As for the Second Amendment, it may pose an inconvenience for gun-control advocates, but no more an inconvenience than the First Amendment…
Lasting social change usually occurs when people decide to do something they know they ought to have done long ago but have kept the knowledge private. This, I believe, is what happened with civil rights, and it is happening with guns. I doubt that it will be 25 years before we’re rid of the things. In 10 years, even five, we could be looking back on the past three decades of gun violence in America the way one once looked back upon 18th century madhouses. I think we are already doing so but not saying so.
Roger Rosenblatt
August 2, 1999
Get rid of the damned things
[An “inconvenience”? That should tell you all you need to know about these people. Specific enumerated rights are an “inconvenience” when they are “doing the right thing”. This wasn’t Pravda, Democratic Underground or some other openly communistic forum. This was in Time magazine.
This is from the dark ages when even at the high levels of professional gun rights advocates were telling me, “It will all be over in 10 years.” It’s now been nearly 15 years and we are in a much stronger position than we were in 1999. Public carry of a firearm is now legal in all 50 states with only D.C. still in the dark ages. 41 states have shall issue concealed carry and three states have constitutional carry.
What Rosenblatt didn’t and perhaps still doesn’t understand is that 100 million gun owners with 300 million guns buying 10 billion rounds of ammunition each year is going to be more “inconvenient” than words on a piece of paper written 200+ years ago when he sends someone by to “get rid of the damned things”.—Joe]
I’d take that of as an example of how fast things can change. Either way.
Great irony to throw in “the mad houses of the 18th…” when almost everyone agrees that mental health treatment issues play a part in most of the highly publicized shootings recently. And many are starting to ask about US de-institutionalization in the late 70’s. Yep, he’s a thinker (like my cat is a modern artist).
“… still doesn’t understand is that 100 million gun owners with 300 million guns buying 10 billion rounds of ammunition each year is going to be more “inconvenient” than words on a piece of paper …”
People of his (Rosenblatt’s) ilk might also want to consider that a non-trivial percentage of that ammunition that is bought each year is not actually used but is stored. And that the “shelf” life of properly stored ammunition is *very* long.
This is the part I find most interesting:
“…gun-control advocates, but no more an inconvenience than the First Amendment…”
The First Amendment is an inconvenience? In an oblique way, it would seem that someone has telegraphed exactly what the next step after ridding themselves “… of the damned things” is. There’s this pesky thing called Free Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Assembly and Right to Pettition for Redress…
To me, it looks like they’ve had more success at ridding themselves of that inconvenient First Amendment, than the Second.
“..high levels of professional gun rights advocates were telling me, “It will all be over in 10 years.””
THAT is the most important part of your post. “High levels” of “Gun rights advocates” being convinced that they’ll lose, and getting paid for it. With “friends” like that, just as with Progressive Republicans, we have our enemies in our own house and we’re paying them.
THAT MINDSET of “It will all be over in 10 years” is how we lose. It is the ONLY way to lose, and it needs to have the life crushed out of it the second it shows itself. The person who says that is the one who previously pledged his life to your cause, who assured you over and over again that he had your back, but that was all manipulation. He’ll be the one who shoots you in the back as you lead the charge up the hill. The enemy has won him over completely and he’s just playing you for money, title and position.
I smelled this cancer within the NRA during the 1990s, as they ran articles on how great single shot rifles are after all. They never ran a magazine cover showing a modern self-loader, and instead had Heston with a $100K hinge action shotgun over his shoulder, reinforcing the “guns are for the upper class” notion.
“Friends” like that are your most effective and deadliest enemies. They’re the Grima Wormtongues, who’ll paralyze you with thoughts of certain failure, alienation, and the need for capitulation.
That’s what GOT US to the dark times of the ‘90s— the squishy RINOs and the “professional gun rights activists” who needed to be liked, or to fit in, more than they needed to understand and promote basic principles.
These people are all around you. You may be one of them if this makes you uncomfortable.
This wasn’t someone with the NRA. And they also followed up with something to the effect that we would fight them every inch of the way and make it as costly in time and money for them as we could.
They are also no longer a major player in the “business”.
People seem to equate “activist” with paid a lot. In our community even “lobbyist” does not mean paid at least by the standards of lobbying. Also, it seems to me (not necessarily related to any of this) that the NRA specifically has this legislative machine image, on both sides of the debate, that is totally not warranted. There is no machine. On the west coast there is -one- -dude- running form California to Washington to Oregon to Idaho and back, bless Brian’s overly patient heart. To the extent ILA get’s -anything- done, it’s because #1 there are 4 million members. And #2 some (not a lot of) money follows the annual questionnaires. Being a political machine may be a reputation some advance but it’s not the reality I’ve seen.
Dude, Time Magazine is an openly communist publication. And has been for decades.
It depends on what you mean by “openly”. This would be evidence that you are correct about it being communistic, which was my intent with that leading sentence. But I doubt you can find an instance of them praising Marx, Lenin, or Stalin which is not the case with the other sources I mentioned.
How about Che, Castro or Chavez? Is Lexus Nexus still around?
Ok; it took a few seconds to find they did a cover story on Che, but you only get a few lines of the story without a subscription.
This story is plausibly neutral on Che.
Look at the tyrants who have been their “Man of the Year” over the years. That tells a lot.
Well, in Time’s defense (and I do not like to defend Time, they are a VERY shoddy “news” publication, about a half a skosh above the National Enquirer, IMNSHO), the Man of the Year Award is NOT intended to be meant as “Best Man of the Year”, but rather, “Most Significant, Influencial, or Iconic Person of the Year”. They have generally been pretty open about their criteria in that regard.
I would say that when dictators are chosen as MOTY, they usually (and pretty readily) fit within the scope of that definition (keeping in mind that individuals may vary as to which individual better fits the definition at the time of decision).