For Those NOT Lifetime NRA Members - O'Rourke's Comment

Dragonfly said:

There's no reason to assume that O'Rourke's comment reflects EVERYONE in the democratic party, or even in the field of nominees.


Also, a quick question.

Are the Ar-15 and AK-47 weapons platforms the only way one can protect their homes, families, and/or themselves?

Or, are there plenty of other weapons just as capable of self-defense and protection?

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None of the viable candidates has challenged him. Their silence tells us they agree.

uptower said:

Yes the private sales. Seems you figured it out without me. These occur at gun shows and buyers can avoid background checks. One measure toward public safety would be to close that loophole. Or if people had licenses then the background check would theoretically already be factored in and a private seller would only have to see the buyer's license.

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So there's NOT a gun show loophole
Its private property sales of a firearm that you would like to see go through a FFL dealer and mandatory background checks be performed.
Is that so hard to state? Why do you dispense with these false analogies

Dragonfly said:

I realize this won't matter to some, but I'd prefer that those of you who are die-hard, when you pry my cold dead hands off it, gun loving lifetime NRA members, that you'd refrain from responding to this thread and/or poll. We all already know how you'll respond. I'm looking for the thoughts of those who are not so predictable.

I want to know how the "regular" folks in America have reacted to Beto O'Rouke's comment in Debate #3.

You know, this one:


Do you find it frightening?
Intriguing?
Refreshing?
Alarming?
Anti-American?
Unconstitutional?
Brave?
Ignorant?

Something else?

If you're not one of the 6-12 folks we have here who go ballistic at the mere mention of gun control I'd like to know:
What are your thoughts on his comment?

Are you scared it might be the catalyst for 4 more years of Trump and Republican dominance?
Or do you believe most of the American public is ready for an approach that radical?

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I am glad he is honest about his intentions.Most anti-2nd amendment trash like him praise the gun control laws of the UK and Australia and then lie to us about how we are paranoid and no one wants to take your guns away even though they were just praising the countries that did take peoples guns away. Whether or not his comments will hurt the democrats in general we will have to wait until the election.

Dragonfly said:

There's no reason to assume that O'Rourke's comment reflects EVERYONE in the democratic party, or even in the field of nominees.

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If they called for an assault weapon ban and or even praised the gun control law of the UK and Australia then yes O'Rourke's comments reflect most of everyone in the democrat party and the democrat primary candidates.

Are the Ar-15 and AK-47 weapons platforms the only way one can protect their homes, families, and/or themselves?

Or, are there plenty of other weapons just as capable of self-defense and protection?

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If you think AR15 modern sporting rifles and " AK47" rifles are the only assault weapons then you are sadly mistaken.Assault weapons is a term that covers various semiautomatic rifles,handguns and shotguns and in some states revolver shotguns and revolver rifles.

Dragonfly said:

I realize this won't matter to some, but I'd prefer that those of you who are die-hard, when you pry my cold dead hands off it, gun loving lifetime NRA members, that you'd refrain from responding to this thread and/or poll. We all already know how you'll respond.

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That's like asking cats to stay away from catnip. :lol:

I'm looking for the thoughts of those who are not so predictable.

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Unfortunately it is because of their false dichotomy of full-freedom-or-pure-tyrrany that we cannot have a civil discussion on guns. The second you call for a single regulation that would save a single life from gun violence, you are immediately branded as a gun-grabber, supporter of tyranny, or whatever puerile insult right-wing media tells them to use. So if one regulation is morally equivalent to a full ban, why not call their bluff and agree with Beto? :shrug:

Dragonfly said:

There's no reason to assume that O'Rourke's comment reflects EVERYONE in the democratic party, or even in the field of nominees.


Also, a quick question.

Are the Ar-15 and AK-47 weapons platforms the only way one can protect their homes, families, and/or themselves?

Or, are there plenty of other weapons just as capable of self-defense and protection?

Click to expand...

Yeah i plan to get an AR-18. It has three more AR’s!

jimbo said:

AR 15 and AK 47 are also terms used to describe in vague terms something totally different. I doubt there are more than a few thousand in circulation. Hence the need for further description. 100% of which are cosmetic bolt ons having nothing to do with being effective killing machines.

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It has never been about functionality to these anti-American leftist POS. Only appearance matters and whether or not they get emotionally triggered.

I own an AR12, which has never been used in any mass murders and most people have never heard about. But it looks like an AR15 from a distance, and therefore the left will instantly want it banned. These people are truly mentally unhinged. They should be in straight-jackets in padded cells rather than being elected to public office.

chuckiechan said:

O’Rourke has done America a tremendous service: He has pushed the Democrats out of the closet of gun control into the bright light of truth. They really do want to take your guns, and if they have power they plan to do just that.

These debates have exposed the difficult truth of the Democrat party that was once obscured by poll tested weasel words manipulated by a friendly press. There is no more denying who they really are. They are the “Vagina Monologues” of tyranny!

I see now why a coup was so necessary. No one in their right minds would vote for them!

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Democrats have been publicly announcing their desire to violate the Second Amendment and confiscate all privately owned firearms for decades. O'Rourke did nothing but repeat the anti-American leftist mantra. This is from 1995:

Confiscate the AR15 and AK47... the nut jobs will simply find something else. Shotguns would do just as much damage. maybe more. Tim McVay liked fertilizer bombs.

bearpoker said:

I favor reasonable gun laws I want something done to curb mass shootings. I don't favor confiscating firearms from responsible, law abiding citizens. That part just isn't right.

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Reasonable is an uncertain term.

Waddy said:

Confiscate the AR15 and AK47... the nut jobs will simply find something else. Shotguns would do just as much damage. maybe more. Tim McVay liked fertilizer bombs.

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Dude, you really ought to educate yourself on this first. :roll:

Glitch said:

It has never been about functionality to these anti-American leftist POS. Only appearance matters and whether or not they get emotionally triggered.

I own an AR12, which has never been used in any mass murders and most people have never heard about. But it looks like an AR15 from a distance, and therefore the left will instantly want it banned. These people are truly mentally unhinged. They should be in straight-jackets in padded cells rather than being elected to public office.

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I have to disagree with you on that. Their goal is to ban all semiautomatic firearms and in some cases revolver handguns,revolver shotguns and revolver rifles. They just can't outright say they want to ban all semiautomatic firearms and revolver firearms because that would political suicide in districts outside of far left leaning cities. So they have to make it about appearance and give people the false impression its about banning military weapons(even though the 2nd amendment protects peoples right to own military weapons, it wasn't made so we can shoot burglars and hunt deer). If you don't believe me then listen to these people talk on forums and even in the media.You will how they praise the gun control laws of the UK and Australia (countries which banned semiautomatic firearms) and whine how those countries don't have high gun deaths like we do.

jamesrage said:

I have to disagree with you on that. Their goal is to ban all semiautomatic firearms and in some cases revolver handguns,revolver shotguns and revolver rifles. They just can't outright say they want to ban all semiautomatic firearms and revolver firearms because that would political suicide in districts outside of far left leaning cities. So they have to make it about appearance and give people the false impression its about banning military weapons(even though the 2nd amendment protects peoples right to own military weapons, it wasn't made so we can shoot burglars and hunt deer). If you don't believe me then listen to these people talk on forums and even in the media.You will how they praise the gun control laws of the UK and Australia (countries which banned semiautomatic firearms) and whine how those countries don't have high gun deaths like we do.

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I disagree with this wholeheartedly, because they say it everyday all day. Beto (the fake Mexican) wants to ban and confiscate your AR-15 and AK-47!

jamesrage said:

I have to disagree with you on that. Their goal is to ban all semiautomatic firearms and in some cases revolver handguns,revolver shotguns and revolver rifles. They just can't outright say they want to ban all semiautomatic firearms and revolver firearms because that would political suicide in districts outside of far left leaning cities. So they have to make it about appearance and give people the false impression its about banning military weapons(even though the 2nd amendment protects peoples right to own military weapons, it wasn't made so we can shoot burglars and hunt deer). If you don't believe me then listen to these people talk on forums and even in the media.You will how they praise the gun control laws of the UK and Australia (countries which banned semiautomatic firearms) and whine how those countries don't have high gun deaths like we do.

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The goal of the anti-American left has always been to ban ALL firearms. Since even they know that will never happen they have resorted to piece-meal tactics and harassing all gun owners as much as possible.

The Assault Weapon Ban Act of 1994 was purely cosmetic. It only had to do with the appearance of the firearm, not its functionality. Even when gun manufacturers modified their firearms to be in compliance with the Assault Weapon Ban Act of 1994, the left wanted those firearms banned as well. The only thing the Assault Weapon Ban Act of 1994 accomplished was to get the English-made lever-action Henry rifle banned, after being imported into the US since 1864, merely because its tube-magazine is capable of holding more than 10 rounds. This is purely a form of harassment, nothing more.

The Second Amendment was specifically created to prohibit Congress from banning firearms, which would result in preventing States from forming their own militias. After the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1866 the Second Amendment (as well as the rest of the Bill of Rights) should have been incorporated among the States. Instead, we have a Supreme Court that decided to follow a selective incorporation. As a result it took 59 years before the First Amendment was incorporated with the States, 144 years to incorporate the Second Amendment among the States, and 153 years before incorporating the Eighth Amendment among the States. At this rate it will be another century before the entire Bill of Rights is incorporated with the States.

jimbo said:

AR 15 and AK 47 are also terms used to describe in vague terms something totally different. I doubt there are more than a few thousand in circulation. Hence the need for further description. 100% of which are cosmetic bolt ons having nothing to do with being effective killing machines.

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What constitutes an AR15 or AK47 in your mind?

From 2011 to 2015 there were 16.5 million rifles manufactured in the US. There is absolutely no one of knowing how many lower receivers and 80% blanks were sold. The good news is that none of the millions of 80% receivers that have been sold have serial numbers and cant be tracked. Additionally, millions of rifles are imported annually.

jdog21 said:

So there's NOT a gun show loophole
Its private property sales of a firearm that you would like to see go through a FFL dealer and mandatory background checks be performed.
Is that so hard to state? Why do you dispense with these false analogies

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Semantics. This is what it is commonly referred to. No matter what it is called it is a way to avoid background checks and should be dispensed with.

Dragonfly said:

I realize this won't matter to some, but I'd prefer that those of you who are die-hard, when you pry my cold dead hands off it, gun loving lifetime NRA members, that you'd refrain from responding to this thread and/or poll. We all already know how you'll respond. I'm looking for the thoughts of those who are not so predictable.

I want to know how the "regular" folks in America have reacted to Beto O'Rouke's comment in Debate #3.

You know, this one:


Do you find it frightening?
Intriguing?
Refreshing?
Alarming?
Anti-American?
Unconstitutional?
Brave?
Ignorant?

Something else?

If you're not one of the 6-12 folks we have here who go ballistic at the mere mention of gun control I'd like to know:
What are your thoughts on his comment?

Are you scared it might be the catalyst for 4 more years of Trump and Republican dominance?
Or do you believe most of the American public is ready for an approach that radical?

Click to expand...

Much like Trump talking to his base, O'Rouke is talking to his. It sounds good to them, it's what they want to hear...I think the difference is that O'Rouke knows that it won't be that simple, at best an upward battle.

What Trump and the NRA should be worried about is that, again, unlike Trump...his message WILL cross ideological lines. Even conservatives are tired of all the killing. That is not to say they will agree with banning certain firearms per se...but that they would be open to and even supportive of other things, like registrations, allow the CDC to collect data on deaths by firearms, a federal registry, etc. Perhaps.

The point being is that right now, if O'Rouke wants to win, he will say things like this, as will the other Dem candidates. And don't forget, Trump promised the world in his primary fight. But once we get into the general election run and O'Rouke happens to be the candidate...he will walk that statement back...just like Trump did on the promises he couldn't keep. But again, the difference will be that O'Rouke's message at that point will be inclusive of conservatives on this issue....Trump is going to go after only his base and to hell with trying to win over the rest of us...and that just might do him in.

I tend to renew my NRA membership when hysteria dominates the gun debate. I don't own any semi-auto handguns or rifles. I like the feeling of sliding a bolt, cranking a lever, or cocking a hammer just as I prefer a manual transmission. Manual isn't the best in a traffic jam and 1800's technology isn't the best for self-defense.

Phys251 said:

That's like asking cats to stay away from catnip. :lol:



Unfortunately it is because of their false dichotomy of full-freedom-or-pure-tyrrany that we cannot have a civil discussion on guns. The second you call for a single regulation that would save a single life from gun violence, you are immediately branded as a gun-grabber, supporter of tyranny, or whatever puerile insult right-wing media tells them to use. So if one regulation is morally equivalent to a full ban, why not call their bluff and agree with Beto? :shrug:

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we cannot have a civil discussion until the people demanding laws that ONLY restrict what lawful people currently do, admit that crime control is not their main motivation.

uptower said:

Semantics. This is what it is commonly referred to. No matter what it is called it is a way to avoid background checks and should be dispensed with.

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where does the federal government get the proper power to demand such a thing?

TurtleDude said:

where does the federal government get the proper power to demand such a thing?

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As I've said before it would require the lawmakers to be somewhat united in its favor and ideally a constitutional amendment. It would also require broad public support. I don't think it would be right to just impose it arbitrarily like a dictatorship would.

uptower said:

As I've said before it would require the lawmakers to be somewhat united in its favor and ideally a constitutional amendment. It would also require broad public support. I don't think it would be right to just impose it arbitrarily like a dictatorship would.

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and you know that isn't going to happen in at least a century. But I give you credit for noting that universal background checks would require repealing the second but it would ALSO require the federal government actually having such power. It currently does not

NeverTrump said:

If there were gun buyback programs and that was a law and gun owners refused to hand in their guns but fought back. They would no longer be law abiding citizens.

These people were for slavery, segregation, and against paying taxes. Yet they all do them now.

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"Before the Civil War ended, State “Slave Codes” prohibited slaves from owning guns. After President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and after the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery was adopted and the Civil War ended in 1865, States persisted in prohibiting blacks, now freemen, from owning guns under laws renamed “Black Codes.” They did so on the basis that blacks were not citizens, and thus did not have the same rights, including the right to keep and bear arms protected in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as whites. This view was specifically articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in its infamous 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford to uphold slavery.

The United States Congress overrode most portions of the Black Codes by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The legislative histories of both the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as The Special Report of the Anti-Slavery Conference of 1867, are replete with denunciations of those particular statutes that denied blacks equal access to firearms. [Kates, Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment, 82 Mich. L. Rev. 204, 256 (1983)] However, facially neutral disarming through economic means laws remain in effect.

After the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1868, most States turned to “facially neutral” business or transaction taxes on handgun purchases. However, the intention of these laws was not neutral. An article in Virginia’s official university law review called for a “prohibitive tax … on the privilege” of selling handguns as a way of disarming “the son of Ham”, whose “cowardly practice of ‘toting’ guns has been one of the most fruitful sources of crime … .Let a negro board a railroad train with a quart of mean whiskey and a pistol in his grip and the chances are that there will be a murder, or at least a row, before he alights.” [Comment, Carrying Concealed Weapons, 15 Va L. Reg. 391, 391-92 (1909); George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, “Gun Control and Racism,” Stefan Tahmassebi, 1991, p. 75] Thus, many Southern States imposed high taxes or banned inexpensive guns so as to price blacks and poor whites out of the gun market."

Laws Designed to Disarm Slaves, Freedmen, and African-Americans

It is neither unexpected or surprising Democrats will repeat their same old policies to those paying attention.

They spent quite a bit of effort pulling down their racist democrat statues to make sure people forget where they get their ideas about controlling others lives and fates.



The Democrats' Racist Gun Control History

"Chief Justice Roger Taney’s infamous opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford circularly argued that blacks could not be citizens because if they were citizens, they would have the right to own guns: “t would give them the full liberty,” he said, “to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”

With logic like that, Republicans eventually had to fight a Civil War to get the Democrats to give up slavery. Alas, they were Democrats, so they cheated.After the war, Democratic legislatures enacted “Black Codes,” denying black Americans the right of citizenship – such as the rather crucial one of bearing arms – while other Democrats (sometimes the same Democrats) founded the Ku Klux Klan."

TurtleDude said:

and you know that isn't going to happen in at least a century. But I give you credit for noting that universal background checks would require repealing the second but it would ALSO require the federal government actually having such power. It currently does not

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Yes this is all just theorizing at this point. Which leads me to wonder why some members get so excited and start slinging insults.

It would require a change of laws - federally or state by state - followed by licensing procedures, retraining, buybacks and all sorts of things to get the program working and make sure guns are in responsible hands. Even then some will slip through, but it will take many years. There is no quick fix for such a big country with so many guns.

After all the Voting Rights Act didn't happen overnight and faced many of the same counterarguments from state's rights advocates: "the govt can't legally force us to let people vote".

jdog21 said:

Im not a NRA member. I also find O'Rourke's comment alarming and ignorant. If he was elected president I see no way in which such a policy could be passed into law.
An AR-15 as well as an AK47 is just a semiautomatic rifle. There is nothing special about it, there are other semiautomatic rifles out there that have the same rate of fire and have a far more damaging ammunition to get hit by. The only thing I see is that they are popular and tend to be cheaper then other styles.
How do you ban them or even take them? You would have to ban all semi-auto rifles that are magazine feed not just ARs or AKs. And I see that style of force confiscation and ban being a huge problem. An assault weapons ban is such a vague term that really has no meaning so I assume when they want this style of ban their either going back to the 90s ban or using the verbiage California has in there assault weapons ban. Which doesn't take away or ban anyone's AR-15 or AK-47. They literally just take off any fore grip and either change the pistol grip to a normal stock or put a grip fin that doesn't allow the thumb to wrapped around it. So its solves nothing and I find anyone who supports it or advocates for it to be to stupid to have any power in regulating guns.

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This is true....but there are kooks out there (and on this forum, one in particular who was ranting on another thread how anyone can just walk into a store and buy an assault weapon....I'm sorry...but no you can't!) who think an AR-15 is an assault weapon....and its not!

Actual assault weapons are already banned and have been since the National Firearms act of 1934....

But its all "black and scary looking! Say the kooks!......well....it could look like a stack of pancakes with a side order of bacon....and that doesn't change its operation....its still just a semi-automatic rifle