NRA reputation damaged


An observer of American politics may wonder whether the past few days have changed any of the old political lines on gun control issues and the Second Amendment.

Does a view from Canada tell us anything?  Here’s Aislin‘s cartoon, from the Montreal Gazette,  for December 18, 2012:

Aislin cartoon, Montreal Gazette, 12-18-2012

Aislin, Montreal Gazette, December 18, 2012

Too brutal, or too close to the truth?

A little history quiz in a cartoon, yes?  Can you identify all six symbols?  How many must one know to understand the cartoon?

More:

Summer's End. Lexington Green, 11 September 20...

U.S. flag at half-staff, at the Minuteman Memorial in Lexingon, Massachusetts (Summer’s End. Lexington Green, 11 September 2002. Photo taken in Minute Man National Historical Park. Sculpture : “Minuteman” by sculptor Henry Hudson Kitson (1863-1947), dedicated April 19, 1900. Erected 1899 : SIRIS Image: Wikipedia)

15 Responses to NRA reputation damaged

  1. onkelbob says:

    Re: the eye. Can’t recall when the eye appeared, I vaguely remember her returning from Sicily. Recall that Sicily and Spain were Islamic 700 – 1000 CE, with Sicily trading hands between Byzantines, Umyyad, Berbers, and pirates on a regular basis. Wasn’t until Roger came when things settled down. Indeed, look at Roger’s Chapel in Palermo for work by the previous inhabitants. The originators of the symbol spread it across a wide geographic area, not uncommon to adopt symbols from others .
    But the comment about the Frau was a snide reference to the symbol next to the evil eye.

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  2. Ed Darrell says:

    In the entire history of the Second Amendment, it’s been used against tyrants exactly 0 times. In the past year, more than 10,000 people died from gunshots, not a single one of them accused of tyranny. Tom Toles has a cartoon on the topic. You should seek it out.

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  3. JamesK says:

    To quote: ones and it stands between the citizens and an overreaching Fed Gov’t well then…

    I’m still waiting for them to explain exactly what guns are going to do against tanks, fighters, bombers, missiles and such.

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  4. John fremont says:

    @You Lie
    So if the NRA believes that the 2nd Amendment backs up all of the other ones and it stands between the citizens and an overreaching Fed Gov’t well then…
    Where were the 2nd Amendment marches on Washington when
    Congress and the Bush Administration rammed through the USA Patriot Act after 9/11? And then when they renewed it several years later making provisions like Nat’l Security Letter gag orders have permanent? Broadening sneak and peak searches?

    Warrantless wiretapping by NSA? With Atty Gen Gonzales openly telling Congress these operations were conducted outside of the FISA , “…the sole means of conducting electronic surveillance …”

    The arrest and detainment without charges for two years of José Lopez Padilla by the Bush Administration?

    George W’s open admission of giving the order to waterboard persons suspected of terrorism or collaborating with terrorist organizations? Waterboarding, a practice considered so heinous that US War Crimes Tribunals sentenced Japanese officers ,who ordered done to Allied POWs, to death after WW2.

    Where were the gun owners to support a clergyman who wanted to open a community center in Manhattan to defend his freedom of religion?

    Most of you guys blew major oppurtunities to show that your commitment to civil liberties wasn’t just partisian loyalty. I don’t want to hear it anymore.

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  5. Jim says:

    Youlie offers… What a vile little buffoon you are.

    Ah yes, the bravado and “courage” of the flaccid, little man safely ensconced behind his computer screen. Your cyber-courage knows no limits, eh?

    He is almost as macho as the big, tough, rugged-individualist ‘Murrican behind the safety of his assault rifle. There was a time when “real men” settled their differences with words. Or, failing that, possibly fisticuffs.

    The real “nancy-boys” in our culture are the gun cultists. No those who can engage others in civil discourse. Not even those who might feel the need to throw down once in awhile. No, it’s the losers living in Mama’s basement — like Mr. Lanza — who know in their bones what wusses they are. So they need a gun to level the playing field.

    Your bravery inspires, Youlie.

    Oh, I fully realize I’ve said little that was civil above. But Ed put the information out there. Instead of engaging it, you opted to call him a buffoon, an idiot and a Communist. So I figure, someone has to call bs on your false bravado.

    For those looking in, I realize they can recognize a “dumb” without my assistance. But I should point out, given Ed’s concern for an accurate grasp of history, that the Nazi record with regard to firearms is far more nuanced than slackjaws like Youlie would have us believe.

    In point of fact, the Nazi regime strongly encouraged gun ownership in Germany. That they outlawed the possession of firearms by Communists, trade unionists, Jews, homosexuals and Gypsies is hardly supportive of the misanthropic NRA meme. It is precisely from such “threats” that gun cultists say we should arm ourselves.

    Youlie wants to play the warmed over Hitler card? Fine. He loses.

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  6. Ed Darrell says:

    Mediterranean evil eye. Thanks, Onkel Bob — I wasn’t even sure where to look.

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  7. Ed Darrell says:

    Italian evil eye? Canadian kids know that stuff? I didn’t.

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  8. onkelbob says:

    “Can you identify all six symbols?” Does it count I have them in various places? History books have the swastika & Hammer/Sickle. What pirate would be without a Jolly Roger? I think I have that evil eye hanging in the kitchen. The frau is Italian… I probably have a camping outdoors magazine somewhere in this mess with an ad by the NRA.
    And good luck finding any Nazi-era gun confiscation laws, I don’t think any exist.Indeed one of the impediments to Nazi ascendancy was the power of the Staats (the various regions such as Hesse and Bavaria) Each one had its own police force that was not accountable to Berlin. If the Nazis had attempted that action they would have met with stiff opposition. Now bonus baby laws, those exist, don’t need to look hard to find make love, not war legislation.

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  9. Ed Darrell says:

    This one, TheFordPrefect?

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  10. Ed Darrell says:

    YL — do you have citations for gun bans by Nazis and communists? In most of Eastern Europe, during the Iron Curtain years, gun ownership was allowed, and hunting continued. It sort of makes sense that gun ownership was banned — but can you cite the laws and evidence that it actually occurred?

    Just curious.

    Your characterization of Americans as “dark and tyrannical” would be humorous, except for reality.

    Should I put you in the category of those who find the cartoon “too brutal,” or are you more in the “just about right” group? Or are you trying to tell us “nothing’s changed, a small segment of us are still unreasonably paranoid about we-don’t-know-what?”

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  11. JamesK says:

    *yawns* Same stupid right wing blather, Youlie.

    If anyone is the communists in this country, child, it is you and the Republican party. Why? Because just like what the Communists actually did…what your party is doing is trying to concentrate all the power and all the wealth into the hands of the few and leave the vast majority as serfs.

    And if guns are oh so popular it’s because for the last 4 years your side has been fearmongering about the “Scary black man in the white house.” Your party has become the KKK of national politics.

    As for taking away our freedoms..yeah its your side that does that. With its forced vaginal probes and its allowing the US Government to spy on US citizens without a warrant.

    If gun control laws didn’t work then explain why the countries of Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Australia and Japan all combined have roughly the same population as the United States but last year they had a combined 300 gun deaths where we had 30,000.

    So which is it? Either gun control laws actually work? Or what? Americans are just more homicidal?

    Sorry, you should be allowed to legally own a M-16, a Bushmaster or an Ak-47 for what reason? Self defense? You can’t defend yourself with a handgun?

    Sorry, dimwit, noone is trying to ban all guns. But if you and your fellow gun nuts don’t come down off the mountain and compromise and agree to ban assault weapons and machine guns as well as large ammo clips then yeah..you’re going to get that total ban.

    Time for your side to knock off the histrionics, time for your side to stop putting your rights to guns over everyone elses right to live…time for your party to stop being the party of stupid angry scared old white men.

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  12. This has never been the same since Family Guy – Right to Bear Arms sketch

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  13. YouLie says:

    Only is the fever swamps of the neo-communist minds of the would be tyrants and their useful idots of the Democrat Party is this true.

    The rest of us know better–we know that the NRA is a staunch advocate for our freedoms.

    Gun ownership is WAY up. Try googling about it (see here just for an example: http://www.examiner.com/article/black-friday-looked-pretty-green-for-gun-sales).

    Decent Americans know what Obama is about, unlike useful idiots such as yourself.

    And of course this is SO typical of you: Irrational guilt by association and projection of your vileness on the decent and the goos.

    The NRA has absolutely nothing to do the NAZIs and the Communists. It was the NAZIs and the Communists that BANNED GUNS! They in fact had the exact opposite agenda of the NRA.

    The 2nd amendment is there to keep dark and tyrannical collectivist government forces such as the Nazis, the Communists and Obama’s neo-maoist/neo stalinist at bay. The Left’s only real goal is here is a disarmed populous so that they might proceed with their communist coup. They are shamelessly using a tragedy here—one cause by their hideous policies on mental illness and not gun rights–to pursue it.

    That being said, I hope that they go ahead. It will turn the American people against them. They arrogantly think they have a mandate, and they always over reach. They have no such mandate; this will destroy any political capital of the Obama administration even before his second inauguration.

    What a vile little buffoon you are.

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