Defensive Carry banner

Equating MADD with "mothers against guns"

3K views 42 replies 28 participants last post by  Exacto 
#1 ·
OK, disclaimer time: I listen to NPR in the morning. I've got some good credibility filters, so I usually know if what I'm hearing is slanted. But let me proceed.

This morning I heard a female voice on NPR saying "we need to work against gun violence like MADD worked against drunk drivers."

I thought about that for a few moments before concluding that that's a pretty good idea. Let's look at what MADD achieved:

- In nearly all states, the MADD influence reduced the threshhold of intoxication from 0.01% BAL to 0.08%.

- Penalties for DUI/DWI have generally become more harsh.

- There are fewer "get out of jail free" cards for first-time offenders.

- Many states make DUI/DWI offenses felonies now, not just misdemeanors.

- My gut feeling is that there are more people finding Designated Drivers or cab rides home after a night of partying with alcohol.

So here's my take on that, and how we need to be aware of what MADD achieved and how they achieved it:

- There were no pre-emptory or statutory confiscations of automobiles based on size, weight, or horsepower.

- No bars or restaurants (= sources for alcohol consumption) were denied their right to conduct business; there were no limits placed on an individual's alcohol consumption.

- No liquor stores had their sales recorded, and purchases were not limited in any way.

- No legal limits were placed on how much alcohol an individual could possess at home, nor were storage requirements mandated.

Thus all the gains with which MADD succeeded were based on actual behaviors, not a "chance" or "possibility" or a restriction based on a "potential" danger to society.

And a lot of MADD's success was based on drawing attention to the problems with drunk drivers, not alcohol sales.

Would not the same approach be beneficial in our cause? MADD addressed the behaviors and not the substance. Nationwide, we've got over 20,000 gun laws, but it turns out that few are actually enforced. Gun charges are frequently hard to prove and are near the top of the list to be plea-bargained down to lesser offenses. That's the type of situation we need to highlight!

I welcome your thoughts on the subject.
 
See less See more
#43 ·
That's asking a little too much. She would actually have to think in orded to do that.
 
#21 ·
Notice MADD wasn't "Mothers Against Alcohol" it was "Mothers Against Drunk Drivers." Not ALL drivers, not cars, and not booze...but Drunk Drivers.
Maybe in the beginning, but now MADD has very much morphed into a temperance movement. If you can't give your kid even a little bit of alcohol at dinner, very likely MADD was behind that legislation. And they're still trying to push BAC levels down, to 0.05% or below, which would functionally prohibit drinking of any amount before driving.
 
#7 ·
Spot on. MADD went after the crime, detection and ways to deter. Anti-gunners go after the tool. While no group is perfect and I don't agree with all things MADD has pushed for, anti-gunners could learn much from MADD on rational response to practical change in a free society we intend to remain free.
 
#30 ·
Spot on. MADD went after the crime, detection and ways to deter. Anti-gunners go after the tool. While no group is perfect and I don't agree with all things MADD has pushed for, anti-gunners could learn much from MADD on rational response to practical change in a free society we intend to remain free.
Bolded part will never happen.
 
#9 ·
One thing they did that was very effective was to have representatives sit in courtrooms during proceedings related to drunk driving. They then reported and got the word out on lenient sentencing by judges. The judges responded to the pressure. Something like this would work well in cases involving violent crime.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gasmitty
#11 ·
Excellent and insightful. It has to be about going after the illegal possession, felon in possession, and
others appropriately prohibited in ways that will actually prohibit or deter.

However, as a one time active (activist) member of our local MADD, I found I had to quit because many
wanted to impose procedures and penalties which either stepped on individual rights or punished excessively.

The goal was worthy but the methods some pushed were unworthy.

So, e.g., MADD supports (or has supported in the past ) sobriety check points. Would anyone here want illegal gun
random check points? Just pull cars over, check the car for weapons and check that the driver may have them?

I sort of doubt that is how we would want to do things, though I know there are many states which do allow
sobriety checkpoints and some which have played with general stop and frisk law enforcement.

Would we want harsh penalties for minor infractions? In many instances MADD has cheered on such practices
as charging a person with drunk driving simply because they were found sleeping it off behind the wheel-- but not
actually driving the vehicle. IT makes a certain sense to do it, but it isn't always right because sometimes it punishes
someone who is actually trying to do the right thing.

So you've been pulled over and ordered to do the sobriety check; do we want our hands swabbed for gun powder
after a traffic infraction?

The best thing MADD has done is publicize the problem and urge people to behave properly--- including bar tenders
and restaurant workers who serve alcohol.

Can we get gun buyers to act responsibly in terms of what they purchase, how much they purchase, how they store it all,
and can we get gun stores to act responsibly in terms of denial of sales to some, NICS results notwithstanding?

Conceptually I think Gasmitty is on to something. But, just as MADD ran into that fine line separating personal
freedom and rights from legitimate law enforcement, we would run into that as well. In fact, that point in legal space
is the intersect of much of our inability to deal with the nuts and the druggies and the gang members.
 
#24 ·
In many instances MADD has cheered on such practices
as charging a person with drunk driving simply because they were found sleeping it off behind the wheel-- but not
actually driving the vehicle. IT makes a certain sense to do it, but it isn't always right because sometimes it punishes
someone who is actually trying to do the right thing.
I don't see any sense to it. Somebody sleeping in a parked car isn't driving, ergo they shouldn't be charged with drunk driving. Penalizing people for doing the right thing is incredibly stupid. Law should have incentives to do the right thing, not disincentives.

Instead of just sleeping it off in the car, knowing they could still get a DUI charge they'll try to drive home, increasing the danger to everyone else. That's the kind of intended consequence a temperance movement would shoot for. The goal is to maximize the penalty for drinking per se, reducing danger to others is secondary and can be sacrificed to the primary goal.
 
#12 ·
Nice analysis and comparison. I'm fine, overall, with what MADD has done to help reduce drunk driving. The focus needs to be on the criminals, not the objects they use to commit crimes.
 
#13 ·
If only the antis would "... work against gun violence like MADD worked against drunk drivers." MADD worked by demonizing the action, the actor, but not the means.

The antis don't do that. If they did we might have a better chance. They go against the means.

And MADD is such a clever name... MAD. Everyone should be MAD about drunk drivers. Then they had an offshoot... SADD... Students Against Drunk Drivers. Who isn't SAD about the loss of life caused by drunk drivers?

The names WORK.

I'm PACKed about gun violence.... errrr, no... I'm PACMUGed over the senseless loss of life.... (And really, I'm not disparaging the attempt at coining an acronym). And just to be fair... MAIG (Mayors against Illegal Guns) and its DAP (Demand A Plan)... don't fall trippingly off the tongue, either. But you have to admit that "Demand A Plan" the statement, is pretty darned good.

But I am hoping to point out that we need PROFESSIONAL PUBLIC RELATIONS folks to work our campaign. We have spent the money with the NRA the GOA, and all the rest... They have the same goals we do... And, they need to team up and hire the best and the brightest to make slogans. To present a concise, catchy, "clean" message for our constitutional rights.

Our "brave new world" is one of sound bites, and twitter which used to limit you to 140 characters, and HOPE and CHANGE, and FORWARD....

What do we got?

"Shall Not Be Infringed." Well, it's concise. But. it's old. I love it.... but it doesn't "compute."

We've got

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
Well, that works, a bit... But one sentence that says "gun," twice = too many guns.

Maybe most of us don't SEE our problem in the same way I do... And my frustration right now, is that I can't think of any way to get our message out, so that it seems a "no brainer." And believe me, when dealing with the antis, we need a "no brainer."
 
#14 ·
It's not the TOOL, it's the FOOL. HAHA Interesting post, with a lot of possibilities. Now if we could convince someone to take it and run with it, right? Maybe the OP could tailor a letter to the NRA and/or GOA to get them thinking along the same lines, in case they aren't.
 
#16 ·
Not a fan of MADD - they've lost their way. When their founder, Candy Lightner, left in 1985 she said MADD had "...become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned... I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving". She has stated that the current goal of MADD is to reduce the DUI blood alcohol level to zero (BTW, the AMA originally suggested 0.15%.) They also successfully petitioned the courts to allow searches in violation of the 4th Amendment.

I wouldn't want a similar group "helping" in the violent crime area.
 
#18 ·
And THAT truth is a fantastic simile...

Onerous gun control measures have been a nearly complete failure and certainly haven't stopped mass murder (Columbine, Norway)... Prohibition of guns entirely has been proven to increase violent crime (In Australia and the UK).

But I do want to see gun crime punished. Even more so than drunk driving.
 
#20 ·
One Million Moms Lobby For Gun Control



One "million moms for gun control" is the groups latest buzz name for "mothers against guns." If you listen to the video she regurgitates the Obama party line on gun control. And around 3:30 she eludes to MM4GC modeling themselves after MADD.

Also there is MAGV ("Mothers Against Gun Violence"), their slogan is "Guns Don't Kill People, People Who Like guns Kill People." On their facebook page, they voice their creed.

We've had enough! The hand that rocks the cradle can change the world - just look at Mothers Against Drunk Driving and see what a difference they have made. Please "Like" this page and join the discussion to end gun violence that kills our children at school, at the movies, in the mall, and on the streets. I believe we can make a difference through:
1. Public Policy
2. Personal Attentiveness
3. Perpetual Vigilance.
One of their solutions on facebook inclue the following:

What if there were a 2-year mandatory buy-back program for semi-automatic (and fully automatic, as well) weapons, and if you were caught with them after that period, you were sentenced to life in prison?
So they advocate firearm confiscation followed with a mandatory term of life in prison once a firearm is classified as illegal.

IMO both of these groups are very, very dangerous.

They are an enemy of the 2nd Amendment.
 
#26 ·
#29 ·
Shannon Watts Chairman of 1MMAG. I looked up her new nonprofit... onemillinonmomsforguncontrol.org I even posted a comment... to wit:

The firearm fired most at Columbine was FULLY COMPLIANT with the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.

The firearms that would be covered (most likely) in the soon to be proposed Assault Weapons Ban by D. Feinstein (look for it on Thursday, this week) are responsible for an insignificant (statistically speaking) amount of all firearms deaths in this country.

MADD was successful by going after the perpetrator... not the objects used. Cars have not been banned. Alcohol has not been banned. In fact, in most of this country you can use your vehicle for manslaughter while you are drunk... and get your license to drive back after your prison term, which is, in many cases, less than 10 years. And you can do it all over again.

The shootings in Sandy Hook and Aurora, and Columbine and most everywhere else for that matter, were perpetrated by madmen.

On the same day as Sandy Hook, a madman in China attempted to kill 22 students and an elderly woman with knives and an axe.

There are nearly as many incidents of armed school administrators and students actually stopping mass murders as there are successful mass murders.

I think your efforts would be better spent, just as they were with MADD, by enforcing stiffer penalties on those who commit crime with firearms, rather than focusing on the inanimate objects that in and of themselves do no harm.

I have available citations for all the facts I have presented... Though I have been led to believe that those who wish to ban guns have no interest in facts... they just want to feel like they're doing something... If you care to prove me wrong, reply to my statements asking for the citations.

I'll wait.
While my comment is awaiting moderation, and I doubt that it will be posted... It is incumbent on me to try to change minds... "If I save one mind" it will have been worth it.

While I did use words (see my post on banning them), I did try to use them honestly...
 
#41 ·
I see the OP and his idea, it is a good one. I also deplore MADD because it went from raising awareness of drunk driving to joining the legislative industry. Its goals were met long ago but if they stop, well, they have to find new jobs, and the easiest legislative relations job ever is over. Not hard to paint a legislator in the corner when pushing "common sense laws to get tough on drunks..."

Now we have administrative checkpoints where innocent drivers are stopped, interrogated, and or given tickets for non primary offenses. Citizens arrested on potentially career ending charges who lose their license without due process regardless of disposition of their criminal case for "intent to drive intoxicated" while sleeping in their cars, or criminalized for innocently having a happy hour beer with some coworkers.

I think we maybe should find a different model, as to me MADD is a lot of what is wrong with the anti gun establishment.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2
 
#37 ·
Still, MADD must keep their agenda rolling to keep the money coming. .10 was too low a threshold,.08 is ridiculous, especially knowing that they want NO ONE to drink ANY Alcohol ANYWHERE. Even in your own home. Still to just set a limit that applies to anyone regardless of their sex,size,maturity and tolerance is all about the money gained from our governments by way of fines and other monetary punishments. Flame if you want,but I've seen enough of this over the years to know. We really don't want them or anyone like them to jump on the bandwagon. I do see the OP's opinion though.
 
#39 ·
- In nearly all states, the MADD influence reduced the threshhold of intoxication from 0.01% BAL to 0.08%.
You mean reduced from .10% to .08%.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gasmitty
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top