Sean CastenLook, I'm glad we're having a conversation about the hypocrisy of the legal logic used by America's gun nuts. But can we stop pretending this is a new thing? They have never advocated for universal access to firearms. They only want their team to be armed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/25/alex-pretti-gun-debate-second-amendment/
The NRA opposed open-carry in CA and got a bill signed in to ban the practice in 1967 under then Governor Ronald Reagan. It wasn't because they realized they'd gone too far. It was because black people were open-carrying. https://www.history.com/articles/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-support-mulford-act
To suggest that there is some intellectual inconsistency between an ideology that says it's OK if George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse shoot people in the street but a capital crime if Alex Pretti is carrying is to assume that their stated policy is their actual logic. It ain't.
jmelesky@SeanCasten FWIW, I’m not interested in calling the NRA out in their hyprocrisy because I think it will make them uncomfortable, let alone change them. I mean, I hope for at least some discomfort, but it’s not the point.
The point is for all the people who hear their stated policy and believe it to go through that discomfort. Most won’t have a problem, but some will, and that’s fewer people to give them money and fuel their lobbying engine. It’s fewer people that see them as an authority or at all respectable.
Pointing out hypocrisy won’t change the hypocrites, but it can show people who haven’t paid attention who the hypocrites are.