Marion Hammer, the woman we can thank for the modern NRA mess

Roxxsmom

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This AM, I caught a radio interview with Mike Spies, who wrote this article on Hammer for the New Yorker.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/the-nra-lobbyist-behind-floridas-pro-gun-policies

Hammer is the reason Florida has laws like Stand Your Ground and a policy that forbids local politician from passing gun laws that are stricter than the statewide laws. She's also considered to be the most influential gun lobbyist in the US. She's the reason gun culture has shifted in the US since the 80s, where any kind of sensible regulation of gun ownership at all has become impossible.

From this office, Hammer has shepherded laws into existence that have dramatically altered long-held American norms and legal principles. In the eighties, she crafted a statute that allows anyone who can legally purchase a firearm to carry a concealed handgun in public, as long as that person pays a small fee for a state-issued permit and completes a rudimentary training course. The law has been duplicated, in some form, in almost every state, and more than sixteen million Americans now have licenses to carry a concealed handgun.

In the early two-thousands, Hammer created the country’s first Stand Your Ground self-defense law, authorizing the use of lethal force in response to a perceived threat. Some two dozen states have adopted a version of Stand Your Ground, giving concealed-carry permit holders wide discretion over when they can shoot another person.

In a recent book, “Engines of Liberty,” David Cole, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, devoted an admiring chapter to Hammer and the N.R.A. As recently as 1988, Cole notes, a federal court maintained that “for at least 100 years [courts] have analyzed the second amendment purely in terms of protecting state militias, rather than individual rights.” The subsequent shift toward individual rights can be traced back to Hammer. “Florida is often the first place the N.R.A. pursues specific gun rights protections,” Cole explains, “relying on Hammer and her supporters to set a precedent that can then be exported to other states.”

Obviously, one person can't lead people where they absolutely don't want to go, but it's amazing what dedication and persistence can do when paired with an understanding of how to present one's arguments to those who are most receptive.

One question I have is whether it is possible for someone who isn't coming from a place of fear an intolerance to have such an influence.
 
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MaeZe

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One question I have is whether it is possible for someone who isn't coming from a place of fear an intolerance to have such an influence.
Unfortunately fear mongering and intolerance have been harnessed into weapons. And they have been for much of human history.

Not sure how to change that.
 

Kjbartolotta

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One question I have is whether it is possible for someone who isn't coming from a place of fear an intolerance to have such an influence.

I am quite certain this is possible, current feels is that it's not particularly easy. And I worry about people on the left who might adopt or try to play into these tactics. Not that I wouldn't appreciate a little more savviness or the adoption of time-tested emotional hydraulics. But it concerns me.
 

Roxxsmom

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I am quite certain this is possible, current feels is that it's not particularly easy. And I worry about people on the left who might adopt or try to play into these tactics. Not that I wouldn't appreciate a little more savviness or the adoption of time-tested emotional hydraulics. But it concerns me.

I've often questioned whether it's really true that conservatives are more fearful than liberals. I think conservatives and liberals are afraid of different things, but both have plenty of fear. One of the differences is that conservatives appear to be more afraid of bodily harm at the hands of strangers. This is probably why they have been particularly receptive to arguments by the gun lobby that any form of restriction is a violation of the precious freedom to defend themselves. They also appear to be more afraid of an unknown future and of change in unfamiliar directions, where traditional institutions and norms (like religion) will hold less sway, or change beyond recognition. There was something really ugly that surfaced after 911, as if multiculturalism and tolerance became the scapegoat for the destruction of the Twin Towers. The reaction in some quarters to the election of our first Black POTUS also showed us how deeply racism and Xenophobia still run in America. These feelings are likely based on fear.

Liberals appear to be more afraid of discrimination and of losing certain kinds of personal or physical freedoms and choices. When I was young, I was terrified of the Reagan revolution and what it could mean for my future and my personal plans if they got their way re women's rights and reproductive freedom. I was aware of the inequalities that still existed, and wanted to move forward towards full equality for all, and mainstream society was trying to return to an earlier set of norms. May on the left are more afraid of going back to an era when our second class citizenship was a given and when a very narrow range of behavior and choices were permissible and normalized. I was (and am) also scared of the backlash against environmentalism and what that meant. Liberals are more afraid of environmental change, and ironically, conservatives accuse them of fear mongering on that front.

But for whatever reason, the fear of change in an unknown direction seems to be a more powerful political force right now than the fear of going back to an era that was truly unjust for most people. And environmental change seem to be too abstract and nebulous a concept to garner a sustained fear reaction in most people, at least so far.

Mind you, I'd hate to see the Left stoop to the same kind provocation of malignant fear and anger that the Right has been so successful with. I want an appeal to reason and rationality, and an appeal to peoples' better nature, to carry the day in elections. It seems to work sometimes. Obama got elected, after all. But is this feasible right now?
 
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