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NRA Complaint Takes Down 38,000 Websites (vice.com)
Sarah Jeong, reporting for Motherboard:38,000 websites hosted by the automated publishing service Surge went down today, after the National Rifle Association sent a legal notice over a parody website created by the Yes Men. A few days ago, the Yes Men released the parody video, "Share the Safety" -- announcing a supposed NRA program to deliver firearms into the hands of those too impoverished to afford guns. The opening frame of the video says "Paid for in part by the National Rifle Association of America with additional support from Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation." "Systemic poverty and dumb laws keep the urban poor unable to acquire life-saving firearms," says the video, which is available on YouTube. "That's why we at the NRA are teaming up with Smith & Wesson to share the safety.â The YouTube description includes a link to the "official" website, ShareTheSafety.org.
Aside from any hate for the NRA, I see no issue with this. Some people pulled a stunt giving off the false impression that they represented the NRA and Smith & Wesson.* The NRA requested a takedown, Surge complied with the takedown but screwed the pooch and brought down 38,000 sites instead of just the target.
The wording of the the article implies the NRA should be held responsible. It is the fault of Surge.
*Yeah I know it was supposed to be a "parody", but watch the video on YouTube. They never mention that they are not affiliated with the NRA or S&W. In fact, the little disclaimer on the bottom at the end of the video even makes the claim that they do represent the NRA.
Perhaps the authors over-did it intentionally to trigger the Streisand Effect.
Table-ized A.I.
The asymmetric enforcement of second amendment rights is the core of NRA and its followers mission. White people with long guns, with fingers on the trigger can walk into departmental stores, or pick arguments with police officers, insult the police and terrorize play grounds with impunity. Stand your ground, Open Carry and such slogans are meant for them.
Unfortunately for them, black Americans are also citizens with full second amendment rights. They too have the rights, but if they exercise it, they will be shot by police without a second thought. "At that moment I feared my life, though none of the circumstances warranted it, but if I fear for my life I have the right to kill" is accepted as a valid defense for police officers. The same defense does not work when the victim of police shooting is white. A complex system of law enforcement, jury selection, etc are propping up this asymmetry. This ad brings out the hypocrisy of the NRA followers, and make them fear what would happen if the jury rigged system of rigged juries to deny black people their second amendment right collapses. That is why NRA is acting swiftly.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Agreed. If they had at least changed the name to "National Gun Association", or something similar, it would be parody, and not impersonation. Now "The Onion" could get away with this, as everyone knows that their publication is satire, but if they created a website without the Onion brand, that would be different.
Cognitive dissonance. They don't want to believe they are racist, but they are. Because everyone is human. And practicing racism is a survival trait. There are parts of Detroit one does not go at night, and it is not because of the "White Super Predators". There are houses with bars everywhere in parts of NYC, and it is not because of "Women Super Predators".
Yes, racist and sexist, if you are not, good luck surviving.
The CDC leaders are on the record with quotes like "We’re going to systematically build a case that owning firearms causes deaths.". These weren't studies, these were cherry-picked propaganda. They had decided on the conclusion, and the only challenge was building the case. They then went on to fund ludicrous studies that confused cause with effect (critics point out that the same methods would show that hospitals cause death, and therefore it is safer to never go to a hospital), cherry picked samples, etc. Basically what any good advocate would do while attempting to affect social change and giving not one fucking hoot for reality. Additionally and more importantly why the fuck should the *center for disease control* be funding gun studies? Shouldn't congress make them spend their money on fucking fighting disease, instead of our constitution?
To be clear, the NRA didn't take down 38,000 websites. Incompetent hosting company took down 38,000 websites.
But like good liberals, you blame something else, instead of the actual culprit.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
That's what these guys do. They sign up for conferences, make fake web sites and do interviews pretending to be these big companies. A lot of their satire that they sound believable and fool a lot of people into thinking they are the real deal, because although they take a completely insane position it's close enough to the real position to be believable.
This campaign is a great example. The NRA says that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. They promote gun ownership as a way to maintain safety. So it's only natural that those who are most likely to be the victims of gun crime should want to protect themselves, and guns being the best protection it's logical for charities to hand them out. It's like giving out free condoms and replacement needles.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You are, of course, completely wrong in every respect.
Gun control laws were put in place to take guns away from black people. Democrats didn't want the blacks to be able to defend themselves when they had lynching parties. Republicans disagreed. (https://www.firearmsandliberty.com/cramer.racism.html)
If you really believe that cops are "out to get" African American people (most cops were I am seem to be African American themselves?), black people having guns is even more important. Cops are a lot more respectful when the suspects and witnesses might be armed but are behaving themselves...
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Is the Chicago Federal DA even bothering to prosecute what would likely be many, many Federal firearms violations (felon with a gun, etc)?
Or is the Obama-Emmanuel-DOJ nexus so strong that they're not bothering with Federal firearms prosecutions because it would look bad for a hard-Democratic city that was the home of the first Black President to have a high rate of prosecution of Black felons? It disrupts the narrative.
The argument is “Do you believe people with AR-15s” can defend against the US military? The answer is yes, no, and it depends. Let’s look at some numbers and assumptions (not perfect I know )
There are about 3M active personal across all branches of the military.
Not all 3M are combat roles. Tooth to tail ratios will come into play.
There are probably around 160M people fighting age (Ages 18 – 65).
There about 12M veterans
The continental US is much larger than Iraq and Afghanistan. This makes logistical support much harder
Defending is a lot harder than attacking.
The unknown of outside powers
Based on the above I believe that the citizens would win. 3M is not a lot of troops to hold a country as large as the US. And holding cities and key infrastructure takes a massive amount of troops, will, and logistical support. Iraq and Afghanistan have clearly shown that a technological inferior enemy can still “win” (think of overall money/lives lost/state of the countries now/etc) and the populations and size of the countries are much smaller.
Then you have tooth to tail rations to think about. If you don’t know what this is it means for a Combat Role (X) there needs to be (Y) amount of support staff for that combat role to be used/be effective. The current ratio for infantry is 1:7. Meaning you need 7 support people for that 1 infantry person to be effective. For fighter plans the ratios are much higher (I have seen figures 1:50. Maintenance, arms, flight planning, etc,).
So let’s say a f-15 pilot (or drone pilot) is ordered to bomb fellow citizens. If the pilot says yes and the support says yes the mission can happen. If the pilot says no and the support says yes the mission can’t happen (who is going to fly the plane the guy who refuels the aircraft?). If the pilot yes and the support says no the mission can’t happen (i.e. that one pilot is not getting the plane all ready to go). If the pilot says yes and not all 50 say yes then the mission can happen but at reduced efficiency.
Also if the military is used on the civilians the question becomes what percentage of the military will obey the order? 100% would not support the order, nor would 100% jump to the other side. So somewhere in between which means the military would be operating at a reduced efficiency. Plus defending something is a lot harder than attacking it. The defenders have to be alert 100% of the time while those attacking only have to be alert when they attack. If the US military is trying to defend a lot of critical infrastructure at once (electric, water, cities, food, ammunition, fuel, etc). The amount of combat troops they will have to launch attacks will be greatly reduced.
Sure you could maybe do conscription but history/data has shown that conscripted troops are less effective and could cause larger parts of the population to turn against you.
Also high tech weaponry (like drones, tanks, HIMARs, etc.) require huge logistical support. Disrupting that support (given size of country, number of civilians, etc) would probably not be as difficult as people think it is. Then you have to think about ROE. A lot would also depend of the ROE used and how evil the government is. Don’t care about your cities/population then artillery/bombing runs/etc. can start to mess up cities at the cost of the people hating you more. Decide the ROE is to spare cities and people then your artillery/bombers/etc are pretty useless.
I think the key comes down to which sides the citizens decide to support. The veterans will be able to provide military experience and tactics for those who oppose the military. The military itself will fracture. And who knows what the outside powers will do? Of course they will get involved but in what fashion (selling arms, sending over troops, taking land, etc).
Holy shit, the video doesn't just claim to be supported by the organization; it contains zero hint that it's a parody, at all. It looks very authentic...
When you can't tell the difference between parody and reality, you have to ask yourself if maybe reality have gotten too crazy...
A casual survey of the first three points shows that:
#1 - is not proved by the CDC study, though they note that youth ownership of guns may lead to antisocial and other negative behaviours (page 38).
#2 - Common may be overstating it. The estimates are between 116k and 2.1 million (page 45). That's such a large variance that I'm not sure it's useful to mention as being 'common'.
#3 - true, but we're still talking about over ten thousand deaths a year in gun-related violence (46k between 2007 and 2011, page 30). Does the percentage really make a difference in this discussion?
I dunno. I think there may have been a bit of interpretation from the original source - Guns and Ammo Magazine.