
Why the gun industry should support net neutrality - rsingel
http://www.guns.com/2017/12/13/why-second-amendment-advocates-should-support-net-neutrality/
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andrewl
In a previous discussion, user craftyguy said "The NRA would be all behind
this the first time someone reports a 'suboptimal experience' when trying to
access their site to become a member, or order ammo from some random M&P gun
shop."

That's certainly possible. But they might also try to get laws passed that
_just_ benefited their own interests. Like forcing traffic to any gun-related
site to be given high priority based on a convoluted reading of the second
amendment concluding that doing otherwise would be a restriction of gun
rights. I don't see the NRA being generally a friend of free and accessible
information. They have, for instance, lobbied to prevent epidemiological
research into gun violence.

~~~
brians
As I understand it, they’ve only lobbied to prevent biased, underhanded
research: none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control
at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or
promote gun control.

CDC can discover facts and make observations all they like, but is barred from
advocacy. Why did they stop all work after that? Don’t they have any work on
violence and guns that was inquiry rather than advocacy?

~~~
mturmon
This is not a fair summary.

The NRA lobbied Congress in the 1990s, and Congress reduced the CDC budget by
the amount that had been used to study gun related deaths. This resulted in
the CDC no longer funding research relating guns to deaths. Congress has
specifically rejected amendments that would allow such work.

The research that was de-funded was peer reviewed and appeared in the NEJM.

[https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-02/quietly-congress-
exte...](https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-02/quietly-congress-extends-ban-
cdc-research-gun-violence)

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temp-dude-87844
Presaged by HN user vorpalhex three weeks ago [1].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15749774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15749774)

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Shivetya
Net Neutrality or whatever this fantasy name actually implies is more likely
to see the Justice department and the rest of government including other non
elected officials dictate what you will be allowed to do or see. What
protocols down to eventually what countries.

plus we were fine the 15 odd years leading up to the rule change and if
anything it will stagnate high speed internet even more because there will be
zero incentive to try except where they are told to go. like your speed or
not, it will be all you will have because competitors won't have any reason to
try to take down cable or phone companies.

oddly the content providers who will stand against or represent wrongly places
like guns.com and have an outsized influence higher than any cable company
(facebook/google/twitter) are all very much pro government less freedom except
where THEY are concerned. They certainly don't like your pro gun stance

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Pretty sure that would drag them into the purview of the 1st amendment.

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Simon_says
Basically anybody with unpopular opinions or opinions that the powerful fear
should support net neutrality.

~~~
caseysoftware
Except under the current "Net Neutrality" rules, we've seen Cloudflare shut
down Stormfront because the CEO woke up in a bad mood.

If Net Neutrality really worked the way everyone described, it would be great
and I would be all for it.

As is, it appears to be more of a religious mantra instead of an actual
policy.

~~~
zaarn
Cloudflare is not directly an ISP (they do operate their own network and BGP
though, so they are) for this case, rather, they were the hosters and
Stormfront were the customers.

While I'm personally not happy that they killed a site they don't like, the
site was still just a customer and it has nothing to do with Net Neutrality.

~~~
caseysoftware
So if a service provider can take any content offline, it doesn't matter if
ISPs block content or not.

That renders the entire "it protects controversial ideas!" point seems moot.

~~~
kthejoker2
If you self host, no one can take your content offline.

The rules are about distribution not storage.

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pxeboot
Seems like a good idea. Many online services (like PayPal/Facebook/Craigslist)
prohibit firearm and accessory sales, so it's already much more difficult to
do business in this area online.

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hackeraccount
From what I've read Net Neutrality will do anything. The absence of it will
take everything you don't like about interacting with the Internet 10 times
worse. If it's in effect however the everything will be cheaper, faster and
more free then it's possible to imagine.

If it's this simple why are we limiting this line to just networking on the
Internet? Why not car regulation - every car will get 100 mpg, cost $100 and
drive you to a hospital should be the need arise.

~~~
TheDong
The equivalent of "net neutrality" for cars would be "road neutrality"; any
car can drive on any road, regardless what the contents are.

If you have a dog in the back seat, you can still drive on every road. Cat?
Same deal. If you have some railroad tracks in your trunk, which obviously
means you might be competing with the roads, well, you can still drive on
them.

That's the more "honest" comparison.

~~~
mindslight
A more compelling exploration of that analogy would be the state taking land
to build a road through eminent domain, and then selling or long term leasing
to a private company to build a toll road. The corporate owner of that road
then signs an agreement with certain car companies (say Chevy) to have
discounted tolls for that brand of car, while raising tolls on the other
brands to prohibitive levels.

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junkscience2017
The NRA is no longer seen by many gun owners as a pro-2nd amendment org...they
have become a mouthpiece for the gun INDUSTRY and will periodically support
curtailing rights in favor of increased sales for gun manufacturers

I don't know why America thinks gun owners universally support the NRA

~~~
krapp
>I don't know why America thinks gun owners universally support the NRA

The only organization I've ever heard gun owners talk about when also talking
about the second amendment is the NRA, and the NRA is the only organization
known by the general public that claims to speak on behalf of gun owners.

Americans believe it because the NRA has been very successful at branding
itself as the de facto voice of Second Amendment politics, and gun owners
haven't put forth any effective opposition to that.

~~~
junkscience2017
it is true that they dominate the media...but the tide is turning. we need net
neutrality to counter the well-funded and sometimes-anti-2nd-amendment voice
of the NRA

~~~
eigenstuff
They more than dominate the media as the loudest pro-second amendment voice,
they straight up have your elected representatives by the balls and bullied
into submission.

This episode of Fresh Air from a couple months ago about the NRA is pretty
horrifying. [https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555859571/nra-backed-gun-
laws...](https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555859571/nra-backed-gun-laws-have-
found-success-in-state-legislatures-across-the-u-s)

