the handwriting on the wall for

white, male, rural, non-foreign, gun proponents' demographic.

I like what this article tells us. It is encouraging to those who might just throw up their hands and say "there is nothing we can do because NRA..."

[billh58]

3. That is just one of

the reasons why gun sales are plummeting, especially among Democrats and other Liberals. The right-wing gun lobby is becoming more impotent everyday due to people like Gabby Giffords and Shannon Watts.

[CTyankee]

4. and more power to them...

[jimmy the one]

5. rightwing ducky on daily kos

I subscribe to the internet daily kos & read many of it's headline articles ('daily cause' pr'd), the only complaint is the never ending requests to chip in $3 at least, or more etc; I've never seen progun propaganda till now, & can only hope they disallow this guy, Texas Bill, from posting again.

here's his concern (reminds of some rkba posters, mtn man):
Texas Bill may 16,2014 Gun Control is a Loser for Democrats
He then goes on to say how he's rock solid democrat in other areas but belongs to nra, and how gun control has not gained traction the past 40 yrs while gunnuts rule, the same old baloney you find on rightwing gun boards. And the odds of this guy being a plant are so strong imo, I dunno why daily kos doesn't screen.

So I hope the daily kos bans this guy for life, if you wanna quack like a rightwing duck go swim in their pond.

[billh58]

6. Due to all of the exposure

of the gun violence problem in this nation brought about by grass roots gun control groups, the right-wing gun lobby is running scared.

There is no such thing as a "rock solid Democrat" who belongs to the NRA, opposes all forms of gun control, or calls themselves a "conservative Democrat." They are either right-wing gun lobby enablers, or Libertarian asswipes pretending to be Liberals.

The Democratic Party, and Liberal Democrats support gun control measures aimed at reducing gun violence on our streets, and that includes most members of DU.

[stone space]

7. It's a lot better there than it used to be. The Sandy Hook massacre seems to have been a real...

...turning point at daily kos.

Prior to that, the NRA gun fetishists ran roughshod over the place pretty much unopposed.

It is unfortunate that at took a massacre of so many children (after so many before it) for such a change in attitudes to occur.