Why the gun industry should support net neutrality

http://www.guns.com/2017/12/13/why-second-amendment-advocates-should-support-net-neutrality/

by rsingel • 9 years ago

41 30 9 years ago

guns.com

temp-dude-87844• 9 years ago

Presaged by HN user vorpalhex three weeks ago [1].

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

pxeboot• 9 years ago

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.

andrewl• 9 years ago

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• 9 years ago

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?

jogjayr• 9 years ago

Why did they stop all work after that?

I didn't have any knowledge of this before now but apparently the answer might be "fear". The CDC (or more accurately the researchers there) think any gun violence research is a sure way to have your funding cut or career curtailed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/...

Coding_Cat• 9 years ago

It would be consistent with the funding though.

funds made available for injury prevention and control

Say that research shows that more guns => more injuries. It would be reasonable to then hypothesis that gun control could lead to less injuries (injury prevention) and that would bring research into effective methods of gun control into their scope. (and the verification that it leads to less violence).

mturmon• 9 years ago

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...

krapp2• 9 years ago

But they might also try to get laws passed that just benefited their own interests.

The NRA is a gun advocacy group - that's exactly what they would try to do, because that's their purpose.

yjftsjthsd-h3• 9 years ago

It may (hopefully) be easier for them to advocate for things that help everyone else at the same time than to try and only help themselves. One would think it would be harder to only help yourself and not help others than to just help everyone at once, but maybe not.

craftyguy• 9 years ago

Woah, someone quoted me!

Yea, this could certainly go both ways. I picked the 'optimistic' sarcastic scenario instead of the super depressing one you bring up here.

Simon_says2• 9 years ago

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

yjftsjthsd-h3• 9 years ago

Or opinions that ever could become unpopular. Like privacy, you have to defend against the future, too.

njarboe• 9 years ago

Or just people with one or two possible broadband internet providers (80% of Americans?).

caseysoftware2• 9 years ago

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.

zachwood• 9 years ago

Cloudflare isn’t an ISP.

zaarn• 9 years ago

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.

junkscience20173• 9 years ago

this is the inverse: a small minority (tech elites) squelching popular opinion. owning a gun IS objectively popular in the US (there are more guns than people)...even in Silicon Valley. at my current startup roughly half of the developers visit the range regularly. at my local range I always see people with Google and Facebook garb. Bass Pro Shop in San Jose sells out of bulk 9mm ammo within hours of putting it on the floor.

Simon_says2• 9 years ago

there are more guns than people

That statistic is not super relevant when talking about how people feel about guns. Something like one-third of American households have a gun in them, and if you talk about individuals, it'll be modestly less than that.

kthejoker22• 9 years ago

Um no.

3% of Americans own more than half our guns. THEY are an elite group.

Only 22% of Americans own any guns at all.

They really are not popular in any sense of the word.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/09/22/study-guns-ow...

Shivetya• 9 years ago

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-h3• 9 years ago

Pretty sure that would drag them into the purview of the 1st amendment.

hackeraccount• 9 years ago

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• 9 years ago

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• 9 years ago

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.

junkscience20173• 9 years ago

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

krapp2• 9 years ago

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.

junkscience20173• 9 years ago

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

Why the gun industry should support net neutrality

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