NRA = Front Group for Military Style Weapons Industry

Open carry law - Texas

GUNS ARE TOO EASY TO GET.

Although the NRA was founded in 1871 to improve marksmanship, starting in 1975 the NRA has increasingly become a major front group for the manufacturers of weapons currently referred to as military-style weapons. At the same time, the media continues to misleadingly identify the NRA as primarily representing the interests of the many members who are amateur hunters.

In 1934, the Fire Arms Act was passed to protect the public from killings by “military- style” weapons, “destructive” devices, and concealed weapons. Military-style weapons meant machine guns and any firearm that could be “readily converted” to fire more than one bullet per trigger pull.  Pistols, revolvers, normal length rifles and shotguns were not restricted by the Act. The Gun Control Act of 1968 updated the legal basis for addressing the same concerns. Until 1975, the NRA leadership best represented the concerns of hunter, target shooters and sportsmen - and not dealers or manufacturers.

After 1975, the NRA focused more and more on political involvement through PACs and lobbying groups and, in effect, rejected the threat to the public of mass violence weapons. The post-1975 NRA “framed the issue” not in terms of public safety but in terms of the for-profit interests, gun dealers and

Guns for sale via interest.

manufacturers, and their self-serving interpretation of the 2^nd Amendment. (Of course, the type of weapon is no longer the only safety issue since large ammunition magazines increase the ease/speed of mass lethal violence and some types of munitions put law enforcement etc. at greater risk.) 

Ever since the mid 1970’s, the NRA has consistently opposed the types of gun control restrictions in Western Europe or Japan and has increasingly and deliberately taken advantage of the media’s failure to recognize that the modern NRA is, first and foremost, an economic interest group that rejects majority public opinion  - even the majority opinion of hunters, target shooters, and sportsmen.

Focusing on background checks misdirects attention from the types of weapons, clips that are readily available. This also ignores the long standing evidence that the ability to predict violent behavior is so weak that background checks are not “common sense” gun control but misdirection on the part of the gun industry. Proven gun violence control policies do not rely upon background checks as a central strategy.

We MUST mobilize against this very real threat to our safety and well-being! 

We MUST WORK TOGETHER, UNITE BLUE! 

Only a Democrat POTUS and a Democrat Congressional majority can make the common sense gun law changes we want and need. 

Common sense gun law deniers=VOTE THEM OUT!

VOTE BLUE! EVERY VOTE MATTERS!

Profits are a higher priority than public safety

We cannot allow "big business" to continue to mislead us, influence our country, and harm us for their personal profit!
Fight back with your voice and your VOTE! 

Georgia Congressman, John Lewis,June 22, 2016

"...Sometimes you have to get in the way. You have to make some noise by speaking up and speaking out against injustice & inaction..."

With the current focus on new legislation to help prevent the kind of violence against innocent members of the public that recently occurred in Orlando, it is important to step back and put the issue in a larger historical and social context.

AK-47

To start with, economic interests groups like the tobacco industry, the fossil fuel industry, and the military-style weapons and munitions industries have many obvious characteristics in common.  In each case, these industries seek greater profits for their mainly wealthy shareholders by selling “products” that clearly do or may, as in the case of the recent Orlando mass shooting, put the general public at risk of terrible harm. Whether we are talking about the risk of lung cancer and other smoking related heath damage, global warming and its catastrophic impacts in the present and future, or the increasing incidents of massacres of innocents in America, profits have been and continue to be a higher industry priority than the public well-being.

At the same time, such industries have continued to try to misinform the public about terrible adverse impacts of their “products” by using many different arguments that, in fact, have been and are consistently deliberately misleading and demonstrably false.

• The cigarette industry touted the association of smoking with lung cancer as actually due to stress, personality type, etc.
• In America, we still hear from almost all leading Republican politicians and candidates that global warming is a hoax or that the consensus of climatology scientists should be ignored because
• not enough research has been done OR
• there must be no uncertainty in climate science before policy makers should accept that the main driver of global warming is human activity (and therefore, we may be able to slow the warming by what we do).
• Likewise for the military-style weapons and munitions industry, their front men have been so successful that the arguments and discussion about protecting the public from harm has moved so incredibly far away from banning all “machine guns” (National Firearms Act of 1934) and their potential for mass killings/injury to who is Constitutionally “entitled” to own such weapons (as well as who is entitled to own munitions that put law enforcement wearing protective vests at risk). 

In the U.S., more than other capitalist countries, very profitable economic interests have typically used every resource, notwithstanding their prior knowledge of the risk of harm to the public, to insure their continued profitability. A key resource is always the effort to mislead the public, policy makers, law enforcement, media, etc., about known harm to the public.

Although not universal, profits before responsibility to the public well-being has become a tacit norm of corporate behavior.

Orlando, FL shooting response

Fight back with your voice and your VOTE!

Don't give up! Vote them out!

#votethemout

Youth Vote Critical to Democratic Victory

About the 2016 elections...The Congressional GOP majority must be replaced by Democrats - and we must elect a Democrat POTUS in order to make effective global warming and fiscal policies - and then be able to carry out these new, positive policies.

WE NEED OUR YOUTH! They are instrumental to the successful election of a Democratic POTUS and a Democratic majority in Congress!  How can you help with the 2016 election? Here are just a few ideas.

1. If you are old enough to vote, register to vote if you haven't already done so.
2. Groups: Create groups or join existing groups that support the Democratic candidate for President and/or for Congressional seats. Volunteer to assist with voter registration efforts, phone calls, polls, etc.
3. Find elected officials through their Twitter accounts or doing a Google search.
4. Help a Congressional district gain a Democratic seat: Use Ken Mazlen's website Global Warming and the 2016 Legacy or the Cook Political Report Race Ratings to see a list showing where Democrats can gain House seats. You can help a district even if you do not live in that district.
5. Contact the League of Women Voters in your area. Find out how you can help register voters via a booth at local musical festivals or other events.
6. Create your own voter registration event.
   
7. Encourage online voter registration via Voto Latino, Vote 411,  I Will Vote, OR Rock the Vote where you can even get email reminders when its time to vote!
8. Voting as a felon or ex-felon. Yes, felons can vote but it is determined state by state. Here is a list showing if felons & ex-felons can vote in a particular state. Easy read & helpful!
9. Learn about the political process. Take it seriously because it is SERIOUS BUSINESS! Get out there and VOTE!

For events: Be sure to get local TV (or radio, newspaper) coverage prior to and day of these events highlighting your voter registration efforts with the date, time, and location, of course!

Don't be shy! Do what you can. Encourage others. Don't give up! 

We must ALL work TOGETHER!
#uniteblue

New Supreme Court Majority: CRITICAL for America!

New Supreme Court Majority Positive Possibilities

FIRST: Beyond reversing the Citizens United decision that gave the very wealthy even more power to control our nation, a new majority could reverse the Supreme Court’s recent decision that undermined the 1965 Voting Rights Act. 

This decision essentially stripped away voter participation protections in Republican dominated states.

Republican Majority in the U.S. Supreme Court: A damaging legacy!

We will need EVERY AMERICAN concerned about the general well-being of Americans TO BE POLITICALLY ACTIVE in the PRESIDENTIAL, SENATE, AND HOUSE ELECTIONS!

The most damaging legacy of the 2010 Citizens United decision of the Republican majority Supreme Court has been to continue to promote inaction on global warming leading the world to the brink of global warming catastrophe.

Of course, the Republican majority Court decided that Bush won and therefore it made possible the many disastrous policies of the Bush Admin. 

We need: 

• a Democratic President
• a Democratic majority in the Senate
• and enough fair minded Republicans in the Senate 

...for the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice who will bring back greater democracy to American government. 

First and foremost, a Supreme Court concerned about the general well-being of the American people and the world would: 

• reverse Citizens United and 

• sensibly limit the influence of the very wealthy ...

...who are overwhelmingly interested in protecting their wealth/power at whatever terrible cost to the other 99.99%+ of Americans - and the future of the entire world. 

WE WILL NEED EVERY CONCERNED AMERICAN TO BE POLITICALLY ACTIVE IN THE PRESIDENTIAL, SENATE, AND HOUSE ELECTIONS!

Politics and Money?

The Koch Brothers

We need a MAJORITY in the Supreme Court TO REVERSE Citizens United!

The founding States of the newly formed United States, very much aware of the exploitive practices of British “corporations” in the colonial period, severely limited the rights and powers of all corporations granted charters by the States – including forbidding influencing elections.

The growth of the railroads and the production of Civil War related industrial goods transformed the U.S. from an agricultural society (where land holdings were a major measure of wealth) to an industrial society with great monetary wealth concentrated in an extremely small portion of the population which, in turn, used its wealth to influence government in their favor. This was the era of John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Mellon, Andrew Carnegie, etc.

The Tillman Act of 1907, passed during the Teddy Roosevelt Progressive Era, was the first law to attempt to regulate campaign financing – “universally” in the interests of the very wealthy. The Act was, effectively, never enforced.  The Watergate Scandal led to the passage of the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments and was the basis for campaign finance regulation until 2010.

In 2010, the Republican majority Supreme Court fundamentally reversed campaign finance regulation by their Citizens United decision which legalized unlimited corporate campaign contributions. The Citizens United decision was the basis for further decisions which legalized unlimited donations by “social welfare” associations but without public knowledge of the source of donations: hence, “dark money”.  The influence of great wealth upon American elections where the donors cannot be known or are very difficult to identify is probably best studied in the case of the Koch brothers and their affiliated network of anti-regulation billionaires etc. 

Presidential Election Campaign: Surveys

From this point on in the 2016 Presidential election campaigns, we will be hearing or reading about more and more survey results from the media that ask respondents which of the (typically) two candidates the respondents plan to vote for in November.