Define “reasonable” and “unreasonable” restrictions. It should be very easy to create a gun rights group with a platform that lays out what they do and do not support.
And that will be the challenge too as many people disagree on the meaning of the word “reasonable” as it relates to guns.
Ever stop to think the NRA might be the reasonable voice of gun owners?
Many groups have come and gone under the guise of wanting to create an alternative to the NRA in supporting “reasonable regulations”. Most of these were astroturf groups founded and often funded by anti-gun groups and sold as having grassroots support for “reasonable” restrictions on firearms.
Inevitably these groups quickly revealed themselves as little more than fronts for gun control under more “reasonable” sounding names. Often promoting the idea that they didn’t want to ban guns used for hunting. Just weapons of war. They didn’t want unreasonable restrictions, just licensing, ammunition limits, registration, safety classes and other things “reasonable” people would agree to.
After all, what would be “unreasonable” about those?
As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And gun owners weren’t seeing much beauty when they looked deeper.
If such a middle-ground creature can be created, I have yet to see it. The problem is you’ll never be able to pin down anti-gun people on a definition of “reasonable”. Today’s “reasonable” is tomorrow’s “loophole”. And that’s not hyperbole. That’s fact.
Two cases in point:
- The so-called “gun show loophole” in law specifically allows unlicensed persons to transfer firearms to each other within the boundaries of their respective states and interstate for specific circumstances (i.e. inheritance) without a background check. It allows the states to regulate the conduct as they see fit. Background checks are meant to apply only to licensed dealers. It was a reasonable compromise put it at the time of drafting so as to not burden law-abiding citizens conduct in disposing of their personal firearms.
- The so-called “Charsleton loophole” that allows a gun to be released to a buyer if the FBI fails to complete the background check within 72 hours. This was a very real and explicit compromise that the gun lobby made with gun control at the time of the law’s drafting to actually force the government to do its job! It was placed there to ensure that the government could not ban guns by the act of taking down the background check system. The NRA had legitimate concerns that this could be an outcome of forcing all gun sales to go through background checks. The 3 day period was struck as a compromise over the existing mandatory 5 day waiting period. It incentivizes the goverment to do its job in completing the background check in a timely fashion with the understanding that if they fail, the failure defaults to preserving a person’s right to obtain a gun.
Now gun controllers want to undo both of these reasonable compromises made in good faith. It seems “reasonable” has a moveable definition. So until you can pin down “reasonable” and get both sides to agree to a definition that won’t be changed in the future with the next generation, tragedy and/or administration, it is highly unlikely you’ll be able to create a softer, gentler, more reasonable and compromising version of the NRA.
And compared to Gun Owners of America, JPFO and the 2nd Amendment Foundation, the NRA is downright capitulatory.
Read other related questions on Quora:
- If owning firearms is so important to Americans, why doesn't the pro-gun lobby protest against the restrictions on felons and under 21-year-olds?
- Why have most Western democracies restricted access to firearms?
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Why are the NRA & guns rights activists so opposed to any restrictions on gun purchasing / types of guns (e.g., assault rifles)?
from Quora http://ift.tt/2btEVsc
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