NRA created secret gun database on millions of gun owners

reply to post by antar


As a matter of fact, there have been stories on here about the very elaborate and expensive system the NSA/Gov has set up in the Postal hubs to scan and photograph every piece of mail, front and back. That gives them the index to match sender/receiver in ways to tell ALL KINDS of things about people when it comes down to it. It's mind boggling.

@ Thread

When private sector does it, it's marketing and business. Anyone here could do the same themselves and nothing would be wrong about that unless the sources being drawn from expressly prohibit it.

When the Government does it, we have Constitutional issues to get addressed and those do, by their very nature, apply to Government and NOT the Private Sector as a general rule. So indeed.. Obama would be roasted if he did something like it and the NRA is not. It's how that is supposed to work.

Having said that, I wouldn't send another dime to the NRA if their whole organization would be saved by it. They've worked at cross purposes with other 2nd amendment groups like the GOA and 2nd Amendment Foundation to sour me. They also DO spend more effort fundraising than actually helping folks, in my opinion.

reply to post by wrabbit2000


Yea, cause the Government hasn't violated the constitution at all lately.
Sounds kinda funny when i hear that they have, CONSTANTLY, on ATS.

Are you frackin kidding me?

The US Constitution are Rights afforded to you for protection "AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT"!

The last time I checked the NRA does not have the power to arrest you, subpoena you, tax you, regulate you, make you buy health insurance, seize your property!

My God the Obama Government Boot Licking going on here is scary!

People so willing to give away their rights - its like Nazi Germany 1932!

reply to post by BABYBULL24


No, but the Politicians they back can and do have that power, the NRA is after all one of the most powerful political lobbies in the US.

Gimme break - they are a private organization.

I mean they don't own the IRS do they???
Your buddy Obama does!

You can't vote out the IRS who harrasses private citizens for their political beliefs but you can vote out any politician for theirs!

Anyone who equates the NRA with the power of the Federal Government is a complete moron!

reply to post by Thorneblood


Gun shows host legitimate firearms dealers in most cases. If you buy a gun at a gun show the business that sold it to you are just as liable. Most are just gun shops that took some of their business on the road.

However if you purchased from a private dealer that is different entirely.

What does this have to do with the NRA supposedly keeping a gun registry?

Originally posted by Thorneblood
reply to post by BABYBULL24

 

No, but the Politicians they back can and do have that power, the NRA is after all one of the most powerful political lobbies in the US.

Wanna know where the NRA stands as the "most powerful political lobbies"?

Here is a hint the "Big Oil", "Big Pharma", "Big Old People", "Big Arga", "Big Defense Complex", "Big Tech" and "Big Mining" lobbies all fall before the NRA.

In 2011, the AARP, in contrast to the NRA, spent $22 million (the NRA? $7 million) -- yeah, fear that scary gun lobby who is overshadowed by old people who have more influence over your every day life than the gun-lobby could ever hope for.

Originally posted by Thorneblood
reply to post by wrabbit2000

 

Yea, cause the Government hasn't violated the constitution at all lately.
Sounds kinda funny when i hear that they have, CONSTANTLY, on ATS.

What has the fact the Gov't has or has not violated the Constitution got to do with the difference between private sector marketing and illegal spying? I miss your point?

With very limited exceptions, records of firearm sales are not maintained at the federal level. The National Firearms Act Branch of ATF does maintain a limited registry of machine guns, short-barreled shotguns or rifles, and silencers, known as the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.2

1. States that Require Sellers to Retain Firearm Sales Records: Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia require sellers to maintain sales records reflecting the identity of the purchaser and the firearm purchased.
a. States that Require Sellers to Retain Sales Records of All Firearms
Licensed Dealers: California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee and the District of Columbia require licensed dealers to maintain records of sales of all firearms. Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Tennessee and the District of Columbia do not specify the period of retention. Retention periods in the other states range from three to twenty years.
Private Sellers: Private sellers in Illinois and Rhode Island are also required to maintain records of sales of all firearms. In California and the District of Columbia, all firearm transfers must be conducted through licensed dealers, thereby ensuring that the recordkeeping requirements on licensed dealers will include records of private sales.67

So gun shows, which was clearly mentioned in the article, sell their info to the NRA.

And its obvious the records do exist, and in some cases will be handed over to the DA, who is going to store them where? In the county hall of records where the NRA is buying its information from.

I am not scared of the gun lobby, nor do i have any love for Obama. All i am trying to establish is the potential for all of these records to be passed over or sold to the NRA to form their database including records of where you live and what guns you own specifically.

Now, when you take a gun safety course whose gun are you going to use?
Yours or the Instructors?

Here's where this thread stands.

It is complete nonsense. Because the NRA keeping a mailing list just as any other business does in the USA does not make a gun registry.

The whole thread either based on ignorance or extreme fear mongering and left wing fantasy is only meant to scare or mislead and has no basis in truth whatsoever.

For the NRA to have a gun registry they would have to pull off a major feat, one that the us federal government can't even pull off. That is the confiscation of all firearms sales for a period of well over 50 years, good luck with that!

There is nothing to see here, move along.

reply to post by txinfidel


The NRA doesn't ask for serial numbers, how many you have, what kinds etc etc.

If the NRA has a gun registry then the whole worlds going up in flames when someone acts on it, because their information is speculation at best.

Originally posted by Thorneblood
So gun shows, which was clearly mentioned in the article, sell their info to the NRA.

And most likely, until you can prove otherwise, at the behest of those who relinquished said information willingly. Your data, your email, your phone number, your everything is sold to many degrees and guess what? It is all legit because you agreed to it somewhere; fine print and all. What is your point?

reply to post by CB328


OP trying to hard to be clever. It is not the same thing.. if you have to have it explained to you...

that will do pig that will do.

You are all assuming that the NRA doesn't have the exact information that you don't want the government to have stored in its database, a database that is computer based and easily accessed by the NSA. An agency that has been spying on Americans for years in the same time frame that the NRA has been collecting its information.

You all assume its just a mailing list, but a mailing list like this would be useless to them unless they had just the information you don't want the government to have in order to make it effective.

The potential for abuse here is massive, especially since right wing conservatives want a conservative in the White House in the next election and may very well pull it off. If said Conservative wants or needs to form a National Gun Registry all they have to do is ask the NRA, who WILL give it to them without question because anytime a GOP Candidate wants something everyone who doesn't fall in line is immediately branded a traitor.

People scream about this all the time and when its shown that it is in fact possible, even if its only remotely possible, they will already be more then half way there.

But hey ignore the possibility, pretend i am some liberal obama loving dick if you want.

When it happens, just don't pretend that it hasn't been in the works for years behind the scenes while everyone was looking the other way.

This is a Conspiracy website, but i must be the crazy one to see that this is a conspiracy in motion.

Only time will tell.

reply to post by Thorneblood


I can tell you for a fact it doesn't.

I am not a member of the NRA just like your not some Obama loving ds.

Their records, if they ever did supply them to the government is half baked which will assume casualties on both sides. But that kind of miscalculation will lose everything they have going for them. Everything.

reply to post by Thorneblood


You are assuming that it does have the data we fear.....your assumption is no better than others, but you come off, because it is a thread you think you can relate to and bond over, that you have the upper hand. In reality, the OP's link and the subsequent article, provide no further facts other than what we all have been speculating on. Yet you have taken it as the truth of mankind, the messianic word of Christ, its Word shall not be challenged; I am sure you get the point.

reply to post by txinfidel


Unless something truly terrible like Sandy Hook happens again and enough people start screaming for the registry.

How many people said for years the government was spying on them only to hear, oh that can't happen.

How many people said since the beginning of the Benghazi scandal that it was all just a smoke screen, yet here we are two years later and it turns out its true.

This would be how it starts. When no one is looking they will bend the laws and skirt the constitution until its all in place. Then its just a matter of staging the right event, get enough innocent blood on it and everyone will jump in line and plead for it only this time the very group that was preaching that there shouldn't be a registry will be the one group who already has it and will happily hand over to further their own agenda.

Listen Chief - when the NRA has jack booted door kickers, armored personnel carriers, drones in the sky, check points, the power to render a US Citizen to any country or prison in the world without legal counsel - then I will worry.

As far as I know they have a mailing list with mass mailing power...yeesh your really brainwashed.

reply to post by Thorneblood


They aren't just going to have a gun registry all the sudden. They have to go out and get it, which means they will have to fire upon Americans to get it.

reply to post by BABYBULL24


Do you really think a GOP President won't have that same power in 3 years?

Look at whats going on around us, hell look at the killing of that australian kid or the recent gunman in the school in georgia. How many more of these incidents will take place before the next election. How bad can it get before the people want some form of gun control? Do you think that the GOP has a shot in hell in winning the next election if they don't at least pander to that group?

And if it's really bad, if it absolutely has to be done, then who is the one group that has the most information on American gun owners?

They are buying up state and country records and have been for years yet any other group that would even try that would be crucified in the media.

They have been collecting information from gun shows and gun training schools for years. If any group besides the NRA was monitoring millions of gun enthusiasts that closely people would start a # storm.

Why is it so hard to believe that the information they have gathered includes the kind of weapons you have when they are already going to get your name and address just by joining the NRA and being put on their "mailing list"?

What other purposes could their database serve?

Gun sales and NRA membership spiked just after Sandy Hook when it was feared that they were going to take away assault weapons, and while the NRA was denouncing any attempts to collect information on the guns americans have they were quietly buying up that information and loading it all into a computer.

The NRA won’t say how many names and what other personal information is in its database, but former NRA lobbyist Richard Feldman estimates they keep tabs on “tens of millions of people.”

Some data collection efforts are commonplace in politics these days, such as buying information from data brokers on magazine subscriptions and the like.

But several observers said the NRA’s methods reflect a sophistication and ingenuity that is largely unrivaled outside of major national presidential campaigns. While the organization took great umbrage in December when a newspaper published the names and addresses of gun owners in two New York counties, the group for years has been gathering similar information via the same public records as a matter of course.

Complementing this practice is the mining of data on the thousands who take gun safety classes from NRA-certified instructors. Arulanandam said there are 97,000 of them, a figure that impressed Quinn as a larger “army of organizers” than Obama had.

In some states, those ranks are propelled by laws that specify that taking classes from NRA-certified instructors in order to obtain permits or licenses. In 2011, for instance, the Iowa legislature added such a provision.

Yet nowadays those classes are also an important way of adding information about gun owners to the database, Weisser said.

“After people take a class, then you as an instructor can send all their names to Washington and you get credit for that,” Weisser said. “If you can show you’ve taught enough classes, you can move up in the hierarchy as an NRA trainer.”

Moving up in the hierarchy can mean being licensed to teach more types of gun safety classes and being able to charge more, he said.

“If I send the class roster in, the NRA starts sending information to these people to either join the NRA or to support NRA positions,” he said. “In many of the classes, at some point, somebody will get up to give a pitch to join the NRA. Most trainers will also hand out the member application for NRA.”