I don't know how accurate the figures quoted are, but this is an interesting take on the NRA. I've never come across addictinginfo.org before though, does anyone else know how reliable their information usually is?

The NRA And Its Six Billion Dollar Corporate Partners: Big Money, Big Lies

2nd paragaraph quoted
Americans are under the impression that the National Rifle Association, an organization with just 4.3 million members, effectively blocks gun control legislation around the entire country. But how can such a relatively small organization have so much clout? After all, the American Association of Retired Persons has nearly nine times that membership—about 36,000,000—and it gets the pants beaten off of it when they try to negotiate a deal on prescription drugs. Why is the National Rifle Association so powerful?

Im surprised that this went unchallenged, as its total nonsense.

Under federal law It is illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in prison for the following people to receive, possess, or transport any firearm or ammunition:

someone convicted of or under indictment for a felony punishable by more than one year in prison, someone convicted of a misdemeanor punishable by more than two years in prison, a fugitive from justice, an unlawful user of any controlled substance, someone who has been ruled as mentally defective or has been committed to any mental institution, an illegal alien, someone dishonorably discharged from the military, someone who has renounced his or her U.S. citizenship, someone subject to certain restraining orders, or someone convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor.

In the 10-year period from November 30, 1998 to December 31, 2008, about 96 million background checks for gun purchases were processed through the federal background check system. Of these, approximately 681,000 or about 1% were denied

I don't think it's nonsense. Background checks are optional.

The manufacturer's have a big in say in both (powerful lobbying), one will be backing the group (big money in sales) the other would be blocking the group (restrictions and pricing).

The point is the laws to some extent do exist, changing or adding laws wont have much impact, unless someone decides that they should be thoroughly applied.

And then you have to address the number of guns available outside legal channels, thats the biggest challenge I suspect.

I don't know why you'd initially worry about illegal guns. There's a mountain of legal guns. Only after they were gone would illegal guns and lax legislation in neighbouring countries become concerns.

By banning certain weapons (assault rifles for example) you then create a situation where you then have to manage the large stock of weapons that were up to that point legally owned, but now are not.

Grandfathering in ownership would be a bit pointless as it would do nothing to reduce the number of guns out there in the short term, so I guess a buy back scheme like that operated in Australia would be an option, although its questionable how many people would voluntarily hand over there previously legally owned weapons, or how it would be funded (higher fees for permits for handguns perhaps)

Still, as a canadian resident its not really a major concern for me, just something the americans have to try and figure out. First thing they should do IMO is check how effectively existing laws are applied, and then go about enforcing them properly if necessary.

As I recall the number of US casualties in Vietnam was around 58,000, so say 150 children killed each year in firearm accidents, 37x150 = 5,550. They're including homicides, etc.

Complete twoddle, all organizations like that have "corporate partners". Clinton ordered a massive IRS audit of the NRA back in the mid-90s after they helped the Republicans win the House in 1994, there was nothing found by the IRS that was of any major importance.

The reason the NRA is effective is simply because gun owners are single-issue voters and in Republican primaries especially that can make a difference. This is the reason they keep winning, because there are plenty of anti-gun people like Bloomberg who are willing to spend money, but it's not just about money.

Last Gallup poll I read said 74% of Americans oppose a ban on handguns and 51% oppose a ban on semi-automatic rifles.

Gun manufacturing does not make big money, it's not like cigarettes. http://www.atf.gov/statistics/downlo...ort-report.pdf

So say 6 million firearms manufactured a year (which doesn't just include the civilian market) and they make a profit of $200 on average per gun (and I'd say that's on the high side). That works out to $1.2 billion, which is less than the porn industry for example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornogr..._United_States

I checked these figures against the FBI Uniform Crime Reports (I got them from Wikipedia) and like a lot of things on Wikipedia they're total horseshit.

The rate for Hawaii is actually 0.08/100,000 which is lower than the rate for Canada (which is 0.47/100,000). However the rate for California is 3.2/100,000, a State with pretty tough gun laws, so the point I was making is still valid. (Especially given that California has a larger population than Canada).

There is no really clear explanation why Americans are so keen on shooting each other, I think it is partly cultural.

You can say Canada has more of a social safety net, less of a gap between rich and poor and so forth but there is no clear reason why the firearm-related homicide rate in California is seven times higher than Canada, other than they just prefer doing it more than Canadians do.

Who makes the bullets?

Well that article quoted above says the whole industry is $6 billion, which sounds a bit high to me, but that would include sales to govt. entities. Poking around on the web the tobacco industry appears to spend something like $10 billion in the US alone on advertising and the size of the industry is at least $60 billion.

Man who got wrong order at McDonald’s fires gun in drive-through lane

Idiots!

Doubts thrown on official versions (plural) of the incident:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/12...ut-of-control/