We Have a Nominee for the NRA Crazy List

more proof that trusting the gun nuts for protection from gun crimes is akin to paying the mafia so no one trows rocks true our windows.

Not that it matters to anyone, but a lot of commenters on gun blogs also think Yeager is insane.

Sample:

“He makes us all look like assholes. Hopefully he will just keep running off at the mouth and the Secret Service will ship him to Gitmo.”

Dude has a track record of being out of line of a lot of things, even basic safety measures.

Anyway, just go ahead and make him the spokesman of the day.

@redmanlaw: NRA spokesman of the day, yes. When LaPierre stops being a jackass, I’ll reconsider.

@nojo: Whatever. He’s always been an asshole.

I heard an interview this AM with the cross-country cyclist who was shot in Aurora and who now works for Bloomsberg’s mayors vs guns groups (ironic aside: he lives in Newtown. Don’t sit or stand near this man). He was saying how LaPierre is much more radical the the average NRA member, and does not really speak for them. It was his feeling that the majority of NRA members did not really have a seat at the table in this discussion because they have a nutcase “representing” them (who hired/appointed/elected him, anyway, RML?).

ADD: That dude has “White Supremacist” written all over him.

@redmanlaw: most of my liberal friends here in east tennessee are gun owners. more for target range shooting than hunting, even though home protection is the main reason. shotguns are popular. one friend even had a shotgun in his dorm room years ago. the campus cops came in and took his beer and pot once but left the gun. what is most revealing is that most my liberal friends practice at a range but only one of my teapublican’t friends talks about going to a range. so i think that speaks volumes about political affiliation and gun safety and expertise. we have two concealed carry gun packers here at work. they are both conservative but never go to the range. i trust both if something were to go down though. personally, i don’t feel comfortable with guns around my house partly because i drink alot on the weekends. so i don’t own or carry of course. i think tennessee is one of the few states that attitudes about guns cross political barriers and your politics doesn’t define your feelings about guns. but of course there are too many loons like our featured speaker and that’s why we do need stricter laws.

@Mistress Cynica: the NRA must be dominated by a few nuts much louder than the rest like the teapublican’ts. it’s just like a football game, the loudest and dumbest fans usually don’t represent the rest even though it sure seems that way. stricter gun control laws could be effective by disarming the few loud idiots and letting the others be. that’s the way cops handle crowds. they always take out the biggest and loudest first and then everybody else chills out.

@Mistress Cynica: Alas…

Since 2005 contributions from gun industry “corporate partners” to the NRA total between $14.7 million and $38.9 million. Total donations to the NRA from all “corporate partners” — both gun industry and non-gun industry — for the same time period total between $19.8 million and $52.6 million. The vast majority of funds — 74 percent — contributed to the NRA from “corporate partners” come from members of the firearms industry: companies involved in the manufacture or sale of firearms or shooting-related products.

If you don’t buy those stats, you’re welcome to find others.

Like this:

In 2010, $71 million came from contributions and grants, $100 million from membership fees and $46 million from other revenue sources, like ad sales ($20 million) royalties, rents and subscriptions.

Yes, there are plenty of NRA members — we’ll call them Traditional Hunters — who don’t buy into what’s happening at the national office. But the national office is taking plenty of gun-industry money, which buys cover by hiding industry lobbyists among the grassroots.

LaPierre makes almost a cool million misrepresenting those decent folk. And the NRA’s chief lobbyist pulls in another $666,000.

The NRA is welcome to cut them loose, cut the industry funding, and cut the crap. Until they do, I’m not in a mood to make fine distinctions.

Oh snap … our Mr. Yeager has a credibility problem.

@blogenfreude:
He’s certifiable, but not certified.

Yeager is a nut job. I’ve been on the fence with regard to posting here since the Newtown tragedy mainly because I am a gun owner. I’m also a member of the NRA. Like everyone else in the country, and world (probably), I was shocked by the Newtown incident. I found myself questioning this “hobby” of mine. I read the comments here. I stepped back and didn’t comment. I read the anger, the sorrow, the fear, and the logic.
LaPierre doesn’t speak for me. And I wonder what it is that gun owners, more specifically AR-15 owners see in owning this type of weapon designed for the sole purpose of killing humans. The arguments out there are that they are GREAT for hunting. I disagree… vehemently.
The AR-15 ownership folks are a mixed group of enthusiasts, soldier-wannabes (pussies that won’t enlist), and paranoids that think they will rise up and go to battle against THEIR government, hiding behind the Second Amendment argument. It’s ridiculous. It’s a lot of chest-thumping. It’s testosterone overload.

I don’t own any type of tactical firearm, nor do I aspire to own one. I’m a hunter. That’s it. I own firearms to hunt. I own firearms to protect myself and my home and those who inhabit it.
As a member of the NRA, I have grown weary of LaPierre and of the ridiculous rhetoric with regard to gun ownership, and the second amendment, both for and against.
The politics of the situation seem to have overtaken the common sense aspect of the situation. We are a nation built on freedoms. Freedom to pursue those things that not only make us happy, but those things that make us grow this nation as one that respects human individuality, strength, independence and dignity. Yet, there are a few that see it differently: The mentally challenged that see government lechery at every turn hiding in the shadows; The few that see the very government they rely on as the enemy; The few that think freedom means threatening others should they deign to propose to take away an inanimate object.

Yeager is one of those that will be highlighted and pointed at as a representative for all of us. And that is where I have to say, “Enough!” Cut the rhetoric. Cut the shit. He knows what he’s doing. He is the CEO of a company that specializes in tactical training to all those Rambo wannabes. He’s building business by preying on the fears of gun owners. There are a lot of “tough” gun owners doing a lot of irrational fear-based things with regard to hoarding ammo and buying more guns, and buying into the Yeager type fanaticism is one of them. Crazy.

There are passions on both sides. And I’m languishing in the middle. I’m not part of the evil aspect of this problem. But I am a participant whether I like it or not. And so are we all. I would hope that in the long run there will be a real common sense approach to appease both sides.
I think one thing is to reexamine, maybe reinstate, the funding that Reagan did away with some 30 years ago, that can help those people that need it. The people that today are the ones doing these unforgivable deeds.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the reduction of funding for social welfare policies during the 1980s is the result of a conservative backlash against the welfare state. With such a backlash, it should be expected that changes in the policies toward involuntary commitment of the mentally ill reflect a generally conservative approach to social policy more generally. In this case, however, the complex of social forces that lead to less restrictive guidelines for involuntary commitment are not the result of conservative politics per se, but rather a coalition of fiscal conservatives, law and order Republicans, relatives of mentally ill patients, and the practitioners working with those patients. Combined with a sharp rise in homelessness during the 1980s, Ronald Reagan pursued a policy toward the treatment of mental illness that satisfied special interest groups and the demands of the business community, but failed to address the issue: the treatment of mental illness. –Electronic Journal of Sociology (1998), ISSN: 1198 3655

Also, what redmanlaw said.
[This is a work in progress that may include contradictions.]

@ManchuCandidate: COTD

@Targa: Don’t blame folks with mental illness for all this. If our country had a real or a shred of a social safety net, the folks with mental illness would not get to the stage where they are in prison. But we don’t have a safety net.

The issue isn’t the crazy people we are or who are among us. It’s the access to guns. Motherfucking guns. Read this. And weep. And I wish that there were as many aspiring for elected office Assistant DAs/prosecutors willing to do something as unconventional as this one… or as many religious families willing to reflect upon their religion as these families. Read what the killer’s dad has to say about having a shotgun in the house around his hormonal 19 year old son.

@SanFranLefty: Thanks for linking to this article. These are uncommonly strong people dealing with a tragedy. I seriously doubt that I could ever be that forgiving.

How many people die or are seriously wounded each year by guns kept in the home for “defense”? How does this compare to the number killed or wounded each year by an intruder in the home? Doesn’t this simple math prove that the very most effective way to defend your family’s safety is to ensure there are no guns in the house?

@Targa: Save your breath, bro. Drink up dreamers . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0GcqYGv1AA

Contact me at redmanlaw at gee-mail dot com and we can commiserate.

@Targa: I think one thing is to reexamine, maybe reinstate, the funding that Reagan did away with some 30 years ago, that can help those people that need it.

Regardless of the relevance to the issue at hand, that’s something long forgotten, and a problem that remains to be rectified.

There was a valid argument at the time for “mainstreaming”, but somewhere along the way it got converted to “dump them on the streets”. And here we are.

@Targa: Thanks for sharing. It always helps to hear what rational gun owners have to say.

@SanFranLefty:
Good op-ed piece on early intervention on mental illness by the father of the Cafe Racer shooter.
The dirty little secret of community based services is that good human services are labor intensive and expensive. Meds alone don’t work.

@Targa: I’m not part of the evil aspect of this problem.

Are you paying dues to the NRA? If so, then yes you are.

Demanding more funding for mental health services is great, but specious. It would not have prevented the Columbine, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Aurora, or Newtown massacres… unless you want to give the gubmit the authority to lock up anyone who seems slightly psychotic, which is half the population of this KKKuntree as anyone who’s ever worked in customer service can readily confirm.

As long as he starts by shooting himself, I’m all for it!

In the head, preferably.

Is it just me or is this clown just one bad swastika tattoo between the eyebrows from being Charles Manson’s baby brother?