What isn't said about Guns

[Azathoth]

12. The NRA is definitely playing to the militia/survivalist contingent

and it's getting worse as politics become more polarized and the NRA becomes ever more a subsidiary of the GOP. They cannot afford to lose the financial support of the extreme base, which means pandering not to hunters and sportsmen but to guys who are more interested in marching around the local shopping mall with an ar15 slung over their shoulder.

But that isn't the whole story. A lot of pro-Second Amendment folks see gun control the way progressives see partial birth abortion bans. At the outset, they are uncomfortable with the premise, because the goal is to put limits on a constitutional right. Then they look at the proposed regulations and realize they are often arbitrary and won't accomplish what pro-gun control advocates say they will. And then they start to scrutinize the people pushing the regulations, and they come to the same conclusion that progressives come to when looking at the folks pushing abortion regulations: these guys aren't interested in solving a specific problem. They've identified a morally-difficult crack into which they are trying to drive a wedge so as to slowly whittle away at a constitutional right they fundamentally disagree with. At this point, the pro-Second Amendment person logs on to a progressive board like DU and sees the posts about repealing the Second Amendment and banning everything but muskets and cap guns and all their suspicions are confirmed. Bam! another donation goes out to the NRA: "don't give an inch to these gun-grabbers!"