“The NRA Is Becoming The Great Oz”: There’s Nothing Behind The Majic Curtain But The Voice Of A Special Interest Bully
For years the NRA has struck terror into the hearts of many Members of Congress. The organization’s officers and lobbyists purported to represent the interests and wishes of millions of American gun owners.
Members of Congress believed that negative NRA ratings — and a flood of NRA money — could sink their political careers faster than you could say “AR-15.”
But the American people, and Members of Congress, are gradually awaking to the fact that — just as with the Wizard of Oz — there isn’t much behind the NRA’s magic curtain but the big booming voice of a special interest bully whose power derives more from perception than reality.
It is of course true that in politics the perception of power translates into the reality of power. The problem is that once it becomes clear that you’re all hat and no cattle, the myth of power rapidly collapses into a pile of dust. That is exactly what is happening to the NRA. Here’s why.
Reason #1. First and foremost, in 2012 the NRA had exactly zero effect on the outcome of the General Election — or to be more precise, it had about .83 percent effect.
One of the big stories of the 2012 election was the failure of some of the big name right-wing PACs to win many races. The Sunlight Foundation calculated the relative effectiveness of a number of right-wing PACs and found that most of their money did not buy success.
The National Republican Congressional Committee had only a 31.8 percent percent success rate.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce only had a 6.9 percent success rate.
Karl Rove’s non-profit, Crossroads GPS, did a little better, spending $70 million with a 14.43 percent success rate. But his American Crossroads Super Pac had only a 1.29 percent success rate after spending over $104 million.
The NRA’s Legislative Institute had only a 10.74 percent success rate.
But the NRA main PAC wasn’t just your run of the mill failure of the 2012 election year. It won the prize for the very worst performance of the entire gang. In fact of the $11.1 million it spent, only .83 percent went to winning candidates.
And to make matters worse, it didn’t just have a dismal batting average; many progressive PACs spent just as much, and were much more effective.
The League of Conservation Voters raised and spent $11 million, but instead of a .83 percent success rate, they had an 83 percent success rate.
Planned Parenthood’s two PACs raised and spent over $11 — and had a 98 percent success rate.
Part of the reason for the NRA’s horrible success rate is the fact that rather than back candidates that support the Second Amendment — a goal endorsed by many of its individual members — it has become for all practical purposes a wing of the Republican Party.
But that isn’t the only disjuncture between the interests of NRA members and those of its officers and lobbyists.
Reason #2. Turns out that the officers and lobbyists of the NRA actually represent weapons manufacturers, not rank and file gun owners. That’s why they refuse to support common sense restrictions on military style assault weapons, magazines that hold a hundred bullets, or background checks for anyone who buys a gun, even though most Americans — and many gun owners — support these measures.
A CBS News poll showed that 57 percent now support stronger laws, an 18-point increase since last April (39 percent). A USA Today/Gallup poll showed a similar trend, with 58 percent supporting stronger laws, 15 points above the level of support in October 2011 (43 percent).
In a CNN/ORC poll, the most pronounced shift was on support for a ban on assault guns like the AK-47, with 62 percent of Americans supporting such a ban, a 5-point increase from last August.
In fact, according to the CNN/ORC poll, 95 percent of all Americans think that everyone who buys a gun should have to undergo a background check. A December Washington Post poll shows this strong support for universal back ground checks extends to gun owners as well. Many people believe background checks are already required for all gun purchases, but the fact is that 40 percent of all gun sales are “private transactions” — at gun shows or from private gun sellers where no background check is currently required. That’s like having two lines in airport security — one that checks for bombs and weapons and one that doesn’t. Which one do you think would be chosen by those who seek to do us harm?
And to make matters worse, databases of many states are not maintained. Bottom line: it easy for dangerous criminals and the mentally ill to buy deadly weapons.
According to the Huffington Post, a recent bipartisan poll conducted for Mayors Against Illegal Guns found that:
“Large majorities of Americans agree with the 2008 Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to own guns, and Americans strongly oppose efforts to ban handguns,” said Bob Carpenter, vice president of American Viewpoint, the Republican polling firm that joined with Democratic firm Momentum Analysis to conduct the survey. “But Americans and gun owners feel with equal fervor that government must act to get every single record in the background-check system that belongs there and to ensure that every gun sale includes a background check. Most Americans view these goals, protecting gun rights for the law-abiding and keeping guns from criminals, as compatible.”
That is directly contrary to the positions of the NRA’s high command.
The goal of the officers and lobbyists of the NRA is not to protect the rights of gun owners; it is to maximize the profits of weapons manufacturers and arms dealers.
They love to frighten law-abiding gun owners with the prospect that common sense measures to reduce gun violence put America on the “slippery slope” to end the right to bear arms and to the confiscation of your hunting rifle. Their attempts to develop paranoia about confiscation — and about government tyranny — are good for business; it’s that simple.
After the Sandy Hook tragedy, the NRA’s fear-mongering caused a massive spike in the sales of semi-automatic assault weapons.
And the reason the NRA is so keen on preventing a new assault weapon ban is that its customer base is shrinking from about 50 percent of the population forty years ago, to about a third. And that base of current gun owners already owns a whopping 270 million guns. In fact, with 5 percent of the world’s population, America already has about 50 percent of the world’s guns. One way to continue to raise the profit margins of gun manufacturers is to sell increasingly powerful, expensive guns like the “Bushmaster” that was used to kill the children at Sandy Hook elementary school.
The problem for the NRA’s officers and lobbyists, is that events like the Sandy Hook massacre make it crystal clear that there is no relationship between the NRA’s defense of semi-automatic weapons that can fire off dozens of rounds in a few seconds, and the weapons everyday gun owners need for hunting or for their personal safety.
No one uses a “Bushmaster” to shoot ducks. And there are not many Americans who keep a loaded semi-automatic assault weapon under their pillow for self-defense.
And there is another reason why all the talk about “slippery slopes” increasingly rings hollow.
Reason #3. The Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller made it crystal clear that the Second Amendment does in fact protect the right to own guns for hunting and self-defense. It also made clear that this right does not preclude the government from imposing common sense regulations on the sale and performance of weapons that can be marketed to the general public — nor does it prevent the passage of laws that prevent dangerous individuals from buying a gun.
The Supreme Court decision makes the “slippery slope” argument — the fear that the government is on the verge of confiscating their guns — into complete hogwash.
As more and more Americans recognize that their right to own guns is not jeopardized by common sense measures to curb gun violence, it will be harder and harder for the NRA leadership to continue to frighten gun owners with the phony specter of confiscation.
Reason #4. The NRA is led by officers and lobbyists that have lost touch with the reality of the American electorate. NRA Executive VP, Wayne LaPierre’s press conference immediately after Sandy Hook was completely tone-deaf. It didn’t demonstrate an ounce of empathy for the six-year old children who were murdered — or for the grief felt by their families. Instead it focused entirely on promoting the sale of more and more guns.
That might be good for short-term gun sales, but it continues to unmask the massive gulf between everyday Americans — including the millions of everyday American gun owners on the one hand, and those on Wall Street that make hundreds of millions of dollars selling weapons like the “Bushmaster” on the other. The “Bushmaster” — or AR-15 — has no purpose other than killing the largest number of human beings in the shortest possible period of time.
And it turns out we haven’t had to wait long to see the image of the NRA’s invincibility dissolve before our eyes.
For years the NRA has had a net positive rating with the public. No longer. A recent poll from Public Policy Polling found that in the period following the Sandy Hook massacre, support for the gun advocacy organization fell from 48 percent to 42 percent, while negative views increased from 41 percent to 45 percent.
For decades, the conventional wisdom in Washington has held that if the NRA opposed a gun bill, it was doomed. But there is a new reality in America. The faces of the children and women who died at Sandy Hook — and the faces of all of those who are dying in cities across America every day — have transformed the debate.
Increasingly, the struggle to reduce gun violence is being seen for what it is. Instead of a fight between gun owners and the “government” — it is becoming a battle between the rights of innocent victims of violence and the profits of weapons manufacturers.
And with every passing day, more and more politicians are beginning to realize that the NRA is nothing more than “the Great Oz.”
By: Robert Creamer, The Huffington Post, January 14, 2013
“Money, Money, Money”: How The NRA Became The Most Powerful Special Interest In Washington
The National Rifle Association is considered one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington.
The way it operates — including how it recruits and maintains an active membership — have given it outsize influence over lawmakers at the state and federal level.
Unlike corporate lobbyists, the power of the NRA comes from its massive membership and powerful activist base, as well as from millions of dollars from dues and corporate sponsors.
The gun owners who comprise the NRA are voters who are passionate about firearms, and tend to be fiercely loyal to the organization. The organization coordinates their hunting trips, funds their gun clubs, and teaches their kids how to shoot safely. In turn, the members, coupled with industry supporters, fund the NRA and are ready to mobilize when the group calls on them.
And while other lobbyists usually have rivals, the gun lobby’s opposition doesn’t have anywhere near the strength of support that the NRA has. Chris Cilizza points out that in 2010, the NRA spent more than $240 million more than the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the biggest spender among gun control groups.
Because the NRA is simultaneously a lobbying firm, a campaign operation, a popular social club, a generous benefactor and an industry group, the group is a juggernaut of influence in Washington.
Paul Waldman at The American Prospect observes that Congress sincerely buys into the idea that the NRA is an all-powerful lobby. “Even after one of their own colleagues was shot in the head at a public event,” he said in a New York Times opinion piece, “lawmakers did nothing.”
The NRA’s first foray into politics was the organization’s 1980 endorsement of Ronald Reagan. In 30 years, they’ve built the most feared lobby in D.C. Here’s how they built the pro-gun powerhouse that takes center stage in any discussion of gun control.
“The NRA” is actually around four different organizations that are financially interconnected and maintain common leadership.
- The primary organization is the National Rifle Association of America, a 501(c)4 organization. This is the group that maintains the spokespeople, raises the money, counts the members, recruits volunteers, and raises awareness and encourages the use of firearms. They advertise, hold conventions, convince country singers and actors to raise awareness about gun use, produce training materials and coordinate volunteers.
- Within the National Rifle Association of America is the NRA Institute for Legislative Action. This is the NRA main lobbying and campaign operation. NRA-ILA maintains a staff of lobbyists to support pro-gun legislation, and runs most of the election operations for the organization, producing and buying advertisements in support of pro-gun candidates and against gun control advocates. The NRA-ILA also manages the NRA Political Action Committee, which contributes money directly to candidates.
- The NRA is also connected to a 501(c)3, the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund, which does pro-bono legal work for people with cases that have to do with constitutional Second Amendment rights. Essentially, if the CRDF finds a case that could lead to a new interpretation of the Second Amendment, they’ll send in the cavalry and pay the bill. They’re currently litigating cases in 35 states about the right to posses, use, and carry arms.
- In addition, the organization is connected to the NRA Foundation, another 501(c)3 that raises and donates money to hundreds of different causes. In 2010, recipients included hundreds of organizations including outdoors groups, sportsmen’s associations, state Fish & Game departments, ROTC organizations, 4-H groups, Boy Scout councils, and children’s charities. Much of this went to purchasing equipment and training to encourage the recreational use of firearms.
These four different prongs make the NRA one of the most powerful — and rich — groups in D.C.
The NRA is able to maintain and cultivate a vast membership, leading to gains in negotiation ability and funds from membership dues. They’re able to ally with industry and serve as an intermediary between manufacturers and the public.
The NRA-ILA influences legislation and tries to recruit congressional allies to push their goals through by leveraging the massive membership in the NRA. Then, the NRA-CRDF works to expand the interpretation of those laws in the courts. And the NRA Foundation, with funds from some of those corporate donors, recruits new gun users and NRA supporters, loyal new members.
As a result, the organization is fantastically wealthy. According to the most recent available filings with the IRS, in 2010:
- The National Rifle Association of America had total revenue of $227.8 million and assets worth $163 million.
- The NRA Foundation had assets of $80.4 million and raised $21.2 million.
- The CRDF raised $875,500 and has $4.4 million in assets,
- The NRA spent $9.9 million on the NRA-ILA
In 2012 the NRA Institute for Legislative Action spent $7.5 million on federal elections on 66 candidates according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Separately, the NRA PAC spent $9.5 million in the 2012 election.
In essence, it’s a combination of the organizational structure and finances that make the NRA so very powerful in DC.
They’re able to brandish claims of a vast membership, recruited through contributions to local organizations by the Foundation. They’re able to lean on the most ardent supporters, dues-paying members of the National Rifle Association of America. They’re able to raise vast amounts of money from gun manufacturers, distributors, retailers and users.
This combination of legitimate grassroots support, loyal activism and vast amounts money is hard for lawmakers to ignore, particularly if they represent a swing district or state where the NRA wields a significant amount of influence.
By: Walter Hickey, Business Insider, December 18, 2012
“No Comment”: The National Rifle Association’s Bizarre Colorado Response
The National Rifle Association’s nightly online newscast, “The Daily News,” opened Friday with the unavoidably prime news of the day: the movie-theater horror in Colorado.
Its report on what anchor Ginny Simone termed “the unthinkable tragic shooting that shocked the country today” lasted 35 seconds. It concluded with word that, “at this hour the NRA is telling all media, including the NRA Daily News, that its policy is that it will have no comment until all the facts are known in this case.”
She then segued to a report about ongoing United Nations negotiations on a global arms treaty to regulate trade in conventional arms. That segment, making clear the anchor’s own outrage with the negotiations, lasted more than 10 minutes.
It was thus far easier to bash the U.N. for its audacity in trying to curb arms sales to wayward nations and faraway criminals than to wonder if there just might be a link between Friday’s tragedy and the easy access to firearms in this country.
The U.N. talks result from years of lobbying by human-rights groups and also mark the Obama administration’s decision to reverse Bush-era policy and to support the negotiations involving 200 nations.
However, amid opposition from pro-gun legislators, the administration has backed off its support of what some see as a quite important provision to also cover trade in ammunition.
The thrust of the U.N. proposal involves a wide range of weapons in a worldwide market thought to be as much as $60 billion a year. The U.S. is the biggest exporter in a system in which only a minority of governments regulate arms dealers, with a variety of regional and multination arms embargoes seen as generally ineffective.
The Christian Science Monitor has put it the overall context succinctly: “While the U.S. and a few other countries have relatively tough regulations governing the trade of weapons, many countries have weak or ineffective regulations, if they have any at all. The result is that there are more international laws governing the trade of bananas than conventional weapons, like AK-47s.”
As far as the NRA newscast was concerned, the “news” was that “the treaty may be in trouble of being approved by July 27, a deadline set by the U.N.”
That didn’t surprise the report’s primary interviewee, former Bush-era U.N. ambassador John Bolton. He proceeded to belittle the slow-moving ways of the organization and added that “August is a sacred month in New York,” with few working at the U.N.
But Bolton fretted that an inability to come to a resolution by month’s end could thus mean that President Obama might swoop in during September, prior to the annual convening of the General Assembly, and influence the final result.
Simone then turned to the NRA’s primary correspondent covering the talks New York, Tom Mason. He’s an official of the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities. She opened by indicating that Mason had told her that “panic has definitely set in at U.N. headquarters. They realize time is running out.”
Both Mason and Simone derided many elements of the treaty and the views of proponents. Those included linking the internal arms trade with violence against women.
Simon cited unidentified nations she terms “some of the worst human-rights abusers in the world” that were involved in the talks. She wondered how the treaty “will stop the killing and rape of people with no chance to defend themselves.”
The U.N. agenda, she said, is “to disarm people,” implying it would leave the defenseless even more so.
Both Mason and the anchor alleged a de facto media conspiracy of silence in covering the talks.
With one of several rhetorical questions, Simone asked him, “Is it fair to say civilian ownership and ammunition are very much on the hit list?”
“Yes, very much so,” said Mason.
The duo concluded with a broadside against the UN’s record in dealing with human-rights abuses, with Mason claiming, “They’ve never really thought this concept through of stopping human rights abuses.”
“But they have thought about how they can erode the Second Amendment in the U.S.,” he said.
Not mentioned was that the treaty is all about international transfers of weapons, not their internal domestic regulation.
By: James Warren, The Daily Beast, July 22, 2012
“The Enablers Of Death”: The NRA Has America Living Under The Gun
You might think Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of and spokesman for the mighty American gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, has an almost cosmic sense of timing. In 2007, at the NRA’s annual convention in St. Louis, he warned the crowd that, “Today, there is not one firearm owner whose freedom is secure.” Two days later, a young man opened fire on the campus of Virginia Tech, killing 32 students, staff and teachers.
Just last week LaPierre showed up at the United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty here in New York and spoke out against what he called “anti-freedom policies that disregard American citizens’ right to self-defense.” Now at least 12 are dead in Aurora, Colorado, gunned down at a showing of the new film, “The Dark Knight Rises,” a Batman movie filled with make-believe violence. One of the guns the shooter reportedly used was an AK-47 type assault weapon that was banned in 1994. The NRA pressured Congress to let the ban run out in 2004.
Obviously, LaPierre’s timing isn’t cosmic, just coincidental and unfortunate; as Shakespeare famously wrote, the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves. In other words, people — people with guns. There are some 300 million guns in the United States, one in four adult Americans owns at least one and most of them are men. According to the British newspaper The Guardian, over the last 30 years, “the number of states with a law that automatically approves licences to carry concealed weapons provided an applicant clears a criminal background check has risen from eight to 38.”
Every year there are 30,000 gun deaths and perhaps as many as 300,000 gun-related assaults in the U.S. Firearm violence costs our country as much as $100 billion a year. Toys are regulated with greater care and safety concerns than guns.
So why do we always act so surprised? Violence is our alter ego, wired into our Stone Age brains, so intrinsic its toxic eruptions no longer shock, except momentarily when we hear of a mass shooting like this latest in Colorado. But this, too, will pass as the nation of the short attention span quickly finds the next thing to divert us from the hard realities of America in 2012.
We are a country which began with the forced subjugation into slavery of millions of Africans and the reliance on arms against Native Americans for its westward expansion. In truth, more settlers traveling the Oregon Trail died from accidental, self-inflicted gunshots wounds than Indian attacks – we were not only bloodthirsty but also inept.
Nonetheless, we have become so gun loving, so gun crazy, so blasé about home-grown violence that far more Americans have been casualties of domestic gunfire than have died in all our wars combined. In Arizona last year, just days after the Gabby Giffords shooting, sales of the weapon used in the slaughter – a 9 millimeter Glock semi-automatic pistol – doubled.
We are fooling ourselves. Fooling ourselves that the law could allow even an inflamed lunatic to easily acquire murderous weapons and not expect murderous consequences. Fooling ourselves that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of a “well-regulated militia” be construed as a God-given right to purchase and own just about any weapon of destruction you like, a license for murder and mayhem. A great fraud has entered our history.
Maybe you remember a video you can still see on YouTube. In it, Adam Gadahn, an American born member of al Qaeda, the first US citizen charged with treason since 1952, urges terrorists to carry out attacks on the United States. Right before your eyes he says, “America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle without a background check, and most likely, without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?”
The gunman in Colorado waited only for his opportunity. So there you have it – the arsenal of democracy has been transformed into the arsenal of death. And the NRA? The NRA is the enabler of death — paranoid, delusional and as venomous as a scorpion. With the weak-kneed acquiescence of our politicians, the National Rifle Association has turned the Second Amendment of the Constitution into a cruel and deadly hoax.
By: Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, BillMoyers.com, July 20, 2012
“A Stacked Deck”: Rick Scott’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ Task Force All Supported The Law
Gov. Rick Scott has created a task force to review the controversial “Stand Your Ground” law, the law behind which George Zimmerman hid after shooting and killing unarmed teen Trayvon Martin. He revealed the members of the task force on Thursday, and it should come as no surprise that among the four legislators appointed, two belong to the American Legislative Exchange Council and that all four voted for the law.
One of the members, in fact, is state Rep. Dennis Baxley, who authored the law and who has said it doesn’t need to be changed. Among others:
– Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland, co-sponsored and voted for Stand Your Ground. He told the Herald/Times bureau that he was instrumental in drafting the final language of the law as House Judiciary Committee chairman, and was Baxley’s roommate at the time.
– Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford, joined the Legislature in 2010, and the first bill he passed was a controversial gun rights bill banning doctors from asking patients about gun ownership.
– Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, voted for the bill in 2005. It passed the Senate unanimously.
Baxley and Brodeur belong to ALEC, and ALEC used Baxley’s language for the template for bills passed all over the country. The 17-member task force also includes legal professionals including state prosecutors, church leaders and neighborhood watch voluteers. It doesn’t include a number of Democratic lawmakers and opponents of the law who appear to have been shut out of the selection process. Think Progress describes the selection committee:
Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Carroll, who is also heading the task force, was a co-sponsor of the House bill and voted for it in 2005. As did fellow selection committee members Senate President Mike Haridopolos and House Speak Dean Cannon. Incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford was not in the legislature in 2005 when the law was passed, but is currently listed as a member of ALEC.”
According to this report, Carroll says the Democratic lawmakers didn’t apply to be on the task force. The Democrats all say that there was no announcement of an application process, and that their efforts to be included in the task force were ignored. Most disturbing is the point raised by Rep. Dwight Bullard, D-Miami, who points out: “The governor failed to represent that diversity by neglecting to place a single South Florida lawmaker or mayor of a large city on the task force, in essence giving no voice to the regions of the state most often plagued by gun violence.”
Because of the lawmakers included in the group—those who would actually be responsible for making changes to the law—it seems to be stacked in favor of the law before it even gets off the ground.
By: Joan McCarter, Daily Kos, April 21, 2012
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