I think Glenn has distilled a very large amount of insight into gun control strategy and narratives as it affects this issue.
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Glenn E. Meyer The argument is that firearms are purposed primarily as weapons. You use them against people and animals as weapons. Second, their existence as weapons primes aggression in people to use them as such.
Saying they are used for sports (including hunting as a sport) is irrelevant as the 2nd Amend. is not about sport. The target sports are derivative of the weapons usage. Next, the sporting argument was used in Australia and the UK for a reason to have guns. It failed. In the UK, before their ban, the gun sporting organizations used to mock the humanoid targets used in IDPA and IPSC for demonstrating our blood lust.
Here is the 'sporting' use attack on the RKBA from a responsible gun owner -
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/o...tionfront&_r=0
The author is a gun owner in a pleasant and safe enclave in Oregon, who might go hunting. That's the model for the responsible gun owner. No mention of self-defense or defense against tyranny.
Thus, denying the purpose of the firearm is a useless attempt to defend the RKBA. The right exists for them to be weapons. Other activities are side effects.
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I think this is really sage advice on how to understand this whole "I don't object to hunting" or worse yet, "I own firearms for hunting" aspect. Hunting is not a right and it can be denied though basic legislative simple majorities.
Self defense and defense or deterrence of tyranny or illegal tyrannical actions of any authority are the basis for the actual right. And the hunting aspect is also a trend problem in the tactics of defending the right, in that firearms hunting is declining as a portion of primary reason for firearms ownership.
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The goal is an expansion of bans to reduce guns to the responsible gun owner paradigm. Reading various sources and watching commentators - we hear:
....2. The problem is that we have 300 million guns and we need an Australian buy back (confiscatory in nature).
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It is interesting that it is not just raw numbers of guns they wish to reduce, but are now explicit in wanting laws that reduce otherwise qualified persons with access to the RTKB as a stated goal. I really think this is something Gura saw in the opposition arguments in Wrenn and Grace and which he framed as a "rights rationing" regime being argued by DC and its amici.
http://michellawyers.com/wp-content/....8.2016_40.pdf
In terms of the long term goal, we are less than ten years from every gun control lobby organization of note taking the position that any jurisdiction can completely ban handguns, ban even revolvers from people who can show or obtain a large threshold of training, citizens and legal permanent residents who pass not just basic 4473 NICS, but fingerprint based background checks, hold for wait period, and keep their firearm in a safe. Even under all those conditions it was argued that even revolvers could be banned with simple majority of a state or cities government. I'm not inclined to paint all with the same brush, but it looks like they all painted themselves. Were there any gun control organizations that did not support that full ban, no matter what, in amicus, testimony, press releases or statements of support for DC in Heller?
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The argument is that their mere existence causes harm. The aggression hypothesis is debatable in the scientific literature and the devil is in the details
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Yes this per se harm to 'population health" (an expansion on "public health' now used in a lot of paternalistic legislative initiative) was also something to justify reduction/rationing that I think Gura was ready to go after in SCOTUS. As you note the hypothesis in both gun crime to defensive gun use ratios and "elevated aggression" in the individual is debatable. But you can see from the material being promulgated that these are major themes.
On aggression from seeing an image of a gun or handling one, the methodology of measures of aggression get really funny. They remind me of "measures of aggression" elevated in children who eat meat on the bone. What often is measured is docility in the face of random commands from authority. Peer reviewed work shows children eating meat on a bone are "more aggressive" -- if you measure the aggression as compliance to arbitrary commands to stay within a 9' circle for 30 minutes. Frankly this seems a measure of mindless docility and deference to even absurd authority in kids who do obey.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....act_id=2425389
On the "weapons effect" in other words the thesis that presence of guns is itself a per se
stimulus, of the 50 studies I have looked at, they do not control for legal gun owners, non gun owners, and illegal gun owners. Hemenway's 2006 study on road rage and guns in cars doesn't even properly control for gender which is the huge elevation,nor does it control for the fact that gun owners who tell a anonymous person calling for a survey, that they drive aggressively may simply be a cohort more reflective and honest and open to reflecting to strangers.
As far as the NRA and bump stock specifically, I think rational people can see this both ways. We can see different aspects legal issue, the poltical tactics and counter tactic on what legislation may arise, and the different aspects of public perceptions given the Las Vegas massacre. Yes the slippery slope exists, the is no fallacy in pointing out its danger since incrementalism is demonstrated strategy of the other side. Certainly the Feinstein language opening it up to anything that increases rate of fire blurring the mostly bright lines between semi, select and full auto is unacceptable.
That said, my feeling is both public perceptions and defensibility of elected officials aligning with NRA matter more in the overall picture. NRA makes mistakes but this is more likely to be a very good tactic on their part. It deflects away from unfairly making the NRA, and all of us, the punching bag and has disoriented the gun control lobby lashing out in way no one would ash out against the ACLU if a person out of confinement due to ACLU driven lower thresholds on institutionalization commits a mass murder.
Sorry to be longwinded but I have been in DC for a fairly long while, and been both an LA on the receiving end, and in public affairs adovacy as professional end. Although not at directly dealing with in Second Amendment rightsh I did sit in on a lot of meetings with Bloomberg's people when I was on the hill). NRA is a an actual grassroots organization. That is both legitimate -- and messy -- even if some aspects are top-down. Its opponents are all top-down astroturf with a bunch of lucre for both a much larger processional adovacy footprint and money for races.
The biggest win for the gun control lobby would be creating divisions among NRA and its consistency. United opinions don't have to be present, but united front is a good idea. The long game is what matters.