It's not NRA lobbying blocking new anti-gun laws - it's grassroots voters and gun owners

Recently Obama again attacked the NRA for no new laws being passed in the wake of shootings where the shooters had no previous red flags and had passed background checks and had used handguns. It's the NRA's fault that these tragedies couldn't be exploited to expand background checks to isolated private sales and an "assault weapons ban" on semiautomatic sporting rifles.

What this ignores is that the NRA doesn't have that much money. What it has is the support of a very large section of the voters. Many gun owners aren't members of the NRA. I'm not. Many more members got their membership because it's packaged free with most new gun sales. But we're voters who care about much the same things that the NRA cares about.

We're also not lying about poll numbers. There was a poll that claimed 90% of Americans "support background checks", so how was it possible that the Manchin-Toomey bill could have failed? Well, 90% of Americans do support some background checks. Probably most background checks. I have no problem with a background check for buying a gun from a dealer or from an FFL. But it's impossible to have what are called "universal background checks", the expansion of background checks to private intrastate transfers, without a gun registry. As I've pointed out before. And that's why Manchin-Toomey failed. Gun owners knew about this problem with the bill, and called their Senators and their Representatives. That's also why support for "background checks" fell so rapidly.

But Obama and other politicians keep pushing the "90%" line, again and again and again. Obama said after Manchin-Toomey failed that "The American people are trying to figure out -- how can something that has 90 percent support not happen?" It's an easy question to answer. He's wrong. The poll is wrong. There wasn't 90% support for the bill.

This is backed up by what one of the bill's supporters said after the bill failed, "When 90 percent of the people want something, and the senator votes against them, the next election, we're going to take care of those senators, because they're not representing the people."

And yet, those Senators weren't replaced. The vote was in 2013. In the 2014 elections, the Republicans held all of their Senate seats and gained 9 Democrat seats to regain control of the Senate for the first time since the Bush Administration. Clearly 90% of the country had spoken. Those Senators weren't "taken care of", because they were representing the voters.

Politicians, pundits, talk show hosts, comedians, and rank and file democrats attack "The NRA", claiming that its lobbying and money prevents Congress from "making progress" on banning guns. But as a lobby, the NRA is a fricking joke in terms of DC money.

Getting past the obvious dripping bias of the OpenSecrets description, the numbers speak for themselves.

Top Contributors, 2013-2014
Contributor Amount
National Rifle Assn  $952,252
Safari Club International  $694,640
Gun Owners of America  $270,157
National Assn for Gun Rights  $175,650
National Shooting Sports Foundation  $169,250
Ohio Gun Collectors Assn  $35,500
Dallas Safari Club  $9,250

About $2.3 million. Compare that to the Environment sector, where the top contributor alone put in $4.3 million in the same time frame. Look at the Communications sector, Comcast lobbyists alone have put in $3.93 million. In fact, at $2.259 million, lobbying from *Microsoft alone* comes close to equaling *the entirety of lobbying done by the NRA*. In the energy sector, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association put in as much as the entire firearms lobbying sector.

Gun industry's *monetary* influence on politics is negligible. But the truth, and the thing that drives anti-gunners into a furious and impotent rage, is the fact that it's individual voters by the millions who drive gun policy. It's phone calls and emails and letters to politicians, it's election time volunteering and voting. And gun owners do it better than gun opponents. And they hate us for it. Read this angry anti-gun voter piece from Mother Jones, where they complain that they can't even win after using Bloomberg money to buy elections.

Money alone does not equal political power. Supporters of the background check bill and new gun control laws have lots of money. Bloomberg alone has spent tens of millions of dollars through Mayors Against Illegal Guns and his self-funded super-PAC, Independence USA, to counter the influence of the gun lobby. He ousted NRA-backed congressional candidates in the 2012 elections and again this year in Illinois, where he spent more than $2 million to defeat Debbie Halvorson, a Democrat who'd previously received an A rating from the NRA, in the special primary to replace disgraced ex-Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Bloomberg declared that his money was a warning sign for pro-gun lawmakers: Shill for the NRA and I'll drop big money to bounce you out of office. That threat wasn't enough to persuade a handful of Democratic senators from red states and Republican senators who were once thought of as possible votes for gun safety measures.

Shilling against gun ownership is fine. SuperPACs are fine. Using big money to throw elections is fine, so long as you further the political goals of the anti-gun movement*.

The double standard for anyone concerned about money in politics is stunning and repulsive.

They also found that their own lobbying group couldn't get it done.

Obama's political machine could not overcome the NRA's might. A database of tens of millions of voters and the best political technology on the planet do not equal political power. The background check fight was the first real test for Organizing for Action, the advocacy group spawned from of the president's massively successful reelection campaign. Former Obama aides created OFA to mobilize Obama supporters during legislative fights like this one, hoping to use all the names, data, and other finely honed technologies during the 2012 campaign to create the outside pressure needed to push contentious pieces of legislation across the finish line.  

OFA executive director Jon Carson wrote that more than 22,000 people called the Senate on Wednesday demanding passage of Manchin-Toomey. But there were no reports of crippled phone lines or a massive surge of public interest similar to what was seen during the legislative debates over health care reform or financial reform. OFA devoted time and money organizing its members, but it wasn't enough.

Note the author's crowing over the database of "tens of millions of voters" as a positive, and how that database only translated to 22,000 calls in support of more gun control laws. This is key because of later in the article when they go after the NRA:

Here is what political power looks like: It's the combination of money, intensity, and influence when it matters most. The NRA boasts all of the above. LaPierre and his NRA colleagues around the country know how to whip their members—4.5 million of them by the NRA's count—into a frenzy. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 1 in 5 gun owners had called, written, or emailed a public official; only 1 in 10 people without a gun in the household had done the same. In the same poll, 1 in 5 gun owners said they'd given money to a group involved in the gun control debate; just 4 percent of people without a gun in the home previously gave money.

It's bad that the NRA boasts 4.5 million members because the author disagrees with them. It's good that OFA has a database of tens of millions of members because the author agrees with them. But there are an estimated 80-100 million gun owners in the United States. That means "1 in 5 gun owners" translates to roughly 16 to 20 million voters. That's 4 times the number of members of the NRA.

To the anti-gun movement* it's good that a billionaire throws elections that further their goals, and it's bad that millions of voters donate to politicians in opposition to that one billionaire. The thing that so frustrates the luminaries of the anti-gun movement* is the simple and unavoidable fact that their new laws fail because of democracy. There are no new laws because the democratic process is working, because millions of voters speaking out to their elected officials and donating to their political causes does indeed have more swing than few lobbying groups and wealthy individuals.

Obama wants to paint these millions of voters as being uniformly irrational conspiracy theorists. Which, by the way, is a fucking fantastic way to win people over.

“There is a very passionate group of gun owners who see a conspiracy around any new legislation and have an absolute belief that the Second Amendment means nothing would in any way constrain them from having whatever weapon on the market and modest additional steps are the camel’s nose under the tent to take away their guns,” 

The Second Amendment has already been extensively restricted. Gun ownership now is to the furthest limit of what the Supreme Court has ruled constitutional. And gun owners aren't stupid, we can look at Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, Illinois, and California, and see that these news laws are always the camel's nose. In the same interview Obama praises the anti-gun laws of Australia, which are incredibly restrictive and which have not caused their murder rate to drop significantly.

There is no pressing need for these laws, and the proposed new laws wouldn't have done anything about the recent mass shootings where background checks have been passed, and handguns used instead of "assault rifles". Which means that obviously they wouldn't stop mass shootings, and so the camel's nose would keep going under that tent and result in more laws being passed, and more, and more. As has happened in those previously mentioned fiercely anti-gun states. Anti-gun activists know this, just as surely as gun owners know this. Gun owners aren't** conspiracy wackos, we just aren't idiots either. Ask anyone pushing new gun laws, whether they're a random liberal on the internet, or a politician, or a comedian, anyone who says "nobody is coming for your guns!", if there is a gun law they would oppose. Ask them if there is a single point past which they would say "That's enough new gun laws, I oppose any further laws."

I have. And the answer is always the same. They want gun ownership to end.

Gun owners aren't idiots. We also aren't all conservatives, we aren't all straight, we aren't all white, we aren't all men. We're not easily put into the boxes that they try to put us into. And this, too, infuriates the anti-gun movement. The backlash against Colion Noir, an African-American gun owner, when he became a paid commentator for the NRA was virulent and patronizing. He can't like gun ownership for its own sake, he must be a "shill". Everyone getting paid to post anti-gun articles, they aren't shills, they're just honestly expressing their opinions.

This is why there's no movement on new anti-gun laws. We don't like having our opinions invalidated, we don't like being insulted, we don't like having lies endlessly passed off as truth, and we don't like when a big money SuperPAC with a handful of wealthy donors tries to force their preferred laws to pass. And it's only in the field of gun ownership that the left accepts these things from authoritarian politicians.

This needs to stop, because as the Republican Party self destructs, this is the only thing that could cause the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, not just in 2016 but in 2018 and possibly even 2020. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, even Bernie Sanders are attacking firearms ownership. Democrats have, or had, a significant advantage in the electoral college. Few things could shake that advantage, but this is one of them. It's not because gun owners are "single issue" voters, but because many of us don't support being lied to and lied about. If you have Hillary Clinton running on an anti-gun platform (she should talk to her husband about how the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban cost the Democrats control of the House) against a Republican, she loses Ohio, Florida, Virginia, probably Pennsylvania, and almost certainly the Presidency.

Anti-gun publication Mother Jones describes the failures and fallout of when the Democrats forced the 1994 AWB through Congress:

As Obama assumes this tough mission, he can look back to the 1994 episode for guidance on how to win the politics and how to avoid screwing up the policy. Clinton savvily enlisted the law enforcement community and made good use of his Cabinet. Obama could emulate both moves. (He has instructed members of his Cabinet to help craft recommendations for Biden's task force.) Yet to make sure his efforts yield real-world results, the president will have to be mindful of policy particulars and not repeat the errors of 1994. "If you're going to be effective, you have to have a broad-based ban on weapons and on ammo," the former Justice Department official says.

...
One conclusion that can be drawn from the 1994 battle was that the weak ban that emerged might not have been worth the cost. And there was a stiff cost. When Congress passed the assault weapons ban, the NRA vowed vengeance. Months later, the Republicans, backed by the still-outraged NRA, romped the Democrats in the midterm election, gaining 54 seats and control of the House for the first time in 40 years. Clinton, for one, believed that voting for the the assault weapons ban had cost about 20 House Democrats their seats—meaning that the measure had caused a political backlash that led to a GOP the majority in the House. If Obama and others confront the NRA, they had better expect—and prepare for—a battle that will reach a crescendo on November 4, 2014.

Obama, unconcerned with leaving a winning legacy, has said that the Democrats should go ahead and become single issue voters and lose a few elections in order to fight gun ownership.

“You have to make sure that anybody who you are voting for is on the right side of this issue. And if they’re not, even if they’re great on other stuff, for a couple of election cycles you’ve got to vote against them, and let them know precisely why you’re voting against them. And you just have to, for a while, be a single-issue voter because that’s what is happening on the other side."

Imagine the backlash if you or I said the same thing about any other issue, like the Obama Administration's wiretapping, or its drone airstrikes against civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. He's willing to let the Republicans win, in spite of things like gay rights and reproductive rights, if gun ownership is fought.

The question is, will left wing gun owners and voters tolerate this? Will the voters let the Democratic Party leaders take the party down with them in their pursuit for more authoritarian anti-gun laws?

*Can't even say the "anti-gun left", because I am certainly much further left than former Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg.
** well not all of us, not even a majority of us, but that minority is really really loud and it's politically expedient to lump the rest of us in with them

What a shock, white supremacists lie

I've seen a list endlessly reposted on facebook by white supremacists of white people killed by black people recently, and how supposedly none of these made national news or caused riots. The implication being that it was those subhuman racist darkies who riots when a cop kills a thug. What this list does is present data in an incredibly biased way, intended to further fan the flames of white racist anger. One copy of the list was posted by the Armslist.com facebook page. Another has over 2000 likes on a Fox News facebook page. The original appears to have come from Ted “I shit my pants to get out of Vietnam and adopted an underage girl so I could give myself permission to marry her” Nugent. This makes it a racist piece of shit from a racist piece of shit. 

 Key points:

1. Many of the items on the list are outright fabrications. Nearly every date is inaccurate, as they refer to the conviction or sentencing dates for crimes committed years ago.
2. Of the actual crimes and actual suspects, not all of them have been convicted. There is a question of innocence or guilt still. There is no question that Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown. The question is whether or not it was justified.
3. Nearly all are convicted or in jail awaiting trial. Darren Wilson is not. 
4. The list, being intended to stoke white anger against blacks, does not list blacks killed by whites in the same time frame, whites killed by whites, etc. It focuses on presenting the image that White America is under assault by the Black Thugs infesting it. 
5. The outrage behind the Ferguson protests, in addition to frustration at years of systematic and documented racism, is because the police officer involved has not been arrested and (prior to the outcry and national attention) likely would not have faced charges. Meanwhile Michael Brown's body lay in the street for hours.

Here's the list

7/18- Jimmie Norman, white male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/18- Terry Taylor, white male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/17- Cindy Raygoza, white female murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/11- Luis Aguilar, 91 year old hispanic male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/10- Brittany Simpson, white female murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/6- Sarah Goode, white female murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/6- Jeffrey Westerfield, white male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/5- Perry Renn, white male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/3- Laurey Kennedy, white female still in coma from beating by black male. No national news 

7/3 Eric Mollet, white male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/2 Rupert Anderson, white male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/2 Jennifer Kingeter, white female murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/30 Jim Brennan, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/29 Paul Shephard, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/27 Shirley Barone, white female, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/27 Penelope Spencer, white female, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/27 Inga Evans, white female, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/26 Jake Rameau, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/25 Gina Burger, white female, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/24 Nathan Dasher, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/22 Jonathan Price, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/20 John Whitmore, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/18 John Yingling,white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/17 Allyn Reeves, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/15 Michael Beaver, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/11 Angela Cook, white female, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/11 Nathan Hall, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/7 Harry Briggs, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/5 Laura Bachman, white female, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/2 Robert Mohler, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/1 William Headley, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

Anytime you see this list, just ask "are the suspected killers in jail"? I did ask that, and I went through the entire list, and briefly researched each incident. 

 7/18- Jimmie Norman, white male murdered by black male. No national news.

 Harlem Lewis is on trial for the murder of Bellaire Police Sergeant Jimmie Norman and MAACO service shop owner Terry Taylor in 2012.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/dash-cam-video-played-at-trial-of-man-accused-of-killing-bellaire-officer/26969150 

 7/18- Terry Taylor, white male murdered by black male. No national news.

 Harlem Lewis is on trial for the murder of Bellaire Police Sergeant Jimmie Norman and MAACO service shop owner Terry Taylor in 2012.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/dash-cam-video-played-at-trial-of-man-accused-of-killing-bellaire-officer/26969150 

 7/17- Cindy Raygoza, white female murdered by black male. No national news.

 Michael Reams -- who was shot by a Fresno police officer Monday after he stabbed a woman to death
http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/07/15/4025743/man-killed-by-fresno-police-woman.html 

 7/11- Luis Aguilar, 91 year old hispanic male murdered by black male. No national news.

 Luis Aguilar was a Border Patrol Agent killed by a Mexican drug runner, who was then sentenced to life in prison. I can’t find *anything* on a “91 year old” Luis Aguilar that was murdered.
http://www.fbi.gov/sandiego/press-releases/2011/man-convicted-in-the-death-of-u.s.-customs-and-border-protection-border-patrol-agent-luis-aguilar-receives-life-sentence-in-federal-prison 

 7/10- Brittany Simpson, white female murdered by black male. No national news.

 Brittany Simpson was killed by two Hispanic men, who are in custody awaiting trial.
http://www.wsmv.com/story/26050981/2-men-charged-with-perry-co-murder 

 7/6- Sarah Goode, white female murdered by black male. No national news.

Taylor faces life in prison without parole if convicted of killing Sarah Goode, 21.
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/dante-taylor-pleads-not-guilty-to-first-degree-murder-in-sarah-goode-s-death-1.8882811 

 7/6- Jeffrey Westerfield, white male murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspect is being held and is awaiting trial.
http://abc7chicago.com/news/man-charged-in-gary-cop-jeffrey-westerfield-killing/216557/ 

 7/5- Perry Renn, white male murdered by black male. No national news.

 The suspect is in custody pending trial, and the prosecutor is seeking the death penalty.
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2014/08/19/prosecutor-seek-death-penalty-murder-suspect-impd-officer-perry-renns-death/14301075/ 

 7/3- Laurey Kennedy, white female still in coma from beating by black male. No national news

 I can’t find any local news story on this. Could be fabricated. Only google returns are reposting of the list. 

 7/3 Eric Mollet, white male murdered by black male. No national news.

 I can’t find any local news story on this. Could be fabricated. Only google returns are reposting of the list. 

 7/2 Rupert Anderson, white male murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspect is in custody pending trial/extradition. Also an Ethiopian national, and not a U.S. citizen.
http://whotv.com/2014/07/03/elderly-man-killed-in-home-invasion/ 

 7/2 Jennifer Kingeter, white female murdered by black male. No national news.

 “A jury found 36-year-old Jamaal Anthony Prince guilty of first-degree murder just before noon Thursday in the slashing and stabbing death of Jennifer “Jessica” Kingeter on Dec. 28, 2012.
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2014/07/11/berkeley-woman-to-push-for-stiffer-penalties-after-brutal-stabbing-death-of-daughter/ 

 6/30 Jim Brennan, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspects are in custody pending trial.
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/oh-cuyahoga/4-suspected-of-murdering-cleveland-heights-restaurant-owner-jim-brennan-plead-not-guilty-in-court 

 6/29 Paul Shephard, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 I can’t find any local news story on this. Could be fabricated.

 6/27 Shirley Barone, white female, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Shirley Barone and Penelope Spencer were stabbed but they both survived. The suspect is in custody. 
http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/local/report-2-women-stabbed-springdale-manor-high-rise/ngTw3/ 

 6/27 Penelope Spencer, white female, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Shirley Barone and Penelope Spencer were stabbed but they both survived. The suspect is in custody.
http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/local/report-2-women-stabbed-springdale-manor-high-rise/ngTw3/ 

 6/27 Inga Evans, white female, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Inga Evans was robbed. By a woman. She’s fine.
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/25920067/ft-worth-grandmother-robbed-attacked-in-walmart-parking-lot 

 6/26 Jake Rameau, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspect is in custody pending trial.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2014/07/robert_earl_gee_30_charged_wit.html

6/25 Gina Burger, white female, murdered by black male. No national news.

 A Mahoning County grand jury indicted Ricki D. Williams IV of Lansdowne Boulevard on Thursday on a charge of aggravated murder with death-penalty specifications in the June 23 stabbing death of Gina Burger in the Compass West apartment complex in Austintown. - See more at: 
http://www.vindy.com/news/2014/jul/11/jury-indicts-suspect-in-teen-killing/ 

 6/24 Nathan Dasher, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspects are in custody pending trial.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/crime/2014/07/02/montgomery-homicide-arrests-crime-12/12017441/ 

 6/22 Jonathan Price, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 These suspects are still at large. The only ones on the list that weren’t in custody.
http://www.lex18.com/news/more-details-released-in-shooting-death-of-marine 

 6/20 John Whitmore, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 John Whitmore was a black man fatally beaten by two black women. Police are still looking for the women, who simply blended back into the crowd and escape without anyone trying to stop them.
http://ktla.com/2014/07/22/police-offer-reward-for-help-finding-of-those-who-allegedly-beat-killed-man-at-metro-station/ 

 6/18 John Yingling,white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 The teen convicted of a 2013 Southside crime spree that resulted in the death of an Indianapolis man has been sentenced to 59 years in prison.
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2014/07/11/southside-crime-spree-suspect-sentenced-years-prison/12528229/ 

 6/17 Allyn Reeves, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 I can’t find any local news story on this. Could be fabricated. Only google returns are reposting of the list. 

 6/15 Michael Beaver, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspect is in custody.
http://www.10news.com/news/police-arrest-suspect-in-connection-with-death-of-michael-beaver-in-gaslamp 

 6/11 Angela Cook, white female, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspect is in custody and has been indicted.
http://www.northescambia.com/2014/07/man-indicted-for-murder-after-body-found-in-his-home 

 6/11 Nathan Hall, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspects are in custody. But, to use the terminology used when Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were killed, Nathan Hall “was no angel”.

 “Early on the morning of April 16, around 1 a.m., Nathan Hall pedaled his bicycle to a designated spot along North Adams Street, carrying an eighth of an ounce of marijuana and $80 cash.”

 http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/second-arrest-made-in-nathan-hall-shooting-death/article_8b63c02c-f184-11e3-87f5-001a4bcf6878.html 

 6/7 Harry Briggs, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspect is in custody pending trial.
http://fox59.com/2014/07/16/police-make-arrest-in-gas-station-clerks-fatal-shooting/ 

 6/5 Laura Bachman, white female, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Laura Bachman died unexpectedly of apparently natural causes. In 2010. 
http://www.twincities.com/ci_16643963 
http://www.startribune.com/local/east/109537674.html 

 6/2 Robert Mohler, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 The prosecutor is seeking aggravated assault charges, not murder charges, and the suspects are in custody.
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/No-Murder-Charges-in-Homeless-Mans-Death-261528441.html  

 6/1 William Headley, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 I can’t find any local news articles on a “William Headley” murdered by anyone. There are two obituaries for William Headleys that died in the last few years, one of a long illness and the other of cancer. 

As you can see, a lot of these are questionable. Many are openly dishonest. Why would somebody distribute racially charged dishonest information, either knowingly, or intentionally? 

The Rescuers Down Under as Marxist Allegory

Theory: Disney film "The Rescuers Down Under" is an allegory of the evils of capitalism and how the proletariat can rise. 

Broadly, the humans represent the ruling class, while the animals represent the working class. 

The kid, Cody, is born into the ruling class but he helps protect and free the working class using the abilities gained by the privileges of his birth, and also his ability to communicate with the working class animals. 

The poacher, McLeach, represents the worst of capitalism, eagerly consuming the animals of the working class for his own enrichment with no thought for them.

Joanna, the goanna lizard, represents members of the working class who are class traitors, who turn on their own class and serve the ruling class faithfully, despite mistreatment by their rulers, who they can never become.

When the animals are caged in the poacher's basement along with Cody, it represents the chains of wage slavery and how the ruling class will cheerfully enslave members of its own class if they can. The escape shows how the working class can free itself through solidarity and cooperation.

The giant golden eagle represents the heights to which the working class can soar when free, bearing everyone up together equally. Additionally, the ability of the eagle to fly, but not Cody unless he is on the eagle, shows how even members from the ruling class can't succeed without a working class, but the working class can succeed and soar without needing a ruling class.

The crocodiles are the lumpenproletariat. They will turn on and consume anyone who gets close to them, without a thought for the class struggle, happily eating working class animals or ruling class humans.

Disney realized just before releasing it that the movie had this subtle Marxist message, but they'd already sunk too much money and time into it to just abandon it. Instead they released it opposite movies like Home Alone and Rocky V, and then shortly thereafter pulled TV advertising for it, in hopes the message would not be widely heard.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it. 

Also, thanks for 17,000 pageviews because that's pretty cool.

The gun bans and confiscation we're told nobody is talking about

"Nobody is talking about taking your guns" we gunowners hear on a regular basis. That, and "Nobody is talking about banning all guns". Well, "nobody" is a broad and definitive statement, and just a handful of people talking about those exact things proves the lie of it. Sure, you can say it's a handful of unimportant people, but the reality is that more and more influential and powerful political figures are talking about both banning guns and taking guns. Senators, governors, mayors, as well as a host of political commentators, have done this, and there's no shortage of other major blog posts online discussing it as a serious option and even literally laying out a plan wherein creeping incrementalism is used to ban all civilian ownership of guns. 

But you don't have to take my word for it. Here's a bevy of sourced examples. 

Banning Guns Is Necessary But Not Sufficient

Banning all guns is necessary but NOT sufficient in light of the increasing violence in our society. We need a fundamental transformation as well as banning guns. Otherwise, we will now revert to the normal debate between liberals wanting more gun control and conservatives saying that it's not guns that kill, but people. Both are right. So here is what we need to do: 

1. A constitutional amendment to ban all guns, and to create special holding units for hunting rifles to be held in control of locally elected officials in every neighborhood who keep the rifles under lock and key except when given to hunters during a hunting season and to be returned immediately thereafter, with all necessary criminal controls and penalties for those who do not return them in a timely manner and mthose who continue to hold on to their guns privately. No private ownership of guns of any sort. Police must similarly be disarmed, and allowed only to use billy clubs and mace, except in emergencies in which a judge signs a warrant for the temporary use of lethal force against someone who is using lethal force. Lesser measures (background checks, banning only extreme assault weapons, etc.) are wimpy and will have only slight impact.

Shame on Us, America: Take a Stand and #BanGuns Now

As Katie J.M. Baker at Jezebel put it, "Fuck you, guns." It's strong language, but appropriate. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney should be ashamed of himself for saying that "today is not that day" to discuss gun control. If there was ever a time to speak up, it is now."

As citizens, we must all take a stand. March, protest, Facebook, Tweet, write your congressman, senators and legislators urging them to ban guns. Send the President this petition and speak up for the 20 innocent children who no longer have a voice.

Assault Weapons Ban Is Not Enough

I am officially beyond a place of wanting to find a compromise with those who want to argue for the right, or the need, of citizens to arm themselves with guns. Focusing on assault weapons only is just giving in to the gun lobby out of a fear that we can't beat them if we don't give them something. The time has come for our society to say enough is enough and that we must completely outlaw private citizens from owning guns. There is just no good logic to it and the number of senseless deaths attributed to people wielding all too easily acquired guns has reached a point where we have to say this has to stop.

What If President Obama Simply Issued Executive Orders Toughening Gun Curbs?

In the meantime, Obama could heed the lawmaker's pleas and follow the precedent of Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush and issue executive orders on gun curbs. Bush in 1989 used the 1968 Gun Control Act to ban the import of assault rifles. 

A decade later Clinton went further and banned firearms and ammunition from China. Bush and Clinton got around the squeal from the gun lobby and anti-gun control congresspersons that this was an abrogation of congressional fiat by invoking the provision in the Gun Control Act
that automatic weapons had to be "suitable for sporting purposes" to be legally bought and sold. The stockpiles of AK-47s and AR-15s hardly fit that description. 

Obama could use the "sporting purposes" language to allow local and federal law enforcement agencies to crack down on the proliferation of these type weapons by mandating rigid inspections and confiscation of these weapons at the point of import. He could expand the requirement that gun shops in border states -- and even nationally -- require instant reporting of anyone who purchases two or more homegrown manufactured assault weapons. He could also mandate gun dealers to take even more stringent steps to secure firearms from theft, run screens on their employees and end the right of gun dealers that are closing up shop to sell off their guns absent any background checks on buyers.

How to Ban Guns: A step by step, long term process (this is the
radical plan to use licensing and registration to ultimate confiscate
all guns from everybody over a ten year period)

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the
only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence. 

Unfortunately, right now we can't. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it...

Gun Control Poll: Which arms would you ban?

Where would you set the limit of what arms you – and your next-door neighbor – could legally keep at home? In the poll below, pick one level of banning. Each ban includes all those prior.

Lawmakers push for tighter gun controls in California

State Sen. Leland Yee introduced a bill that would prohibit gun owners from fitting semi-automatic weapons with devices, known as "bullet buttons" or "mag magnets," that allow them to be easily reloaded with multiple rounds of ammunition. 

The San Francisco Democrat's measure would also prohibit add-on kits that allow high-capacity magazines. He said he was drafting legislation that would require yearly background checks for gun ownership and toughen safety requirements. 

His action came as state Sen. Kevin De Leon, a Democrat from Los Angeles, said he would introduce a bill this week requiring ammunition buyers in the nation's most populous state to obtain a permit issued by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Mayor Bloomberg Telling It As It Is on Gun Control

The President campaigned back in 2008 on a bill that would prohibit assault weapons. We’ve got to really question whether military-style weapons with big magazines belong in the streets of America in this day and age. Nobody questions the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. But I don’t think the founding fathers had the idea that every man, woman, and child could carry an assault weapon.

No more silence on gun limits

Certain classes of weapons that are strictly military and have no useful purpose in sport, hunting or self-defense should not be legally sold.

Magazine clips with more than 10 rounds should be prohibited from civilian use.

Cuomo Says He’ll Outline Gun Proposal Next Month

"I don’t think legitimate sportsmen are going to say, ‘I need an assault weapon to go hunting,’ ” he said. At the same time, he noted that he owns a shotgun that he has used for hunting, and said, “There is a balance here — I understand the rights of gun owners; I understand the rights of hunters.” 

In the interview, Mr. Cuomo did not offer specifics about the measures he might propose, but, while discussing assault weapons, he said: “Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option — keep your gun but permit it."

Incidentally, "I understand the rights of hunters", which we hear so often from anti-gun politicians, means "I understand the rights of the wealthy people we actually care about, people who aren't working constantly, who live in gated neighborhoods where the police actually show up when you call, and who actually have the time and the money to hunt and trap shoot with fancy $10700 collector's edition shotguns."

If these people actually cared about sport or hunting, they wouldn't be trying to ban AR-15s, which are incredibly popular for sport shooting and for non-big game hunting. It's hard to beat an AR-15 platform for dedicated target shooting, 3-gun competition, or varmint and small game hunting. Chambered in .300 Blackout, it's a great boar gun for those parts of the country (usually in the disregarded flyover states in the Midwest and South) where wild boars are a serious environmental menace. 

But I could go on and on, and have, about M4/AR-15s and why we shouldn't be looking to ban those. The point of this piece is that there are people talking about banning guns. All guns. Not just the scary looking AR 15s. Are they likely to have much political success? Probably not. Anybody honest on the pro-gun side will admit that there are unrealistic and crazy people on the pro-gun side of the argument, some of whom are very highly placed and influential, like Wayne LaPierre or Ted Nugent. 

Few of us will pretend that there aren't unhinged people out there who think that Obama has a gay muslim socialist conspiracy to establish a 1000 year Reich and put all the white Christians in camps. But the problem that we have is that, on the anti-gun side of the debate, there are people calling for bans, there are people calling for confiscation, there are people calling for gun control laws more strict than even those of our neighbor to the north, and yet the people who claim to just want "reasonable limits" (the definition of which varies by person) will claim that nobody wants those things. And when one person claims this, and then in the next 3 minutes another person completely contradicts it, gun owners are just pushed further and further away from compromise. 

After all, it's difficult to want to compromise even on the things we might agree upon with people who will say openly that they are "officially beyond...wanting to find a compromise" with those of us that value civilian ownership of guns. What, exactly, are we getting in return for giving up rights to people like this? The people talking about the things we're told they aren't talking about. 

UPDATE:
From Missouri, an actual ban with confiscation, that would make existing current law abiding gun owners into criminals with the stroke of a pen:
Missouri Democrats Introduce Legislation to Confiscate Firearms – Gives Gun Owners 90 Days to Turn in Weapons

4. Any person who, prior to the effective date of this law, was legally in possession of an assault weapon or large capacity magazine shall have ninety days from such effective date to do any of the following without being subject to prosecution:

(1) Remove the assault weapon or large capacity magazine from the state of Missouri;

(2) Render the assault weapon permanently inoperable; or

(3) Surrender the assault weapon or large capacity magazine to the appropriate law enforcement agency for destruction, subject to specific agency regulations.

5. Unlawful manufacture, import, possession, purchase, sale, or transfer of an assault weapon or a large capacity magazine is a class C felony.

Nazis, gun control, and opposing dictators backed by modern militaries

In 1938 the Nazis passed the "Nazi Weapons Act of 1938". People who seek to use the Nazis as the bogeymen of Gun Control will tell you that it was a restriction on guns used to further solidify their power. There's a lot of things there that they're ignoring, facts about history that they're pretending don't exist in order to further their political ideology. Something I expect they have in common with the Nazis.

First, firearms were heavily regulated in Germany at the time the Nazis came to power. After Germany lost WW1, firearms ownership was sharply restricted in accordance with the treaty of Versailles. The 1919 “Regulations on Weapons Ownership” (Verordnung des Rates der Volksbeauftragen über Waffenbesitz, Reichsgesetzblatt 1919, Volume I, § 1, page 31–32) required that all firearms, and all kinds of firearms ammunition, be surrendered immediately. Anyone possessing firearms was subject to five years imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 marks. This was made law as a result of conditioned we imposed on Germany after they lost World War 1. Military weapons were further restricted in 1920, in accordance with the treaty.

Gun control laws were actually loosened by later laws passed by the Germans. The 1928 “Law on Firearms and Ammunition” rolled back the 1919 law which explicitly banned all private gun ownership. It relaxed gun restrictions, and allowed private persons to possess firearms. However, they had to have separate permits to own or sell firearms, carry firearms, manufacture firearms, or deal in firearms and ammunition. It gave discretion in issuing licenses to the issuing authority, what we’d know in the US as “may issue” instead of “shall issue”, and licenses were only available to “persons of unquestioned trustworthiness” (Halbrook, Stephen P. (2000) "Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews."). Even so, this was a loosening of restrictions from the post-WW1 law which said “nobody can own guns”.

Supporters of unrestricted gun ownership are fond of pointing out that the Nazis passed a gun control law in 1938. Yes, they did, it was called the German Weapons Act. What this act did is that, for specific people, it reduced gun controls in place from the 1928 and 1919 laws. It removed restrictions on rifles, shotguns, and on ammunition, only keeping restrictions in place for handguns. In the 1928 law, only a handful of people were exempt from needing firearms acquisitions permits. The 1938 law expanded exemptions, to anyone who held hunting permits, government workers, and members of the Nazi Party, making it easier for these individuals to obtain firearms.

Gun ownership ages were lowered by the 1938 law, from 20 to 18. This is often misrepresented by gun control opponents, who say the 1938 law “restricted gun ownership to people 18 and older”. Heck, our laws do that now, because it’s widely considered a bad idea for children to own guns. Additionally, the carry permit for firearms had its effective term increased from one year to three years. It was a law intended to make it easier for the right kind of people, young military-age Germans (preferably Nazi Party members) to own guns. 

The only element of the 1938 law that restricted gun ownership was that it prohibited Jews from manufacturing or owning firearms or ammunition. This really didn’t make much of a difference. Kristallnacht had already happened; tens of thousands of Jews were already being sent to the concentration camps or, if lucky, deported out of Reich-controlled territory. Faced with the military power of the Third Reich, a few civilian-level rifles and pistols would not and did not make that much difference. A handful of armed Jews and Poles in the Warsaw ghettos put up quite a little fight… but ultimately the side with *flamethrowers* won, the ghettos were razed, and a concentration camp put up in their place.

Yes, the Nazis imposed brutal restrictions on gun ownership in the countries they conquered. Believe me, we’re not gentle about firearms ownership in Afghanistan, nor were we in Iraq during the invasion and occupation there. Of course a conquering power disarms the people it conquers. Losing sides in wars are disarmed by the winning side. We did the same thing to the Germans after WW1 (Treaty of Versailles: Articles 159-213; Military, Naval, and Air Clauses) and WW2. It is utterly irrelevant to whether or not gun control laws are a symbol of creeping totalitarianism.

And really, that’s the whole point of this. Totalitarian governments arise on the backs of popular movements. Tyrants are given the reins of the state by the people of that state, the military is given power by the people of the state, and then that power is used towards ill ends. Whether or not gun ownership is present and widespread, or heavily restricted and controlled, makes little difference one way or the other.

During the time of the American Revolution, military equipment was effectively uniform. Nothing more than cannons and muskets, on both sides. These weapons were relatively simple for a decently-sized community to produce and support. The Civil War was the first war where divergent levels of military technology really made a difference, with the Sharps Rifle and the Henry Repeating Rifle showing up the more primitive arms used by the Confederacy. However, the First World War heralded military technology that made the reality of gun ownership as it relates to opposing a government completely irrelevant.

You will not stand against even a WW1 era military with personal small arms. That doesn’t work against air power, and it doesn’t work against tanks or against flamethrowers. Guerilla warfare is possible, but really hit or miss on if it will be successful, and it rarely manages to overthrow a government without significant support from large sections of the military, or in countries without a powerful or effective military. Modern military technology means that the military in nearly any country has phenomenal power, more than any individual or group of private citizens could have, and if you do not have them on your side, you will lose, and if you do have them on your side, you get your arms from them and yours don’t matter too much anyway.

In countries with a military that does not defect to the rebels, rebellions are crushed. And they are crushed brutally. Examples include the United Liberation Front of Assam in India and the Zapatista uprising in Mexico. Some examples where military defection led to a successful revolution include the Romanian Revolution of 1989 and the Indonesian Revolution of 1998, both of which succeeded due to a split military. most recently, the revolution in Libya succeeded due to defections from the military, and also because of foreign military support from NATO. 

This is not an argument for gun control, it is an argument against those arguments that oppose gun control on the grounds that it would facilitate a totalitarian dictatorship, and who say that gun ownership protects against tyranny.  There are plenty of other reasons to own guns, but the best argument for ownership of, say, semiautomatic military styled rifles, is to defend yourself on an individual level in the event of a temporary or long term breakdown of social order and law. You will not stand up to a modern military with an M4. You will, however, be able to stand up to groups of organized looters or other bandits. And with the rise in weather related disasters, things like Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina, or massive blackouts from winter storms, having that capacity can come in very handy. 

Whether or not this potential use outweighs the very real spree killings involving these particular types of firearms will be a matter for us to debate and legislate as a democratic society. No matter what happens, it won't have nearly as much bearing on the rise or success of a dictatorship as restrictions on free speech, the elimination of personal privacy, and the rise of a pervasive surveillance state. An ever-present police state and dramatically skewed and unfair legal system is a much greater tool of tyranny than gun control laws could ever hope to be, and gun control is often secondary to the goals of tyrants. 

Socialism Q&A

Socialism Q&A
Q. What is socialism?
A. The dictionary definition is "A political and economic theory of that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole." In reality, there are many different types of socialism. It is described in Marx's theory of history as the stage between Capitalism and Communism, where the worker's own the means of production, but where there are still some elements of capitalism.

Q. Who were some famous socialists?
A. A few famous American socialists include Albert Einstein, Upton Sinclair (whose book "The Jungle" led to the creation of the FDA), Eugene V. Debs, Kurt Vonnegut, Francis Bellamy (who wrote the original U.S. Pledge of Allegiance), Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Bernie Sanders.

Q. Doesn't socialism just mean that money is taken from the rich and given to lazy people?
A. No. What happens now is that money is taken from workers and given to their employers. Workers create value for their company, but are only paid in accordance with "market wages". This creates a separation between the work that they do and the pay they receive for that work, and that difference is pocketed by their employers as profit. Socialism aims to remove that separation or "alienation". If a worker does X amount of work, he should receive X amount of pay.

Q. Why do socialists support higher taxes for the wealthy? Isn't that punishing them for their success?
A. No person has ever gotten wealthy without workers whose labor they profit from, and without a stable society creating an environment wherein they can get wealthy. If there were no schools to train the workers, who would the wealthy hire? If there were no roads, how would their products be transported? The wealthy rely on our entire society to make their wealth, when they avoid paying their fair share of taxes, they're stealing from all of us.

Q. Didn't socialism kill 100 million people in the 20th century?
A. No. That's an inflated claim made by French author Stéphane Courtois in the sensationalist book "The Black Book of Communism", and repeated without research or fact-checking by conservatives and libertarians worldwide because "100 million" sounds like a nice round number.
First, the author listed communist states, not socialist states. No government has been entirely socialist, and it's typically western social democracies that have elements of socialism in their government. The communists of Maoist China and Stalinist Russia did not agree with socialists, and socialists were the victims of these regimes. These were not socialist countries, and arguably weren't even communist, as the means of production were owned by a bureaucratic elite and not the workers.
Second, the numbers of dead under those totalitarian regimes is questionable, with the researchers for the Black Book of Communism picking the larger end of the estimates whenever possible. But really, people dead under any system is a bad thing, whether it's 1000, 1 million, or 100 million.
Third, if the intent is to compare "body counts" between economic systems, the question must be asked, "How many people has capitalism killed?" 4 million more people die each year in India than in China simply because of poor access to medical care. If the editor of the "Black Book" reasons that communism can be blamed for deaths from famine in the Soviet Union, then deaths from famine in the capitalist world must be blamed on capitalism. In that case, the dead on the capitalist side pile up fairly quickly, exceeding a mere "100 million" in record time.
Fourth and finally, socialism itself, through promoting equitable distribution of resources, through providing medical care for all regardless of their ability to pay, has saved an untold number of lives. If you call universal health care "socialist", then it is to blame for the higher life expectancies in countries with universal health care. The average in the US is 78.37, in Canada its 81.38.

Q. Has socialism ever worked for a country?
A. Has any attempt at an ideologically pure system of politics or economy ever worked for a country? Pure capitalism gave us child labor, polluted rivers and air, and the Great Depression. Socialism is intended to be democratic, and as any democratic ideology, is best used in concert with other ideologies, acting as checks and balances against each other. And really, true dictionary-definition socialism has never been tried, so we can't know if it would work or not.
Now, if you call a country with a strong welfare state and universal health care "socialist", there are dozens of socialist countries, and the overwhelming majority of them are extremely successful. Take a look at Canada, France, the Nordic states, for examples of how a government with a healthy socialist component works extremely well. These are "social democracies", countries which mix socialism and capitalism together democratically. There may be a time in the future when we can have a purely socialist country, but speaking for myself, I'd be happy for making things better in the present day.

Q. Doesn't the Constitution forbid Socialism?
A. Article 1 Section 8 Clause 1 of the Constitution permits Congress to levy taxes for the purpose of defense and the general welfare of the country, which would make a tax-funded healthcare system constitutional, and which does make things like Social Security and Medicare constitutional. The 14th Amendment, not a part of the original constitution, prohibits the State from depriving any person of "life, liberty, or property". Which would make the forcible redistribution of existing property unconstitutional. However, that doesn't prohibit things like worker-owned factories and businesses, and it doesn't prohibit taxation either. Additionally, right wing nativists in the US right now, opposed to how the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship, are looking to repeal it because it's inconvenient to their political ideology. So who knows, maybe they'll make it a non-issue by repealing the 14th Amendment through their own efforts.
It's also worth remembering that the original Constitution didn't support or forbid any particular ideology other than Democracy... but a "democracy" wherein only white male landowners were allowed to vote. The rest, the freeing of slaves, giving women the vote, the income tax, has all been amended into it over the following two hundred years. The "founding fathers", while they're used as proxies for whatever the current political ideologies are, and while some even raise them to the same level as saints, were just men. The Constitution was written at the dawn of the industrial age, contemporary to the discovery of steam power and the early factories. Many of the "founding fathers" owned slaves, exploiting slave labor for their own profit. Certainly there were some smart guys among the founding fathers, and they set the stage for America to become a great country. Perhaps their most impressive achievement was writing into the Constitution the ability to change and improve it to reflect the realities of a changing world.

Q. Who were some famous socialists?
A. A few famous American socialists include Albert Einstein, Upton Sinclair (whose book "The Jungle" led to the creation of the FDA), Eugene V. Debs, Kurt Vonnegut, Francis Bellamy (who wrote the original U.S. Pledge of Allegiance), Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Bernie Sanders.

Q. Why are you a socialist?
A. For me personally, when I was growing up, my dad had me read a lot of Kurt Vonnegut. In "Hocus Pocus", mention is made of Eugene V. Debs. I looked up some of his speeches, and was hooked. I also read Marx's "The Communist Manifesto", and found it remarkable that he predicted many of the negative aspects of globalization. If I could describe my reason in one sentence, it would be to quote Eugene Debs when he said "I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence." I'm not a socialist because I'm jealous of the wealthy or because I live in poverty. I'm quite comfortable. But just because I'm able to keep my head above water in the capitalist system doesn't mean I should condemn forever my brothers who are drowning.