General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I'm still trying to wrap my head around so many staunchly pro-gun folks on DU [View all]NickB79
(19,063 posts)Confession time: I used to be an NRA member back in the 1990's, when I was a teenager. When I went off to college and broadened my horizons, I came to see that a lot of what I was taught as a kid by my conservative family was bullshit. That included the stream of NRA propaganda I read in their incessant newsletters and requests for more donations. It was just a step above UN invasion/black helicopter paranoia. I finally kicked them to the curb when I voted for Gore in 2000, and never looked back.
I can understand why some people are so frustrated that they go for the nuclear solution of saying fuck the 2nd Amendment. The gridlock and polarization in Washington is enough to make someone tear their hair out. Knowing how the NRA operates, though, is one of the reasons this current situation scares me. They've told so many people for so long that "the liberals are gonna take your guns!" that unless a very careful, well-thought-out approach is taken now, it will vindicate everything they've been saying in the minds of many gun owners, even those who aren't NRA members. And far from sounding their death knell, a badly implemented gun control bill could pump new life into them as gun owners decide to send those donations once again. At the least, it could drive the millions of moderate gun-owning Democrats in Southern, Southwestern and Midwest states to simply abstain come the next election cycle.