Why exactly is the NRA so powerful?

Because we live in a free fucking country despite the best efforts of the America-hating assholes to change that.

That's why.

 

And anybody who makes any real effort (beyond lip service) to change it will be shot dead.

 

The constitution wasn't designed with 13 states in mind.

Come on. Getting 3/4ths of 13 -- with states as diverse as South Carolina and Massachusetts and Pennsylvania in the mix -- was just as hard then as it is now. We have seen steadily fewer amendments because there have been fewer things we believed needed amending. That initial burst came because there was widespread agreement as to why it was important to incorporate those rights in a quasi-permanent charter. Check out the state constitutions written by those who'd written -- and ratified -- the federal one.

You need to get off this Woodrow Wilson/Howard Zinn kick RS. Keep it up and I'm going to think somebody in the NQT caucus has brainwashed you.

 

Homosexuals might disagree with your declaration that they are free to fuck in this country.

 

Does anyone ever stop to think how fucked up it is that Americans are SO distrustful and spiteful of each other that an organization and an army of like-minded politicians thrive by telling them the ONLY way they can protect themselves is by being armed?

 

Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but Vox apparently tackles this question:
The real reason the NRA is so powerful

 

In Germany, you're as likely to be shot and killed as an American is of being killed by a falling tree branch.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/u...-as-a-gun.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

 

Why is the NRA powerful?

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that all their members are armed to the teeth with as much firepower as a South American drug cartel

 

Bipartisan effort to expand background checks?

The plan was strongly opposed by the National Rifle Association, which on Thursday emailed its members urging them to contact senators and "tell them to vote against any gun control amendments."

Senate rejects more gun background checks after CA attack

 

It's simply a math issue. You're a math guy. You know this. Imagine that each state has a 65% chance of supporting an amendment. What are the odds of getting 75% of 13, vs. 75% of 50?

 

Very well stated, indeed.

Not to mention, China spent the better part of the 20th century in a coma.

 

I don't need to be a math guy to know that your assumption that each state supports an amendment with an equal probability (i.e., that we have 13 Bernoulli trials vs. 50 Bernoulli trials) is bogus. Nevertheless, were that the case, yes, there's a far greater probability of getting 10 out of 13 than there is of getting 38 out of 50.

Then again ... You offer up a scenario in which: 1) the states are unanimous in supporting an amendment; but 2) that support is so volatile that 35% of the states would be expected to reject the amendment merely because of random variation. That is not the kind of scenario that speaks poorly of the founders' wisdom in making the constitution hard to amend.