Wrong. The NRA is a powerhouse because they have the money to continue to persuade Americans to care about guns and the 2nd Amendment within their twisted, absolutist interpretation of it.
That's a myth. The NRA is not among the big spenders in the lobbying world, and money has little to do with their power. Michael Bloomberg pretty much proved that when he dropped $12 million and came up with nothing to show for it.
That's a very good article (read it when it came out), it leaves out several reasons:
As the first "Called-Out" comment notes, it helps when you are right. For the current privacy concerns ... that's messier, e.g. there are people who want to harm us, like the Boston bombers, then again, our national security apparatus was completely useless against them, or the underwear bomber despite explicit warnings from e.g. his father. Etc. My point is that this is a lot less clear cut.
Most importantly, gun owners vote, and there are a lot more of them than NRA members. We vote in numbers that easily throw many elections, or even control of the Congress as in 1994. There are many national level politicians who found themselves spending more time with their families after betraying gun owners.
So we need to get more people voting on privacy. I should close this off for now, but I've got some observations I'll probably post at top level on how this works for gun owners.
Heston was an amazing spokesperson. Love that speech. The perfect emotional appeal combined with giving a higher purpose and sending for the audience.
Just wish privacy advocates would stop fumbling on their Macbooks and instead find that universal appeal in their speeches. Imagine getting JPB's "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" presentend in the Heston's kind of way.
I think it's safe to say that most pro-gun American's would hold their pro-gun views with or without NRA propaganda. (but don't get me wrong, the NRA does spew plenty unwarranted of propaganda) Guns are very much a cultural issue, and if you are completely and 100% anti-gun, you are lacking a similar amount of empathy for people's rights as the very political groups you rally against.
Instead of calling lysol out for spouting non-factual rhetoric, I'll address this point as well.
I'm a Constitutionalist. I'm (very slowly) studying for the bar (without college or a law degree) so that I can understand the Constitution better.
The Constitution is a living, breathing document. It lives and breathes through ratification, and through amendments. The problems we're facing in our day is that people are violating its tenets without bothering to ratify, especially where they know that such a ratification would be futile.
I'm a gun owner, and a Constitutionalist, and I've long said, that if it were truly the will of the people enough that the second amendment were ratified out of the Constitution, I'd abide it. Until then, almost every act against the second amendment is an attempt to circumvent the Constitution, and should cost politicians their jobs.
I don't care if a politician supports or does not support the second amendment, but I damn well care whether or not they're upholding their oaths of office, the first of which is to defend the Constitution. Very few of them do.
Edit: Re-reading that, I come off emotional, which isn't intended. I was put off by lysol's rhetoric, which is why I deliberately didn't respond to it, but I meant to basically agree with you, sans one point of clarification, and got carried away. Regards.
You are correct and my remark was a bit crass. I agree with you completely: instead of sidestepping the Constitution and fending off claims of Constitutional violations with secrecy, we should be amending it.
I think I understood your intent as noble enough -- it isn't living and breathing in the sense that it is just there, waiting to be reinterpreted by whomever is in charge.
Your tone suggests you have made up your mind on this, but if you really want to know why the NRA is powerful, read this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/amyshowalter/2013/05/16/five-rea... .
It's the people, not the money.