ACLU goes to bat for NRA First Amendment rights (check your calendar - it is not April 1st)

[The Heretic]

NRA finds surprising ally in ACLU for Supreme Court challenge to NY blacklist allegation

The NRA is fighting a case to prove New York state overstepped when an official allegedly coerced businesses and banks into cutting ties with the controversial organization.

www.foxnews.com

NRA and ACLU Teaming up on the First Amendment in NRA v. Vullo

I'm delighted to report (as Adam Liptak wrote in today's New York Times) that the ACLU will be representing the...

reason.com

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[monkeybutler]

Sometimes they do something right.

 

[Knobgoblin]

Idk

 

[Stomper]

Sometimes they do something right.

I suspect it's more like a CYA move for WHEN (not if) the political pendulum eventually swings back the other way….

 

[Yarome]

They posted, "An anti-gun organization defending an organization that doesn't support the 2nd Amendment" ????

I don't get it. Since when doesn't the NRA support the 2nd amendment?

For that matter.... their stated goal is to, "defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". How can they then be "an anti-gun organization"??

Call me confused....

 

[Croat]

They posted, "An anti-gun organization defending an organization that doesn't support the 2nd Amendment" ????

I don't get it. Since when doesn't the NRA support the 2nd amendment?

For that matter.... their stated goal is to, "defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". How can they then be "an anti-gun organization"??

Call me confused....

The answer seems clear enough, even though I am hazarding a guess. My guess is that the ACLU has of late been falling short of new revenue. There is nothing like a lack of cash to cause an institution, or individual for that matter, to be self-reflective regarding their behavior. Trying to curry favor with "the other side" seems a crafty little way to begin making revenue inroads that were formerly closed to them.

 

[CamoDeafie]

They posted, "An anti-gun organization defending an organization that doesn't support the 2nd Amendment" ????

I don't get it. Since when doesn't the NRA support the 2nd amendment?

For that matter.... their stated goal is to, "defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". How can they then be "an anti-gun organization"??

Call me confused....

Who was it that was all in on Clinton AWB and the 1986 MG ban and 1989 CA AWCA and the GCA 1968?

 

[Yarome]

The answer seems clear enough, even though I am hazarding a guess. My guess is that the ACLU has of late been falling short of new revenue. There is nothing like a lack of cash to cause an institution, or individual for that matter, to be self-reflective regarding their behavior. Trying to curry favor with "the other side" seems a crafty little way to begin making revenue inroads that were formerly closed to them.

I get what the NRA is doing and can make for strange bed fellows, but essentially... they are going to pay the ACLU butt loads of money to defend the NRA's 1A rights... so they can better afford to fight for stricter gun control laws... seems to be the net result.

Or I'm just missing the point.

 

[Ura-Ki]

 

[gmerkt]

It's been a while ago, but didn't the ACLU defend the 1A rights of American Nazis in Chicago? Not making comparisons. I don't think the Nazis had any money to pay out. Those kinds of principles are rare in public policy organizations.

 

[Yarome]

It's been a while ago, but didn't the ACLU defend the 1A rights of American Nazis in Chicago? Not making comparisons. I don't think the Nazis had any money to pay out. Those kinds of principles are rare in public policy organizations.

It still seems like it's just for "show" to keep their organization "relevant"(?) If they were that principled then they would take 2A cases too... seeing how it's just as much protected activity under the constitution as free speech is. The whole... "we fight for civil liberties, but only the ones we agree with" policy? I can't stand hypocrites.

Regardless, it does send a very strong message to politicians when 2 organizations fundamentally opposed to each other in many regards can stand together... simply because the gooberment has gone THAT far over the line... they must!

 

[OldBroad44]

It's been a while ago, but didn't the ACLU defend the 1A rights of American Nazis in Chicago? Not making comparisons. I don't think the Nazis had any money to pay out. Those kinds of principles are rare in public policy organizations.

Yes. ACLU did/does support the right of American individuals and groups to express verbal opinions that probably 100% of the members of ACLU find abhorent, and has done so with respect to Nazis. Free speech is not when you are allowed to say stuff that everyone including the government agrees with and approves of. Its when you can say things that many or most people consider immoral or abhorent.

I belonged to ACLU back in the 70s. It did great work in the 60s and before in fighting apartheid laws applied to African Americans. ACLU has always been antigun as far as I know. That is, the opinion of most members is that 2A is all about rights of Americans actively serving in militias, and does not confer any rights to individuals at all. However, while ACLU did not spend its time or money supporting 2A, it also did not spend its time or money fighting 2A. ACLU's job is to fight when citizens are being denied constitutionally guaranteed rights. Not to try to reduce Americans rights when the federal or state governments allow more rights than ACLU thinks the Constitution requires as the minimum. I quit ACLU decades ago. The major work of getting the apartheid laws changed was over. It seemed to me that the additional changes needed with respect to discrimination against backs are at other levels than the laws themselves.

NRA undoubted will not be pouring money into ACLU. NRA is bankrupt. That's not how it works anyway.

ACLU will be supporting NRA, but not 2A with their involvement. The case is not about 2A. What happened was NY officials behind the scenes using their power to regulate banks and financial institutions, intimidated those institutions into cutting off NRA's access to financial services. So ACLU is supporting NRA's suit against the NY and the NY government officials who secretly used their power to regulate banks to get NRA blacklisted by financial institutions. That is, NY officials caused NRA to lose access to financial services because they disagreed with NRA's stated positions. And they were able to do this by threaten the banks by their position as bank regulators.ACLU's position is that the government regulators should not use their power to regulate as a way of attacking organizations such as NRA whose opinions they disagree with. And doing so reoresents the NY government violating the right of NRA to free speech.

I wonder how many of the banks and credit card companies cutting off access to the services for gun transactions are because they decided themselves and how many because they were intimidated into antigun positions by government bank regulators.

 

[nammac]

Me thinks we have entered the end times, dogs and cats sleeping together…. I honestly never thought I would live to see the day that these two organizations would be involved in this manner…

Hell hath truly frozen over….

 

[P7M13]

Hell hath truly frozen over….

Time to make snow cones

 

[Yarome]

I really do hope something good comes from the unholy union, but both of the organizations are so shady... and in the case of the NRA... it's hard to look past the fact that a threat to their financials is likely a leading motivating factor in deciding to take this kind of action. Pretty convenient, hu!?

Then again... mushrooms are delicious and they bloom from sh*t, too. Who's to judge?

 

[PiratePast40]

Rather leery of this. How long before they're representing university presidents defending genocidal speech. Just because advocating that killing all Jews is unconscionable, abhorrent, and immoral, doesn't necessarily make some feel that it is protected speech. Will Hamas, Hezbollah, and ISIS be the next plaintiffs?

Is the NRA getting trolled hard by the ACLU?

 

[CamoDeafie]

Rather leery of this. How long before they're representing university presidents defending genocidal speech. Just because advocating that killing all Jews is unconscionable, abhorrent, and immoral, doesn't necessarily make some feel that it is protected speech. Will Hamas, Hezbollah, and ISIS be the next plaintiffs?

Is the NRA getting trolled hard by the ACLU?

Good question, at what point does Freedom of Speech turn into dangerous, seditious Speech?

Who decides? Will Christian Speech be determined to be dangerous and seditious by a government eventually?

Will Speech extolling the benefits of a smaller, decentralized Fed government with less power.. be the same as hate speech?

 

[gmerkt]

I wonder how many of the banks and credit card companies cutting off access to the services for gun transactions are because they decided themselves and how many because they were intimidated into antigun positions by government bank regulators.

NOT based on principles as per the ACLU, rather based on the shifting sands of public opinion and political policy. Not to mention the Benjamins.

 

[ma96782]

From the article.

The group made clear that it does not support the NRA or its mission, but that it also did not support public officials abusing their power to blacklist an organization "just because they oppose an organization's political views."

In other words.....only SOME of the Bill of Rights is worth protecting?

Aloha, Mark

 

[Croat]

From the article.

In other words.....only SOME of the Bill of Rights is worth protecting?

Aloha, Mark

When the NRA was founded in 1871 in the wake of the Civil War, and after seeing how terrible marksmanship proved during that conflict (Union estimates were 1,000 rounds fired for every hit on an enemy combatant*), Union veterans Colonel William Church and General George Wingate formed the NRA with the following mission: "Promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis." Kind of interesting that the ACLU would stand opposed to the NRA's mission.

*Even if 1,000/hit is valid, the accuracy of Civil War weapons no doubt contributed to that deplorable ratio as much as just marksmanship, but I digress...