The Great American Gun Fetish

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Wait, does someone here actually want to debate whether Japan is an ultra-safe country??? My god, and I here I was thinking that most metalheads have above average intelligence, you shame our community with your boorish stupidity, son.

Looks like it's time for a repost...
 
Turns out that most of the N.R.A.'s funding (millions of dollars) comes directly from gun corporations themselves, which they then use to brainwash lots of nonsense into gullible American fools, thereby making their country the most dangerous developed country in the whole fucking world. It's always amusing trying to have a conversation with brainwashed people: they mechanically parrot the illogical phrases that have been meticulously hammered into their poor little brains, flagrantly disregarding any and all statistics, facts, figures, and even logical common sense that you might serve up to them that contradicts their poor, little closed-minded world view. I would expect very much the same kind of mindless parroting we've seen in this topic so far to appear in conversations with North Koreans regarding Kim Jong Un, or ISIS followers regarding religion. Basically, brainwashed bullshit looks the same all over the world.

And now for the article:
 
In its early days, the National Rifle Association was a grassroots social club that prided itself on independence from corporate influence.

While that is still part of the organization's core function, today less than half of the NRA's revenues come from program fees and membership dues.



The bulk of the group's money now comes in the form of contributions, grants, royalty income, and advertising, much of it originating from gun industry sources.

Since 2005, the gun industry and its corporate allies have given between $20 million and $52.6 million to it through the NRA Ring of Freedomsponsor program. Donors include firearm companies like Midway USA, Springfield Armory Inc, Pierce Bullet Seal Target Systems, and Beretta USA Corporation. Other supporters from the gun industry include Cabala's, Sturm Rugar & Co, and Smith & Wesson.

The NRA also made $20.9 million - about 10 percent of its revenue - from selling advertising to industry companies marketing products in its many publications in 2010, according to the IRS Form 990.

Additionally, some companies donateportions of sales directly to the NRA. Crimson Trace, which makes laser sights, donates 10 percent of each sale to the NRA. Taurus buys an NRA membership for everyone who buys one of their guns. Sturm Rugar gives $1 to the NRA for each gun sold, which amounts to millions. The NRA'srevenues are intrinsically linked to the success of the gun business.

The NRA Foundation also collects hundreds of thousands of dollars from the industry, which it then gives to local-level organizations for training and equipment purchases.

This shift is key to understanding why a coalition of hunters, collectors and firearm enthusiasts takes the heat for incidents of gun violence, like the shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, rather than the companies that manufacture and market assault weapons.



The chief trade association for gun manufacturers is the National Shooting Sports Federation, which is, incidentally, located in Newtown, Conn. But the NRA takes front and center after each and every shooting.

"Today's NRA is a virtual subsidiary of the gun industry," said Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center. "While the NRA portrays itself as protecting the 'freedom' of individual gun owners, it's actually working to protect the freedom of the gun industry to manufacture and sell virtually any weapon or accessory."

There are two reasons for the industry support for the NRA. The first is that the organization develops and maintains a market for their products. The second, less direct function, is to absorb criticism in the event of PR crises for the gun industry.

It's possible that without the NRA, people would be protesting outside of Glock, SIG Sauer and Freedom Group - the makers of the guns used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre - and dragging the CEOs in front of cameras and Congress. That is certainly what happened to tobacco executives when their products continued killing people.

Notoriously, tobacco executives even attempted to form their own version of the NRA in 1993, seeing the inherent benefit to the industry that such an effort would have. Philip Morrisbankrolled the National Smokers Alliance, a group that never quite had the groundswell of support the industry wanted.

Notably, the tide has shifted slightly in the wake of Sandy Hook, with Cerberus Capital Management's decision to sell Freedom Group, the company that makes the Bushmaster rifle.

But if history is any indication, the NRA will be front and center of the new gun control debate, while gun manufacturers remain safely out of the spotlight.
 
All you're really doing is proving that the more homogeneous a society, the stricter the immigration policies, the more corporatist a country is - the better chance authorities have to keep rates of violence low.

By all means advocate for that, but you sound much more right-wing, only in a non-American sense of being right-wing.
 
Singapore is a Republican's dream. Damn near authoritarian, strictly enforced public order, heavily compromised freedoms of speech and assembly without being too oppressive. With the exception of guns, I bet Ted Cruz faps over Singapore's model.

Singapore is upwards of 75% Chinese. Hardly multi-racial compared to most other genuinely multi-racial nations.
 
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Edit: Also, McCarthyism.

The only good Communist is a dead one, m8

All you're really doing is proving that the more homogeneous a society, the stricter the immigration policies, the more corporatist a country is - the better chance authorities have to keep rates of violence low.

He's not even sharing what his actual viewpoint is. He's just posting articles.
 
...I still don't understand why this power bottom is getting all heated about American politics when he's so happy in his anonymous "utopian" asian country. I think this guy is full of shit about WHO he is, and WHERE he comes from...I call bullshit on this guy completely. He can take his views and shove them up his ass. As an American, I don't care what some pussy in asia thinks.
 
Singapore is highly multi-racial, yet with zero guns it's one of the safest countries in Earth. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, son.
But don't put any weed in that pipe, cause if they catch you with it there you can be imprisoned for life.

Or you might just get off with a caning. One would expect at least that much in a utopia, after all.
 
Take a shot of tequila every time UA writes "utopia" lol...notice he refuses to divulge which "asian" country he lives in...because he's FULL OF SHIT!!. If you bring up the socioeconomic/ political pitfalls of say Taiwan, he jumps to Singapore, or Japan. Mention the downside to say, Singapore and he'll jump to South Korea...and on, and on. He just wants to talk shit about America, and keep hush about which country he lives in so his arguments don't have to be specific, or verified. Other people on here have insightful, or interesting points (on their own)...his boring statistics, secret location, make-a-memes and calling everyone
"Son" isn't bringing any wisdom to the table. He started the thread to insult Americans more than get into a gun violence debate. He should tell us what country he lives in so a REAL DEBATE can take place...but he won't...
 
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Looks like some kids around here have forgotten that I showed earlier how Australia is a perfect example of how a country becomes much safer after strict gun control is enforced. Time for a refresher course then:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...s-shootings-and-reduced-homicides-study-finds

Australia's gun laws stopped mass shootings and reduced homicides, study finds

Reforms still having positive effect 20 years on, as landmark study shows accelerated reduction in rates of suicide and homicide deaths caused by firearms




After the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, rapid-fire long guns were banned in Australia; a year later there was a mandatory buyback of prohibited firearms. In 2003, a handgun buyback program was introduced. Australian has had no fatal mass shootings since 1996.
Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP


Wednesday 22 June 2016 16.00 BST Last modified on Friday 14 July 2017 20.11 BST


Since major gun law reforms were introduced in Australia, mass shootings have not only stopped, but there has also been an accelerating reduction in rates of firearm-related homicide and suicides, a landmark study has found.


It has been two decades since rapid-fire long guns were banned in Australia, including those already in private ownership, and 19 years since the mandatory buyback of prohibited firearms by government at market price was introduced. A handgun buyback program was later introduced, in 2003.


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It took one massacre: how Australia embraced gun control after Port Arthur
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Researchers from the University of Sydney and Macquarie University analysed data on intentional suicide and homicide deaths caused by firearms from the National Injury Surveillance Unit, and intentional firearm death rates from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. For the period after the 1996 reforms, rates of total homicides and suicides from all causes were also examined to consider whether people may have substituted guns for alternative means.


From 1979 to 1996, the average annual rate of total non-firearm suicide and homicide deaths was rising at 2.1% per year. Since then, the average annual rate of total non-firearm suicide and homicide deaths has been declining by 1.4%, with the researchers concluding there was no evidence of murderers moving to other methods, and that the same was true for suicide.


The average decline in total firearm deaths accelerated significantly, from a 3% decline annually before the reforms to a 5% decline afterwards, the study found.


In the 18 years to 1996, Australia experienced 13 fatal mass shootings in which 104 victims were killed and at least another 52 were wounded. There have been no fatal mass shootings since that time, with the study defining a mass shooting as having at least five victims.


The findings were published in the influential Journal of the American Medical Association on Thursday, days after the US Senate rejected a string of Republican and Democrat measures to restrict guns. The reforms were proposed in response to the deadliest mass shooting in US history, at an LGBTI nightclub in Orlando.


The 1996 reforms introduced in Australia came just months after a mass shooting known as the Port Arthur massacre, when Martin Bryant used two semi-automatic rifles to kill 35 people and wound 23 others in Port Arthur, Tasmania. The reforms had the support of all major political parties.


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The lead author of the study, Professor Simon Chapman, said a similar study had been conducted 10 years ago, and that the researchers had repeated it to see if gun-related deaths were continuing to decline, finding that they had.


“I’ve calculated that for every person in Australia shot in a massacre, 139 [people] are shot through firearm-related suicide or homicides, so they are much more common,” Chapman said.


“We found that homicide and suicide firearms deaths had been falling before the reforms, but the rate of the fall accelerated for both of them after the reforms. We’ve shown that a major policy intervention designed to stop mass shootings has had an effect on other gun-related deaths as well.”


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He said the researchers had chosen to publish the results in an American medical journal not just because the title was a prestigious one, but also because the findings would have a greater impact.


However, he does not believe the findings will have an impact on gun ownership laws in the US.


“The US is a good example of where evidence is going to take longer to prevail over fear and ideology,” he said.


“When people like [Republican candidate] Donald Trump talk about gun violence, he’s essentially not talking about the facts or the evidence, he’s talking about ideology and saying people want the right to protect themselves and their homes.


“The irony is the person you have to protect yourself most from in a home is the person who owns the gun.”


Chapman said more than half of those who had conducted mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand had been licensed gun holders.


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A co-author of the paper, Associate Professor Philip Alpers, who is also the founding director of GunPolicy.org, said it was “amazing” that the reforms were still having a positive effect 20 years after they were first introduced.


“When these laws came in the hope was they would curb mass shooting, but what we didn’t realise was the laws would be followed by huge changes in other types of shootings, particularly in suicide,” he said.


“The breadth of the change was unexpected. But in America, things will get worse before they get better. In Australia we had a government that was prepared to act, and what [the then prime minister] John Howard did amounted to the confiscation of private property.


“You just can’t imagine the US ever seeing that as feasible.”