Not Quite

This article has been making the link rounds.

I think he's missed some important bits, or at least Mother Jones didn't ask the right questions.

The NRA got "taken over" in 1977?  Why would that have happened, Dan?  You need to answer that to understand part of what's confusing you.  The NRA was founded as a MILITARY marksmanship training organization, so that the next war our troops would be able to shoot what they were aiming at.  All of the pastoral training has application for military shooting, but by 1977 the NRA had become a sportsmen only club and didn't oppose any gun laws at all.

Gun Culture 2.0 and NRA '76 are not compatible.

Handguns?  Not for carrying.
Detachable magazines?  Why are you a bad shot?
Machine guns?  Just for the police and military.
GCA 1968?  We helped write it!

The NRA in 1976 was a gun control organization Dan.

By the way, they still teach every single one of the hunting and conservation classes they taught in 1976, and they still teach the Boy Scouts.  What changed is they started standing up to the gun grabbers.

Only 4% of gun owners are members of the NRA?  First off, that's a gigantic percentage compared to, say the NAACP.

Four million NRA members is eight times as many people as the ACLU.  How many people do they purport to represent and what percentage is 500k of that?

How large does an organization have to be before they're considered valid?  What percentage of the people they claim to represent have to be members?

Why don't more gun owners join the NRA?  Because many of us feel that they don't do anything, so why waste the money?  Was it the NRA or the Second Amendment Foundation that got Heller to the Supreme Court?  NRA or SAF for McDonald?

Or was the NRA actively opposing those cases because they weren't perfect slam-dunk wins?

I agree with him that the NRA needs to change, but I'm not proposing to be more reasonable to the eyes of the gun controllers.

What a great many of us fear are lists.

Do I oppose background checks to be certain that I am not selling a gun to a felon?  That depends.  If it has to be done through an FFL and the sellers name is recorded, the firearm(s) serial number recorded and the buyer's name is recorded: I oppose background checks as a violation of my 4th Amendment right to privacy.

Come to think of it, I oppose all background checks.  Because there's supposition of guilt.  I have to prove I am innocent before I can buy a gun?  Wrong.  You have to prove I am guilty to prevent me.

The present push on background checks also wants to dodge mens rea.  It doesn't matter if someone intended to sell a gun to a felon, it only matters that they did.  Want to bet that the system failing will not be a positive defense?

Make the forbidden have a scarlet letter on their ID.  That's passive.  No lists, no records.  If they use a fake ID to buy a gun, give them life.  Or aren't you serious about this?  How about death penalty for being a forbidden person in possession?  Isn't this important to you?

But that will discriminate against convicted felons because everywhere they go and use ID people will know?  We already discriminate against them all the time.  They are already second-class citizens in the eyes of the law.  It's a factor in recidivism.

And everything I just suggested has zero effect on the law-abiding.  Which is how this should work.

Every single time gun control is pushed it is aimed at the people who didn't do anything wrong and it is always aimed at activities which did not occur in the lead-up to the crime that inspired the push.

Sandy Hook is a great example.  The legal owner of the firearm passed their background check and registered the gun in accordance with CT law.  The owner was murdered by a family member and the guns stolen.  How will background checks and registration prevent that?  How will registering guns in Florida have stopped that?

I am sick of being told that I have an absolutist attitude about guns.  At least being told like there's something wrong with taking such a position.  I became an absolutist when I noticed that there's never an expansion of freedom for gun rights.

1934, reduction in freedom, what are now known as NFA items become heavily taxed and registered.

1968, reduction in freedom, I have buy new guns through an FFL and attest that I am not a forbidden person (but forbidden people don't because it's a violation of self incrimination?).  I can no longer buy a new gun that was made outside the country if it isn't sporting enough.

1986, reduction in freedom, I can no longer buy a newly made machinegun no matter how clean my background or law abiding I am.  This is the only part of the "Firearms Owners Protection Act" that still stands besides the elimination on record keeping for ammunition sales.  Don't believe me, take a 30 round magazine through Boston, DC or NYC.

1992, reduction in freedom, if my gun is not sporting enough it can't have more than a certain number of parts which were made outside the country.  Some cosmetically "scary" guns were declared not sporting enough.  Ammunition from China magically became more evil than ammunition from Russia and former Warsaw Pact.

1994, reduction in freedom, I have to have my background scrutinized and there are often delays while the system hiccups.

1994, reduction in freedom, I was forbidden to buy new guns that had more than a certain number of "scary" cosmetic features.  This one expired but I've been hearing about its return for the past nine years.

I look at EIGHTY YEARS of gun control and I just don't see what I get from it as a law abiding citizen.

Criminals still have NFA items, they just don't register them.  Criminals still have guns, they just don't buy them legally.  Criminals don't bother counting the foreign content of their guns.  Criminals don't submit to background checks.  Criminals don't register their guns.  Criminals don't obey the law, it's in the fucking job description of being a criminal!

Dan does get that we're sick of being punished for things we didn't do, again.  We're sick of giving up our rights and not getting anything in return only to be back at the table being asked to give up more a couple of years later.

Sorry, Dan, you're "a gun owner but..."  You're better than many in that group, but you aren't one of us and you don't get it.

h/t Angry Mike