How the gun makers own the NRA

[AdamSmith]

Mother Jones maps how the gun industry has inserted itself into NRA's upper echelons. With predictable results. Which, as this and other reporting is making more and more evident, look to be much at odds with views of many sane hunting-type rank-&-file NRA members.

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/nra-board-newtown-bushmaster?page=1

[lookin]

AdamSmith, what a good article and what a good couple of posts you have made about the NRA recently! I read what you referenced and a bit more besides, and made a post on the other site in a gun-related thread that seemed to be petering out. Thanks to you, I hope it will get some new life.

Here's a copy of the post I made over there. I hope it might help move the topic forward over here too.

Haven't previously posted in this thread about the issue itself as it seemed like the same old debate with not much in the way of news, other than the latest mass killings that revive the discussion on an unfortunately rather predictable basis.

However, thanks to an esteemed poster who started a couple of new threads on the other site, I personally have come across some info I didn't have before and it seems to point the way toward breaking the stalemate, if the politicians can only keep their attention focused on keeping more of their constituents alive.

The first article cited by the poster outlines the late-seventies takeover of the NRA by a group of guns-for-all militants and their decision to spend liberally on Congressional lobbying and to move a re-interpreted version of the Second Amendment into the center of the political discussion. Warren Burger, the Nixon-appointed conservative U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, called it "one of the greatest pieces of fraud - I repeat the word 'fraud' - on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime." This began in 1977, and was the earlier of two major shifts in the role of the NRA in American politics.

The second shift happened more recently, as the poster cites in another thread the same day, and it is a further takeover of the NRA by gun manufacturers. He links to a Mother Jones article that describes how the CEO of the company that makes the Bushmaster rifle used in the Newtown school shootings has inserted himself into the upper ranks of the NRA's 'Nominating Committee'. This is the group that decides who the candidates are going to be when members vote on the senior officers who will determine the NRA's official policy. As such, this individual whose day job it is to increase sales of high-powered weapons, gets an outsized voice in how the NRA spends its lobbying dollars.

What's more, when the NRA speaks, it can also say that it speaks for four million members, although not only may the closely-held membership number be smaller, but only about 7% of them vote, and then only for the handpicked slate of candidates.

This article also references a poll done last summer by GOP Frank Luntz which shows that rank-and-file NRA members overwhelmingly support background checks for all buyers, barring terror suspects from gun ownership, and required reporting of lost and stolen guns. These views by NRA members are in contrast with the NRA's official positions on these issues.


What all this suggests to me is that a very few people, some of them industry insiders, are playing a very large role in the national debate on gun safety and control and are not only out of step with the American public but are also out of step with most of their organization's own members.

In my opinion, the sooner our politicians wise up to this and start listening to the majority voices in the country and even in the NRA, the sooner they can start saving the lives of the folks who put them in office. And, if they don't, we are all going to be held hostage to a small group whose special interests are very different from our own.

[Guest EXPAT]

Very good post lookin'.

At the gym tonight, I was doing the bike for an hour and as usual there are 15 TVs to choose from above me and one of them was on Fox News and they were having a debate about gun control and it was the most ridiculous 30 minutes I have ever seen on TV. it is unbelievable to me that people actually watch that channel and believe what they hear. It really makes me sad for state of people in this country.

[Guest hitoallusa]

The same thing at my gym too.. Not sure why people watch Fox News... Out of about five or six TVs, at least one is fixed at Fox News... On a side note, I don't understand Stewart or Colbert either. SNL is a bit trashy so I don't watch it.

In the end, people doesn't want rationality and decent respectful conversations as you can see on TV shows such as Stewart, Colbert, SNL and so on.. So it's a bit funny that we ask higher stand from Fox News when other shows do worse and disrespectful things. In that sense, I think Fox News is just another unhelpful irrational shows prevalent on TV... So I just let it be...

[Guest EXPAT]

The difference is that Jon Stewart, Colbert and SNL are shows based in satire and comedy and everyone knows it. Fox News portends to be a serious "fair and balanced" news station and they are anything but.

[Guest hitoallusa]

You are right EXPAT, but all of them seem so silly to me and waste of time.. I know I'm different and you might consider me a bit ( a lot maybe..) weird. But trying to build a culture that can promote respectful conversations and subtle social skills is what we should strive for.. I think that very effort is lost in American culture.. I don't worry too much since it will all pass and we will able to achieve more advanced society and entertainment in the future...

[AdamSmith]

[RA1]

I completely agree. However, who shall provide or prove that anyone is a person of good will?

One such example would be when no one was armed, that would certainly include criminals. How has that worked out in England? Or, most other countries that have banned guns?

My answer is, not very well at all. Sorry to say.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

The Time For Watered-Down And Effectively Meaningless Gun Laws Is Now

Commentary • Opinion • ISSUE 49•12 • Mar 20, 2013

By Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)

Yesterday, I took immediate action in the ongoing gun control debate by removing from a proposed firearms bill a provision banning assault weapons, all but ensuring that such a restriction will not be signed into law. In taking this bold step, I have effectively ensured that millions of deadly, military-grade firearms—much like the type used in recent mass shootings in Tucson, Aurora, and Sandy Hook—will remain legal and easily accessible to all Americans.

But it isn’t enough. In spite of these bold measures, there is far more work to do if we are to enact regulations that achieve marginal, virtually nonexistent progress on gun control. And so today I say to my fellow senators: We must pass through a watered-down and ultimately meaningless package of so-called gun law reforms, and we must do so now.

The challenge, as it stands, is clear. Under our current laws, there exist virtually no rules preventing assault rifles and other deadly weapons that serve no legitimate purpose except to kill human beings from falling into the hands of anyone who wants them. And while it may not be politically convenient for them to do so, lawmakers must be willing to step up, band together, and go to work on a diluted, insubstantial bill that will do essentially nothing to address this problem. Moreover, once they’ve drafted such a bill, they must ensure it is torturously wrung through the Congressional legislative process until it bears virtually no resemblance to the law that was initially envisioned.

Now, ratifying such a useless piece of legislation will not be easy. With the NRA and other special interest groups standing in stark opposition to gun control reforms, it will be up to Congress to stick to its convictions and draft a comprehensive bill designed to put a stop to the sales of assault rifles, high-capacity magazines, and other killing implements, and then completely neuter that draft into an insubstantial husk that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

After all, a majority of Americans—not to mention the President of the United States himself—have voiced their support of comprehensive gun reform measures, and so it is up to our elected officials to take the most hesitant measures possible, provided such measures won’t risk angering these lawmakers’ constituents and won’t possibly diminish their reelection prospects or, you know, alienate corporate America in any way whatsoever.

The people of this country deserve no less.

Remember that the stakes here could not be any higher. It was only three months ago that we learned of the senseless murders of dozens of Americans—including 20 children—in Newtown, Connecticut, a massacre made possible by the shooter’s free access to the very same weapons we today must make a half-hearted effort to ban before ultimately doing nothing of any lasting value. We owe it to these children, and all other children, to immediately pass through a futile law that does nothing to remove them from danger, so that we can look them in the eye and say, “We barely sort of fought for you.”

And once we do pass such a weak, impotent, piece-of-shit, garbage, why-did-we-even-bother law, further challenges await for us to buckle at the first sight of. Our gun regulations today contain numerous flaws and oversights that make deadly weapons available to some of society’s most dangerous and mentally unhinged individuals. Until comprehensive background checks, mandatory mental health screenings, and an end to the gun show loophole are half-heartedly proposed and then immediately discarded at the merest glimpse of a political obstacle, our laughably ineffective work will not be done.

But such future challenges are talk for another day. Today, it is up to us, as duly elected representatives of the American people, to put forth a historically insignificant bill that accomplishes nothing and makes the people of this country no safer, while also conclusively demonstrating to the NRA that even Congress is incapable of stopping them. That’s the kind of legislation we must pass through into law.

Assuming it even makes it out of the Senate, that is.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-time-for-watereddown-and-effectively-meaningle,31751/