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Comment by igetspam | Hacker News Reader

My wife (and many women) has felt that the only way to effect change in our gun laws would be for white men to feel like targets. I used to do iss that idea somewhat but as I've paid more attention to things over th last few years, I no longer dismiss the notion. I don't wish many people dead but if women and minorities start buying up a lot of guns, maybe they'll start shooting back. Then we'll see how many times the same people who've thumped their chests about dying to protect the 2nd amendment in the face of regular mass shootings feel. Having a fun pointed at you tends to shift your priorities, as I've unfortunately had the opportunity to to learn.

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You've payed no attention whatsoever to US gun culture 2.0, we welcome women and minorities with open arms, and women were always welcome, every heard of Annie Oakley?? Seen the NRA celebrating on the front page of their membership magazine women who won all gender national championships?

You completely misunderstand our motivations for keeping and bearing arms, and thus your hope is doomed to not come true.

As an unfortunate life member of the NRA, I get the magazines. I also don't agree with you. I think the NRA is what's wrong with gun culture. There are much more sane organizations in the US who support both gym ownership AND common sense gun laws. The NRA is a lobbying group and they're soulless. They fight against any reasonable change that isn't purely for show (and they fight the useless laws too that try and band forearms for looking scary because they're too stupid to see how useless laws would further their agenda).

>They fight against any reasonable change that isn't purely for show

Like what?

Hi there, I'm a member of leadership for a group called AAPIGO. The GO is Gun Owners. I'm one of the ally members, helping bridge the gap between Asian gun owners and your more traditional NRA member stereotype. This is the future.

> My wife (and many women) has felt that the only way to effect change in our gun laws would be for white men to feel like targets.

That's literally a joke. I heard it on a Dave Chappelle special.

IIRC, actual gun rights groups like the NRA want black people and women to buy guns, because they're about gun rights and realize they're better secured if their constituency is larger.

> IIRC, gun rights groups like the NRA want black people and women to buy guns.

Whoops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act

> Whoops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act

So? That was in 1967. Do you think nothing has changed since then? IIRC, I don't even think the NRA was even much of a gun rights organization until later.

You need to work on your gotcha skills.

Look at this:

Here's the featured video on the (now defunct) NRATV youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84A_fRQfTAE

tl;dr: black guy criticizing Biden for gun control and stuff like his previous opposition to school busing.

An for completeness, this looks like a channel they had for women: https://www.youtube.com/user/nrawomen

That was in 1967, do you think nothing has changed since then? IIRC, I don't even think the NRA was even much of a gun rights organization until later.

They were fighting it then, I've read many membership magazine issues from the 1960s, but lost so comprehensively starting in the next year with the Gun Control Act of 1968 and through the high point of gun control in the 1970s that the leadership decided to surrender this issue and retreat to hunting and target shooting and move their headquarters from D.C. to Colorado.

In the 1977 annual meeting in Cincinnati this leadership was ousted and people with a focus that included even having the right to hunt and target shoot with guns replaced them. Fast forward another ten years and the nationwide sweep of "shall issue" and better concealed carry regimes started in Florida with help from the NRA. Now 42 states and ~75% of the population, for all but Illinois done legislatively.

If the best you can come up with is a ten years prior to the Cincinnati Revolt five decades old law, you've got nothing.

Wrong. They are about gun ownership. Any rights are simply to enable more purchasing. Buying more guns makes the manufacturers happy.

> Wrong. They are about gun ownership. Any rights are simply to enable more purchasing. Buying more guns makes the manufacturers happy.

Oh, come on. Don't be so lazy to assume the rights advocacy you don't (seem to) like is just some bad faith conspiracy to sell shit and make money.

You're confusing the NRA with the NSSF.

You must not live in a place with many NRA stickers. Look closely, they also have that fancy thin blue line sticker too.

White men? These discussions about guns in America are always full of people completely ignorant of the fact that black and Hispanic men account for the majority of shootings. It's really a black and Hispanic men problem as both shooter and victim.

Minorities aren't safe. But it's themselves that they're not safe from, not white men. People almost exclusively shoot members of their own race. White people are safe because other white people aren't very violent.

Making people feel like targets will persuade them to give up self-defense?

No, which is an interesting take. No major political party is trying to abolish the 2nd amendment. None. Reasonable limits on firearms and access to firearms is not going to take away your right to self defense. It could keep more guns out of the hands of felons by requiring federal background checks on private sales. Buy that's crazy, right? I should be able to sell my Super Redhawk to the drunk across the street without anyone knowing about it! Sure, I've seen him hit his wife but he was angry and drunk. He's normally a cool guy.

(For the readers: that's a 40 cal revolver that suuuuuucks to shoot and the drunk across the street is a real person, with a bunch of guns, who would like to buy it from me)

"Reasonable limits on firearms and access to firearms is not going to take away your right to self defense."

It depends on what one sees as reasonable. One might reasonably believe that the requirements for private sale background checks might not make an impact because there's no monitoring or effective enforcement mechanisms in the suggested system.

When we use qualifiers like reasonable or common sense, it's an attack on the other side and creates a divide between the debating parties. People should be debating the the proposed solutions and the objections to them.

I didn't say you wanted to abolish the 2nd amendment. Your now flagged post stated making people feel vulnerable will lead to more regulation. Or that's what you hoped would happen.

People make choices about how they will respond to feeling vulnerable. Some people rely more on authority, for example, wanting more gun regulations. Some people will opt to go get a carry permit or purchase a weapon to protect themselves.

My point is that you are hoping that people who have already chosen the self-protection strategy will switch to the authority strategy for dealing with vulnerability. This might happen in a few rare cases, but it seems like you don't understand gun culture or conservatives in general.

Bojack run a skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eG0y_nb5IA

But I doubt it. Women with guns are actually a sexy cliche.

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