perfectchaos007
Member
Seems like democracy isn't working then
Gun maker stocks skyrocket after Las Vegas massacre
- Thread starter Lime
- Start date
Seems like democracy isn't working then
HawksWinStanley
Member
Yikes. Still, that would weigh on me just owning part of a company like that for a few days. I wish I had a conscience like yours. I'm actually a little jealous.
Also people are missing the point when it comes to NRA donations to senators. Mitch McConnel doesn't take that money and say "ok now I will vote against gun regulation".
Lobbyists do far more than just donate to campaigns, they peddle fear through the populace, broker influence in communities, get people to the polls, and ensure these senators a put in a bit of a stranglehold when it comes to their base and constituents. Even if Mitch wanted to vote for more gun control (lol), he knows he will be ousted and replaced with someone who more accurately represents his consituents (who have been cultivated to vote and petitiion for these kinds of things).
The money isn't a primary issue here, in my mind, but an indicator. The underlying problem goes much deeper than that--to the American people who really don't know any better because the right has done a terrifyingly amazing job ensnaring half the country.
Lobbyists do far more than just donate to campaigns, they peddle fear through the populace, broker influence in communities, get people to the polls, and ensure these senators a put in a bit of a stranglehold when it comes to their base and constituents. Even if Mitch wanted to vote for more gun control (lol), he knows he will be ousted and replaced with someone who more accurately represents his consituents (who have been cultivated to vote and petitiion for these kinds of things).
The money isn't a primary issue here, in my mind, but an indicator. The underlying problem goes much deeper than that--to the American people who really don't know any better because the right has done a terrifyingly amazing job ensnaring half the country.
Because the believe is that giving the other side anything will eventually lead to their true goal of taking everything. It doesn't help that you have toxic individuals like
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vzDO86iSKWU
Brought out everytime to lead the charge. And then there's the many people out there who are on the other extreme and openly want to just get rid of the second amendment and purge all guns. That is why it's not the most productive of times to talk about gun control. Everyone's already taken a side and is unwilling to listen to any form of reason.
The NRA goes to an extreme but it's either that or slowly giving up a fundamental right.
dragonchild
Banned
No, they haven't. They've ensnared Congress. Poll after poll shows a huge divide between the general population and the GOP's stance on gun control.
As for lobbying, maybe the NRA represents itself, but most firms are mercenary outfits. If WeBuyCongress.com takes $3 million from the NRA, they'll happily take $4 million from us and talk out both sides of their mouths. In general, lobbyists exist to sell their access for money, nothing more. After all, if community influence and voter outreach were so valuable, well, the banks practically legislate themselves with impunity without either of those.
Furthermore, the GOP is top-down authoritarian in structure. The voters are anti-deficit every day of every year of a Democratic Presidency, howling with outrage over every penny of federal spending, right up until a Republican takes the White House at which point "deficits don't matter". Why? Because that's what they're told. They like the ACA but support its repeal for the sole reason the GOP calls it "Obamacare" and tells them it's bad. With the exception of a few Tea Party disasters, at the national level, the voters do the bidding of their masters. The NRA hits the phones to give them political cover about an "outraged" base, but in general it's not as if the vast majority of Republicans are swayed by this sort of thing. Protests over the ACA repeal got so hostile that Republicans stopped going to town hall meetings altogether and they still voted in near-lockstep that it failed on the absolute narrowest of margins (and I maintain McCain's switch was a "fuck you" to McConnell and Ryan, not because his office voicemail filled up). Let's drop the idea that Republicans live quaking in fear of their voters when they can flat-out screw them on a regular basis because the districts are gerrymandered and for all their grumbling the voters would crawl over broken glass to stigginit to minorities. A vote in favor of gun control wouldn't be a blip as long as the Democrats are the party of civil rights.
It absolutely is about the money, and literally nothing else. Congress is holding firm on a stance opposed by a whopping 92% of Americans over a measly $3 mil and reinforce their deeply unpopular positions among the base with hyperbolic propaganda. That's almost the exact polar opposite of the scenario you're describing. What you're describing is really more the GOP's bullshit excuse for inaction.
i remember seeing a tweet about somebody speculating what kind of gun was used in the massacre and some guy below him was telling everybody to buy as many type of gun parts used in the shooting as possible just in case they stop the sale of them. gun makers make money this way all the time.
edit: they were talking about bump stocks.
edit: they were talking about bump stocks.
Mass Effect
Member
Yeah I lost hope for anything changing after Sandy Hook. At this point I don't care anymore as long as it doesn't affect anyone I care about.
Politics is a team sport in the modern US, and it's all about us vs. them. The NRA is on our side through thick and thin, so they must be supported even if they do crappy things.
I guess this was a real shot in the arm for an industry that lost a lot of momentum once they could no longer claim that a Democrat president was coming for their guns. Trump getting elected slowed gun sales. Watch it pick back up if a Democrat gets elected because that president is totally gonna take ur guns!
Anything that gets people thinking the government is going to put a stop to gun sales gets people out there in a rush to buy.
Anything that gets people thinking the government is going to put a stop to gun sales gets people out there in a rush to buy.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
The grammar of that passage makes my head hurt so much every time I read it. All those commas.
I still disagree with you on this--your argument was kind of all over the map, so I'll try to pull out what I can.
I'd like to point out that people polled (and the questions they're being asked) cannot be correlated with the people who actually get out and vote (which is a painfully low number across the country). The same applies for people protesting at town halls. Those people protesting are a tiny fraction of those in their districts that will be voting. And the NRA has a startlingly high amount of influence in these areas.
In these areas where republicans hold power, red states, which as you mention have often been gerrymandered to hell to ensure republicans stay in power, the people who vote often aren't being polled or, as we saw in the last election, just aren't telling the truth.
The other thing is that these senators and representatives are drinking their own kool aid. They have probably been just as brainwashed by corporate interests and conservative ideologies that they really are against gun regulation.
Ultimately, I'd be careful throwing around polls as a true measure of what the US thinks. While money may play a role, the reason these senators and representatives can get by with voting against gun regulation is because their voting base in their gerrymandered areas want it.
And the reason the banking industry runs rampant and basically gets whatever they want legislation wise is because what they're doing is so confusing for vast swaths of the population, even when shit breaks down. Ask most people what happened in 2008 and they won't be able to explain a damn thing. And most conservative voters have been taught that decreased regulation means a better economy.
"Because money" is oversimplifying it.
Why should they get paid?
cpp_is_king
Member
If only there had been a good guy with a gun to shoot a sniper 32 floors up. Maybe these new gun sales will get more good guys with guns
FiveSix4Three
Member
Money is the worst addiction in the world. Fuck this reality.
dragonchild
Banned
No, it's not. I'm not doing the simplification; the 90% is. While I do get that you're trying to imply that polling is flawed, which it certainly can be, when the numbers get over 90% your denial has crossed well into delusion.
No, it really is that simple. Polls (and those polled) can manipulate results 5-10 points one way or another, sure. You mentioned the last election, where Clinton polled slightly ahead and then Trump won key states by the slimmest of margins. It mattered precisely because the election was divisive. When the numbers are round 40%, 45%, 50%, 55%, it matters. Who were polled, and when, who votes among them, where they live, what percentage is lying, it all matters. Both parties spend billions each year to track a 43%, determine if it's really a 40% or a 47%, and how to get it up to 51%. If gun control was a 50-50 split, or even a 55-45, you'd have a point.
An issue that polls over 90%, even once, is something else. The electoral college does not have the ability to overturn a 90% popular mandate; it has never done it in its history. Voter suppression doesn't. Gerrymandering doesn't (voters aren't gerrymandered over gun control; they're gerrymandered around race). Literally nothing does. It blows every single argument you have out of the water unless you throw reality itself out the window, which is what you're doing. Issues polling over 90% in one direction are considered rare, uncontroversial and truly bipartisan, because you can't get there with one party alone. The debate, then, is entirely in the realm of hysterical propaganda. Political games are all about creating wedge issues and then bargaining with factions to combine the 35% party loyalists you have with whatever gets you to 50% plus one. That's the kind of crap you're talking about. 90% is a number that transcends that nonsense. 90% is not a wedge issue; it's literally a third rail, if it mattered. There is no way you slice 90% to get the piece you're going for to under 50%, and hell, even at a hair under 50% that's enough of a chunk of voters to give legislators pause, if you think anything gives Congress pause. Which is my point -- the only way Congress could blatantly and repeatedly defy an issue supported by 90% of the public is if the numbers don't matter at all.
Which means only one thing: that Americans don't care. Not even voters, which are a bigger percentage of the population than you think, if you're trying to wish away 90% into utter irrelevance. No, it's just that gun control isn't the divisive wedge issue Congress makes it out to be, because if voters actually cared, then Congress would be on the right side of the issue. Yet no matter how many massacres there are, Congress is never punished for selling their voters out to the NRA, so they keep doing it. The NRA's power is an illusion sustained by apathy, for all the thoughts and prayers offered each time this happens.
The solution is obvious: everyone should open carry sniper rifles
is what the NRA wants to say.
How is having a vast collection of heavy caliber guns and rifles a fundamental right? Do you take everything in the Constitution this literal, or just the stuff that suits you?
"Bear arms" is the language used. I would think that includes bullets.