BREAKING: Audit documents obtained by @CREWcrew show the NRA is hemorrhaging money and members.
Since 2016, the NRA has had a 52% drop in overall revenue and a 59% drop in membership dues.
Meanwhile, the agency is swamped in legal fees due to ballooning litigation. pic.twitter.com/s9DMXMJLel
— Nick Knudsen đşđ¸ (@NickKnudsenUS) October 26, 2023
This might be considered a hopeful sign… Robert Maguire, at CREW, “NRA revenue in freefall as member dues plummet”:
The National Rifle Association is bleeding money and members, according to a financial audit obtained by CREW. Last year, the organization saw its worst fundraising totals in more than a decade, fueled by member dues that have fallen to lows not seen since the early 2000s. The fall has been so swift that the gun organizationâs income from its members has been halved in just six years, while its legal fees have remained stratospheric…
According to the audit, which was filed with the Secretary of Stateâs office in North Carolina, the NRA raised more than $213 million in 2022, with more than $83 million coming from dues-paying members. The totals mark a 52 percent drop in overall revenue and a nearly 59 percent drop in membership dues since 2016, adjusting for inflation. A CREW analysis of NRA dues going back to 2004 could not find a single year where dues ever went below $100 million, in inflation-adjusted terms…
All of this takes place against a backdrop of intense internal turmoil at the organization. Some of the highest-ranking officials have resigned or been suspended, and some faced legal action. Meanwhile, staff has dwindled and core programs have been slashed. Yet, ironically, as the organization flounders, a conservative super-majority on the Supreme Court is handing the NRA more victories, thanks to three justices installed by the president the NRA helped elect, back when it was flush with cash.
Pivot to video!
The gun industry is targeting kids using TikTok, Instagram, and video games.
A new report exposes the marketing of AR-15s and other firearms to Americaâs youth. https://t.co/iXSJPxOpFQ pic.twitter.com/rpPL2IbvQR
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) October 26, 2023
Mother Jones, “How the Gun Industry Targets Kids Using TikTok, Instagram, and Video Games”:
Since 2020, firearms have been the leading cause of death for children and teens in America, killing thousands each year. Shootings and threats of gun violence in the nationâs schools have also escalated sharply. These trends are accompanied by another stark and evolving phenomenon: insidious marketing to kids by the gun industry.
The promotional tactics that gun manufacturers and sellers use with social media, video games, and other entertainment are the focus of a new report from Sandy Hook Promise, the gun-violence prevention group led by parents of children killed in the elementary school massacre 11 years ago in Newtown, Connecticut. The report, âUntargeting Kids,â highlights how the gun industry shifted away from a longstanding culture of safety and responsibility to cultivate a market of young consumersâa demographic inundated with social media and uniquely vulnerable, according to researchers, to provocative and seductive messaging…
Social media companies have banned the direct sales of guns on their platforms, but that doesnât stop the firearms industry from promoting or amplifying gun content from high-profile figures. One example cited in the report is a January 2020 Instagram post from gun manufacturer Daniel Defense that features a photo of music star Post Malone showing off one of its AR-15-style rifles, the MK18, while standing in front of a bar stocked with liquor.
âMK18 got me feeling like a rock star,â says the Daniel Defense comment, appended with music and fire emojis and a handful of hashtags, including â#gunporn.â The post has drawn nearly 30,000 likes from Instagram users…
Online videos accessible to youth are another source of concern. According to one study highlighted in the Sandy Hook Promise report, YouTube serves up algorithmic content glorifying assault weapons and offering instructions on everything from how to assemble rapid-fire mechanisms and âghost gunsâ to shooting through bulletproof glass and acquiring firearms illegally.
The gun industry has favored aggressive marketing for more than a decade, as companies realized that vast profits could be made from the increasingly popular AR-15-style rifles. One early Daniel Defense ad suggested civilian buyers could be just like US special forces, overlaying a battlefield scene with the slogan, âUse What They Use.â As I wrote recently in a review of American Gun, a deeply reported new book tracing the history of the AR-15, documents revealed in a lawsuit by Sandy Hook families showed how gunmakers intentionally used brash themes of masculinity and militarism to help sell these weapons. Among such efforts was also the infamous âMan Cardâ campaign that Remington had used to promote the Bushmaster rifle later wielded by the Sandy Hook mass shooter. Last year, nearly a decade after that massacre, Remington agreed to a landmark $73 million civil settlement with victimsâ families…
Violent video games have been blamed for causing mass shootings ever since Columbine in 1999. While thereâs no evidence supporting that theory, various young perpetrators over the years have fixated on graphically violent games or movies when spiraling into isolation, anger, and despair, a correlation that has raised questions and concerns among threat assessment experts. Nonetheless, gun companies have long been eager to have their AR-15s depicted in first-person shooters as a form of advertising, a tactic one sales executive called âseed plantingâ for a new generation of consumers. The Washington Post reported in a recent series on the AR-15 that representatives of two gun manufacturers met at a Nevada shooting range in 2010 with technicians working on âCall of Dutyâ to record the firing of AR-15s for the blockbuster gaming series. âNo detail, even the click of inserting a magazine, was too small to capture, participants said,â according to the Post…
The Republican Party favors unregulated weapons ownership, even for the violently mentally illâ so that they can launch coup attempts against our nation.
— NAFO BoomerDog #NAFORapidResponseForce (@BeachBoomerDog3) October 26, 2023
Odie Hugh Manatee
Poor Wayne LePer is going to have to hit the budget racks for his new suits. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving organization. They eventually wound up sucking up to Russia for $$$ in the final sellout, what patriots.
Fuck’em, as a fondly remembered Jackal liked to say.
Aussie Sheila
As I understand the situation in the US, deaths from gun violence as a whole is higher in Red states than Blue states. I truly believe that most sane people, no matter their politics, would prefer that guns be properly regulated.
It should be remembered that when Australia went apeshit on guns here after the Port Arthur massacre, the men that made it happen at the top, were the Australian Prime Minister, otherwise a conservative arsehole, and the Deputy PM and even more conservative politician who hailed from the National Party.
The reaction to this massacre was swift and draconian, and had the support of sane people across the political spectrum. It is the only real thing of benefit to the Australian people that John Howard ever achieved.
However it was a considerable achievement, and I am not shy of saying it, even though I hated  him and still hate his political party otherwise.
I really think that gun violence is not attractive to sane people even in Red states, and the Dems should hammer this hard.
Given the love of judicial solutions to political problems in the US I wonder why there has been so little action in the Courts against the ghouls that market these killing machines? Or has there been such action, but not reported as such?
BellyCat
The âadditional revenueâ in the NRA budget has been raised and goes toward political and judicial procurements, courtesy of Russia and the gun manufacturers, in that order.
Redshift
@Aussie Sheila: “In 2005, after intense lobbying from the gun industry, Congress enacted and President Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), a law that gives gun manufacturers and sellers unprecedented immunity from lawsuits.”
That’s why not. đĄ
sab
@Aussie Sheila: US Supreme Court has tied the lower courts’ hands. They changed the interpretation of 2nd amendment so that now the “well-regulated militia” part is ignored and “the right to bear” arms has become a personal right for every citizen.
This is a huge legal change from my youth. Guns used to be extremely rare except in rural areas with a strong hunting tradition. Now they are everywhere.
NRA when I was young was noted mostly for its excellent gun safety training. I had it at summer camp when I was twelve. Assume all guns are loaded and never point it at something or someone you don’t intend to shoot. I still flinch when I see actors waiving guns around every which way on tv. Now the training for kids is active shooter training. My youngest grandchild in second grade has already had it.
BellyCat
Given the eventual and very costly crackdown of marketing to minors levied upon the cigarette industry, there is both some precedent and hope when and if sanity prevails.
The entire semi-auto phenomenon is revolting. Â I once wondered why LEO would not speak out against this until it was realized that proliferation of semi-automatic weapons served as carte blanche to outfit police with bigger and better military toys.
Aussie Sheila
@Redshift:
Ok I get that. How effing unbelievable and terrible. However I have great respect for the resourcefulness of US litigators, and I find it hard to believe they canât find some legal loophole somewhere to make some lawyer there money.
Otherwise, and in my view preferably, the issue needs to be the subject of brutal, on the ground politics, from Christmas to Sunday.
Nothing beats political heat on issues effecting life and death. Which gun violence does. Thatâs why conservative arseholes in Oz acted. People everywhere were ready to rise up and strangle them politically had they done nothing.
To give them their due they recognised it and acted accordingly.
sab
@BellyCat: Yes! I know urban cops my age (70) who went their whole careers without ever firing a shot. That is not the case for the younger ones
Martin
@Aussie Sheila: I think the Supreme Court is really struggling right now to figure out how to stuff the genie back in the bottle.
Their recent ruling saying that any gun restriction needs to be rooted in 18th century precedent is causing courts all over the country to strike down red flag laws, conceal carry limitations, restrictions on felons owning guns, and so on. This is clearly not what USSC had in mind, but it is exactly what they said the standard needed to be. There’s a bunch of cases finding their way back to USSC because of this, but the one to watch is US vs Rahimi set to be heard next week.
Apparently the court requires some precedent from the 1700s regarding shooting an AR-15 into a pickup truck, and if prosecutors can’t provide one, then they can’t restrict his gun ownership. I would argue that if originalism means that only precedent set when the law was first enacted is valid, then the law can only apply to those things that existed when the law was written. So you have a right to keep and bear a Pennsylvania rifle, but Congress can regulate anything newer. Unless Thomas can demonstrate that the framers had anticipated the AR-15 when they wrote the law.
Quaker in a Basement
I notice that the NRA’s best two years happen to be the same years that Obama was campaigning for president.Coincidence, I’m sure.Nah. I’m wrong. Their best year was the year Trump was campaigning against Clinton. I’m actually surprised the gun humpers had anything left over after buying their MAGA hats.
sab
@Martin: To stop the AR15 I am okay with every nutcase in America having rights to a muzzle loading musket that they have to dump gunpowder into and prime before they add the bullets (that they had to make at home, exposing all their kids to melted lead fumes.)
2nd Amendment protects Founders’ weapons only.
Also too, Founders were pre-industrial revolution. Guns were made by hand by skilled gunsmiths and were quite expensive.
Aussie Sheila
@Quaker in a Basement:
I have no doubt that the election of the first Black President sent gun sales and fetishisation of guns through the roof. Now it has to be unpicked.
The USSC is an international menace, as well as being a danger to US citizens, especially women.  In the meantime, I retain my faith in brutal, on the ground organising and politicking. No Court, no matter how âhighâ should ever be allowed to usurp the proper role of the legislature. I respect the role of the  Courts. I donât respect a system that permits the judiciary to make policy via semi theological arguments about the intent of the âframersâ.
The people should determine their intent, via decisions made by the Legislature. Legislators make mistakes, to be sure. But in a democracy they can be rectified. USSC decisions can only be rectified it seems, when it comes to stripping women of Constitutional rights over their own bodies.
They need to be put in their place by the Legislature.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: I have always been of mixed minds between USA system and parliamentary systems.
I dislike parliamentary systems where laws change 180° with every election. There is no concept of law, just part affiliation.
But the USA idea of law that existed when I was young has been whittled away in my lifetime by the Newt Gingrichs of the world. Find a weak point in the structure and exploit the hell out of it.
Parliamentary systems could recover from that in the next election. On the other hand, our system is glacial. Hard to break, much harder to fix once broken. Like climate change.
Ruckus
@sab:
I had more of that from the NRA than I got from the Navy. When I reported on ship I found out that on in port watch I had to carry a loaded weapon. When handed the .45 caliber semi auto pistol for the first time I asked the lieutenant what the order was and he stated that if I saw someone on the ship that didn’t belong, shoot to kill. I carried that weapon, when on in port watch for over a year before we had any kind of training, if I hadn’t known before I was given that weapon or enlisted, it might not have turned out well. Fortunately I never had to take it out of the holster other than when turning it over to the next watch. I have no idea why the military had such a loose concept of weapon handling. I wonder if it’s changed in the last 50+ years. I’m not holding my breath.
sab
@Ruckus: I know you were Navy (so was my dad.) My understanding is that on base Army locks up every weapon except when they are on duty. That’s not in combat, just back home on base.
My spouse in Coast Guard got less safety training than I did in a girls summer camp run by retired Army.
JAFD
@sab: There’s a Magazine Street here in Newark, NJ, because in the era when houses were heated with fireplaces, shooters had to keep their gunpowder in the community storehouse.
sab
@JAFD: I wish we could have sent Antonin Scalia back to spend a year in the 18th century. Also too his sons.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: Virginia passed 6 gun safety laws in 2020 that are still on the books despite being challenges in court. Other states have passed assault weapons bans (Connecticut), prohibitions on large capacity magazines (Colorado) and other measures that have also withstood legal challenges.
The Supreme court may yet uphold lower court decisions striking down those laws, but right now state legislatures can pass these laws and state governments can uphold them. The Heller decision is often described as removing the rights of government to regulate firearms, but that is not so. Right now it is the legislatures and not the courts that are the limiting factor with gun safety legislation.
JAFD
TIL Philip Glass wrote a symphony, ‘Heroes’, inspired by the David Bowie album of the same title. ‘Twas played over WQXR a half-hour or so ago, would have made more attention if hadn’t been making sandwiches for brunch on today’s trip. On to Lancaster!
In other symphonic news, WQXR will be holding a ‘Beethoven Marathon’ to complement Sunday’s run – all nine symphonies, complete, in order. Stans of Ludwig can surf to WQXR.org at 9 AM Eastern.
sab
@Quaker in a Basement: Pricey those hats were. But they saved on razors, only shaving a patch of cheek on each side.
My husband gave up his much loved goatee because it looked MAGA. We were ten years married before he would shave his moustache, because he didn’t want me to see that he looked a lot like his sister. Men!
sab
@Geminid: As always, you bring facts and clarity.
sab
@JAFD: How did I go my whole life and only hear the 7th this year?
Aussie Sheila
@sab:
With respect, you are wrong when you write âlaws change 180â with every change of governmentâ.
The laws change in accordance with the promises, or manifestos of the Parties contending for power. If a Party is elected with a promise contained in its program, it is expected they will implement said promise. If a Party or Government acts to implement policies that have little or no support electorally, they will be punished at the polls.
That, to my mind, is democracy in action. As to your view that Parliamentary systems only act in accordance with Party â willâ and therefore donât act in accordance with law, you are wrong, with respect.
Australia has a Constitution. It is very hard to change, although not as hard as the US. Its âframersâ looked to the US Constitution, particularly the separation of church and state. However what they didnât do was entrench a range of âineffableâ personal rights in the document, for which I am truly grateful.
Once that happens, law becomes political, while politics becomes judicial. This is not an outcome conducive to a healthy polity.
Parliamentary politics is brutal. But at least where I live, the will of the legislature is supreme. Not a bunch of unelected justices, whose political opinions arenât worth more than yours or mine. On matters of law that the legislature cedes to the Courts, I have no problem.
On matters of public policy it is disastrous to cede to the Courts that which should be subject to democratic debate and control.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@JAFD:
Speaking of Bowie I just finished my guitar practice with Rebel Rebel. It’s repetitive as hell but I love to play that lick. Great timing practice and fun to play.
sab
One of the gun comments that really annoys me is “it’s only a twenty two.” Those don’t pulverise the victim into hamburger like the big guns, but they can and do kill people every day.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: Thank you for your comment from a parliamentary system. I have no feel for how those work, just impressions, and an ancient experience as an exchange student in UK law classes.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: I hate so much what is going on in my government now. Our system is glacial. I like your perspective that your system is a system but still flexible.
Martin
@sab: It’s almost quaint the guns you see used in historical events. Reagan was shot with a .22.
Aussie Sheila
@sab:
UK Law classes are an unreliable guide to how Parliamentary systems operate across the world. The UK has what they call an âunwrittenâ constitution. Ours is a written Constitution. But it is comparatively âmodestâ in its reach, and doesnât pretend to enumerate every political freedom and right allowed to the people. It is mainly concerned with enumerating the powers and sovereignty  between the six States (and 2 Territories) and the Federal Government.
The creation of Australia out of the six original colonies of the UK owed much more to the politics of the UK Chartists than it did to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the French Revolution that coloured so much of the US Constitution.
I distrust systems that avoid political contestation in favour of âjudicial solutionsâ. Such solutions rarely prove durable. As US women  have just found out. Whether liberal or conservative, Courts should never, ever make policy that properly belongs with a democratically elected legislature.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: I thought the Supreme Court did a good job with its decision in Roe v Wade, in 1974. Same with the Obergefel (sp?) 10 years ago.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid:
Really? What the Courts grant, the Courts can rescind. Ask women in the US living in Red states. As to Obergefell, it will go the way of Roe if you arenât careful.
In Australia, abortion was always a matter for the States. And still is. Consequently it has been freely available since the 1970s. No State government ever could rescind the right and survive a nano second.
As to gay marriage rights, this was the subject of a federal referendum a decade or more ago, and the people voted âyesâ to the Commonwealth government recognising marriages between same sex couples. I donât envisage the people changing their mind on this either. In both cases the issues were litigated politically. The consequent victories are and will remain, enduring, so long as democratic politics endures.
That is the difference.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: Your perspective is so different from anything in my education. A functioning democracy clawed out of colonialism. Y’all built your country out of a penal colony. No illusions there
ETA And no respect for the Founders sitting in London doing whatever to you.
Martin
@Aussie Sheila: The main problem with US politics isn’t the nature of the constitution or laws. The main problem is that an orderly society operates on mutual consent and that’s been breaking down incredibly badly in the last 8 years in the US.
We are accustomed of thinking of the US government, courts, congress, etc. as a machine that you can shove pretty much anything you want in the front end and out the back you get something that slowly approaches justice. And Democrats in particular trust the machine, and see the point of, well, everything as respecting and reinforcing the machine. But the GOP no longer is interested in that, in fact, their interest is in bypassing the machine entirely. That’s what the norms vs laws debate under trump was about. The ‘norms’ assumed that everyone had the same goal – a well functioning democracy, and  we learned then that no, the president did not have that goal and in time learned that the GOP did not either.
It doesn’t matter if the constitution is written or not, or where the policy authority is, if one party decides to just bypass all of it. The only mechanism to rein in a Supreme Court justice that is openly taking bribes is Congress. It doesn’t matter what the law says, only Congress can adjudicate that and if they don’t want to then it doesn’t happen. If Congress doesn’t want to fill a court seat, then it doesn’t happen. Hell, the US for 3 week failed a parliamentary process of picking a speaker of the house even when one party had the majority – that’s how busted things are now.
I mean Jan 6 tells us just how far we can rely on the legal/constitutional machine – it’s not terribly far.
Lapassionara
@Aussie Sheila: I donât think Australia has the kind of gerrymandering that we have here in the states. Our state legislatures are not necessarily reflective of the peopleâs will. See North Carolina, for example, or Missouri. Same problem with the House of Representatives. That is why courts should, when properly presented with a legal question brought by someone with standing, should exercise their legal judgment.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: I understand this obvious point. But you said that courts should never decide these matters. There were women living in states that never would have had abortion rights had Roe not been decided, and for almost 5 decades. Many millions of people have made same-sex marriages since Obergefel. I think those people’s lives count.
Aussie Sheila
@Martin:
I understand what you are saying. However the US suffers from a surfeit of States rights imo, and the Democrats need to rebuild a democratic polity from the local/state up to the federal. It will be a long haul but a universal voting rights Act, that avoids the pitfalls of enumerating only certain States with respect to alterations of voting systems together  with a proper system of ensuring  properly drawn electoral districts will assist in restoring majoritarian democracy, rather than the minoritarian tyranny that currently exists.
I will never abandon a preference for democratic control over judicial tyranny.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid:
Of course those peoplesâ lives count. However it is their fellow citizens that will ensure that in the long term. Not the Courts. See Dobbs.
There is nothing as tyrannical as a politicised judiciary. And nothing worse than a polity that removes policy questions from the people and reposes them in unelected Courts. It makes the Courts unaccountable arms of the Legislature. A very very bad outcome for democracy.
lowtechcyclist
@Aussie Sheila:Â â
Yeah, for all the talk of ‘checks and balances’ between the branches that we got in school, there doesn’t seem to be any meaningful check in the system that applies to a Supreme Court that does whatever it damn well pleases because fuck you, that’s why.
Really the only thing the Dems can do under these circumstances is expand the Court, and they’re not going to do that.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: Yes, it sometimes leads to a bad outcome. But in Brown vs. Kansas Board of Educstion, the Supreme Court began the process of racial integration a decade before Congress would have. White people in he South complained of judicial tyranny.
Aussie Sheila
@lowtechcyclist:
I believe that the power of the USSC has grown paradoxically because the legislature has permitted it, by not legislating enough.
While Brown v Board of Education was important, it was the CRA and the VRA that actually delivered a modicum of freedom and justice to Black US citizens. Now the US legislature needs to claw back its authority from the USSC.
I donât pretend thereâs a quick fix, but no democratic polity can withstand judicial policy making for long. Elections should have consequences.
Courts should interpret the law, not make it.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:Â â
It’s quite a piece of music, isn’t it?
I first heard it in college, probably when I took that music appreciation elective back in 1975. It’s been my personal favorite of his symphonies ever since.
Everybody quite deservedly goes gaga over the second movement, often to the extent that the rest of the symphony is overlooked. But Wagner called the fourth movement “the apotheosis of the dance” and the opening movement is one of the most joyous pieces of music I’ve ever heard, even if Beethoven spends the first four or five minutes being a big tease before he finally brings it, because when he does, the result is awesome.
Geminid
Reports are that the Biden administration will soon announce another $425 million package of military aid to Ukraine.
lowtechcyclist
@Aussie Sheila:Â â
That’s far from the whole story, IMHO. It’s true in the case of Roe that if Congress had codified the rights Roe set out, repealing Roe wouldn’t have made a difference.
But when it comes to Congress’ regulating businesses and limiting what they can do, these are areas where Congress has legislated, and the Court is busily gutting those laws.
So it’s quite possible that this Supreme Court could have found some specious argument to say that Congress didn’t have the authority under the Constitution to pass a law codifying Roe, and might have undone it anyway.
The only real remedy in the Constitution to a runaway Supreme Court is impeachment, and that’s not going to happen if one of the two parties is cheering them on.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: The Brown decision acheived more than a modicum of freedom and justice for Black people in the American South. Both White and Black people in the South thought it was a big deal, even though it was implemented gradually.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
I recently read that the Administration still has about $5B in spending authority left from the previous Ukraine aid bills, and I assume that this package is drawing on that.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: The Constitutional remedy to a runaway Supreme Court is to win elections. We’re on this fix because we lost elections we could have won, and we’ll get out of it by winning the elections we can win.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid:
But it was the federal governmentâs decision to enforce the decision that made the difference. By the Army, no less. As it should have. The VRA and CRA entrenched, legislatively, the political and social rights of Black US citizens. The Legislature will have to do it again for the polity as a whole the next time the Dems win both Senate and Congress. I donât believe for a minute that Dems will agree to an expanded USSC.
I wouldnât, even if the political âwillâ existed.
Who wants more of the same garbage?
End its policy making power.
mrmoshpotato
@sab:
Oh, so you’ll have no problem getting shot in the knee with a .22, right? Why not, you slapdick?
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: The Omnibus spending bill passed last December included $44 billion in military aid for Ukraine. I think the $5 billion you mention is what’s left of that.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
And even that won’t do us any good until two of the six wingnuts on the Court die or retire, at a time when the Dems control both the White House and the Senate. They could all still be on the bench a decade from now. If that happens, winning elections in the meantime won’t fix SCOTUS, and they can still undermine what our elected President and Congresional majorities try to do.
Gvg
@sab: it was also pre advertising revolution. I really donât think they anticipated how manipulative advertising could be.
The gun nuts I know are firmly convinced that they will be able to be a hero if a bad guy shooter shows up. Taking away their guns and criticizing their scenarios is pushing them back into a terribly boring unimportant life and they lash out. Otherwise itâs an expensive hobby of collecting that also makes them see a bunch of terrible politicians as good to vote for. I know the older one, a Vietnam vet long time Republican, hated Trump and didnât vote for him either time. I think he still votes other republicans though.
Havenât talked to the younger one in a long time, but he always had issues with the lack of gun safety. Refused to go hunting with many people who drank with guns, or showed off but didnât follow rules.
Annamal
@Aussie Sheila: as kiwi Iâm in favour of our voting system (mmp) but itâs worth acknowledging that itâs about to send my country through three to nine years of chaos. I still think itâs worthwhile but I do wish human rights and the treaty were more enshrined and protected.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: I do not think that Justices Thomas and Alito will be in the Coudt after Joe Biden’s 2nd term is over. But if they are, I guess we’ll have to win in 2028. The remedy for this runaway Court is and always will be to win elections. Telling yourself and other people that winning elections is not ebough can lead to cynicism that can be insidious. And what is the alternative to winning elections?
raven
@sab: I was in the “rear” in Vietnam and our weapons were locked up until we went on guard duty or left the post. Also, firearms are not permitted in VA facilities.
Gvg
@Aussie Sheila: it can only act to end it if it actually has the will of the voters behind them or it will be immediately undone. The real reason we are in this fix, talk about gerrymandering aside, is we are close to evenly split on a lot of important issues. The gerrymandering and electoral college manipulations have only been possible because the margin is close. The liberal side is bigger, but not that much bigger and we divide up differently of the multiple related issues. Race, womenâs rights, transgender, guns, taxes, military spending, education policy, and then there is allowing too much unregulated money to go into politics and the Supreme Court ethicsâŚMost of these near 50 50s have been holding for decades. This is why we have not resolved them. I donât think it is the system.
Now since the conservatives have been losing but over a long time with time to adjust and find angles and tactics, they have really dug in. If they had lost more completely faster, this would not have happened. Their party would have adapted to reality already.
Warblewarble
Why do pictures of members of this administration embracing Netanyahu bring to mind Rumfelds visit to Saddam.
Martin
Not really. Most issues are pretty one-sided. The problem is that we are really fighting over who is permitted to hold power, not what they do with the power. Witness the overnight reversal on any number of long-held policy ideas once Trump came into power. Witness the GOP only caring about deficits when a Democrat is in power.
Until we get past this need for the US to be expressed as a white christian nation, we’ll never make meaningful progress on policy. One way to get there it to drive them far enough into the minority that they give up hope, with the regional holdouts forcing a party split. You can already see that starting.
Professor Bigfoot
We do a lot of dancing around the fact that the majority of white Americans are in favor of white supremacy and vote for Republicans for that reason.
Brown v Board was a judicial remedy because Black people were not  a part of the electorate; and as such had almost NO voice.
Today’s conservatives LIKE it that way. It’s not coincidence that  conservatives went mad when Obama was elected.  I will NEVER forget the attitudes of the white men that I worked with, the day after that election.
Since Australia has it so great, how are the aboriginal people doing?
Professor Bigfoot
@Martin: boy you hit that nail on the head.
The problem, the main, overriding problem in the US is that there’s a significant plurality of white voters– quite probably the majority– who are absolutely phobic of the idea that a Black person might be elected “over” them.
“There is no horseshoe. There is only white people who are at best uncomfortable with any power held in Black hands. Those white people are at all points of the ‘left-right’ spectrum.”
eversor
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Sorry but this is fucking WRONG.
The CHURCH funded Russia. Not the other way around. In the early 2000’s Christians jumped on board with Russia and pumped billions into it and Putin, knowing what Christian actually is (hint it’s not what the liars here claim it is about helping the poor, you fucking Nazi appologists) got what they wanted. Putin adopted the CHRISTIANs view points. Then CHRISTIANS dragged the GOP to Putin.
It truly is all Christianity, all the fucking god damn time. So if you are not anti Christian, you are pro shooting kids. You have a bible? OK child killer!
lowtechcyclist
@eversor:
The name-calling aside (the Lord is pouring out His love on me continually, what’s it matter if someone calls me names?), do you have backup for this claim? It’s a new one to me, and doesn’t fit with anything I know.
JML
@Professor Bigfoot: the bigotry is still a problem and keeps a lot of people voting for right-wing candidates that do not have their economic interests at heart.
The left does also have problem here where there are significant portion that think that large immediate changes are the only ones that are acceptable and incremental policy changes (and those that support them) are as bad/dangerous as the right-wingers who totally oppose the policy movements. That’s a challenge too. (these are the people who scream after everything Biden does “he coulda done more!!” and fantasize about someone “better”…it used to be Bernie, but they seem to have mostly fractured over who is the new political savior…)
JML
@lowtechcyclist: some people have a hammer and to them everything else is a nail, you know?
Honus
@sab: The AR15 is also a .22 caliber bullet, which is why it is prohibited for deer hunting in many states.
Also, the common .22 round has killed more people than any other cartridge. Â Because itâs so common and cheap, I guess.
Kay
“Secret” is a dumb word here – it’s in real estate records which is how they found it- but it’s “secret” in terms of his congressional disclosures.
For anyone wondering how Mike Johnson has no declared assets… you can do a lot with an LLC and it looks like the House has to tighten up their disclosure rules.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
Their “aspirations” aren’t matching reality, again. Funny how putting an unknown with good hair in charge hasn’t changed that, isn’t it?? And over in the Senate, Potatotown is causing public dissent with his “good friends and colleagues” in the GQP caucus. Reality is catching up with all of them, again. It always eventually does.
Have a good Friday, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brit in Chicago
@sab: “US Supreme Court has tied the lower courtsâ hands. They changed the interpretation of 2nd amendment so that now the âwell-regulated militiaâ part is ignored and âthe right to bearâ arms has become a personal right for every citizen.”
Yes: that decision, surprisingly recent (2008?) was crucial. After Roe v Wade there was a fifty-year campaign by the Right to get a Supreme Court that would overturn it. I wish the good guys were as organized and coherent, and working to overturn the Scalia gun decision (not to mention to reinstate a right to abortion, and other kinds of privacy protection).
Anne Laurie
@lowtechcyclist: Yeah, I don’t think Maria Butina was funded by her church.
Putin and the Authoritarian Monotheists — not least among them America’s own Christianists — have many goals in common, but neither party ‘controls’ the other.
RevRick
@Aussie Sheila: Congratulations to Australia for taking this step.
And like you, I refer to all guns as murder machines. That drives gun nuts nuts. They like to get into debates about particular guns (and the OP false into this trap by referring to AR-15 style guns, when an AR-15 is a particular manufacturerâs make).
Murder Machines.
By calling them that I throw the burden of the argument back on the gun owner.
Why do you want to own a murder machine?
They usually start sputtering nonsense about self-defense, but then I always ask them from whom? Their sick fears of monsters? I often suggest that they need better neighbors, pointing out that I live in a racially diverse neighborhood, and I never have felt in danger. And then I point out how warped are the hero fantasies which animate a lot of gun ownership.
Nothing rattles a gun nut more than having the premise of owning a gun ridiculed.
Frankensteinbeck
The NRAâs power has been dwindling for decades, not just their revenues. Â They used to be a big deal, but extreme political polarization has made them irrelevant. Â When the debate is between people who want gun control the NRA hates and people who react to school shootings with âFuck you, more guns!â the NRA has nothing to do.
And oh, look. Â Another article stating video games have nothing to do with violence that immediately follows with blaming video games for violence.
@Geminid:
So far, the House is following previous patterns of spending negotiations: Â Pass something non-serious and ideological that is DOA in the Senate, then dither. Â In previous confrontations this has ended in whatever the Senate throws at them passing. Â Weâll have to see if that still stands.
BellyCat
Martinâs description of a (previously) orderly machine, now intentionally broken is a good one.
Citizenâs United is the decision and Leonard Leo is the person that broke the machine. Â All with Mitch McConnellâs blessing, of course.
Professor Bigfoot
@RevRick: From whom?
The same people who sacked Black Wall Street. Put Rosewood to the torch. Annihilated Ocoee.
Get those white supremacist, neo-Confederate, Nazi adjacent âconservativesâ to give up their guns and Iâll hand mine over with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.
Until then, Iâm keeping mine.
wjca
Also, back then, the NRA supported gun control. Then, the gun manufacturers took it over and turned it into a sales and marketing operation.
lowtechcyclist
@JML:
Yeah, I know. “You have a Bible? OK child killer!” I have several; I guess that makes me a mass murderer, and I’m still on the loose, ha ha!
But this business about Christians supposedly flooding Russia with billions of dollars in the 2000s is an unusually specific claim for him, so I figured I’d call him on it. I’m sure it’s total bullshit, of course.
Denali5
@Scott,
For once, Google has failed me. Please explain the reference to Potatotown.
Paul in KY
@Aussie Sheila: Over here, a comparable atrocity to the Port Arthur massacre would require approx 3,000 deaths.
Paul in KY
Sorry to see Post Malone grinning with the assault rife/murder machine. He probably got it for free.
Anne Laurie
Senator Tommy Tuber-ville.
Ramona
@Denali5: Senator Tuberville
Tuber: Potato
Ville: Town
Tuberville has held up military promotions for some time now. He claims his reason is the military regulation funding soldiers’ travel to states with legal abortion when needed. I believe he holds them up in hopes that a Trump administration would promote loyalists among the military.
lowtechcyclist
They are just six and four years, respectively, older than me. I can’t see why they couldn’t hang on a good deal longer than that. I could see us having to win in 2024, 2028, 2032, and possibly 2036 to regain a Supreme Court majority. And of course control the Senate for at least part of whatever Presidential term they finally die or retire in. And in the meantime, they can play far more havoc with our nation than they already have.
Hell, we’ve already won five of the last eight Presidential elections, and a lot of good it did us in terms of SCOTUS.
No, I don’t know what the solution is, but there has to be a better way than potentially having to win a very long string of elections in order to achieve parity.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: You say there has to be a better way than winning more elections. But what is that way?