How the NRA conquered America’s gun debate

NRA is a powerful lobby and despite so many deaths and carnages around the country, a 300 year old culture of deviant and violent people is promoted as being the hallmark of the soul of the most developed nation in the world.  Just as the Islamists are busy taking over a billion people back to the 7th century; the NRA enthusiasts are taking this nation and its people to the Wild West of the 18th century.  Same difference.  But these Rip Van Winkles won’t awaken.

Here is what happened during a vote to simply introduce background checks on those who buy firearms.

46 Senators–including 4 Democrats–just voted against background checks.  Here are the ones who voted in different ways.

Here is a discussion on this topic – interesting and detailed.  Host is Tom Ashbrook:

For all the American agony over gun violence and the massacre of little children at Newtown, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by America’s gun reality.  So many guns, so fiercely protected by law, by lobbyists, by gun makers.  An ocean of guns and gun rights trumping lots of other rights.

It wasn’t always that way.  And it didn’t happen by accident.  My guest today says look to the NRA.

It’s big-money alliance with gun makers.  Its ever-escalating demands for gun freedom, gun presence.

Guest is:

Tim Dickinson, national affairs correspondent and contributing editor at Rolling Stone. His big piece is “The NRA vs. America: How the Country’s biggest gun-rights group thwarts regulation and helps put military-grade weapons in the hands of killers.” (@7im)

References:

Rolling Stone “Billing itself as the nation’s ‘oldest civil rights organization,’ the NRA still claims to represent the interests of marksmen, hunters and responsible gun owners. But over the past decade and a half, the NRA has morphed into a front group for the firearms industry, whose profits are increasingly dependent on the sale of military-bred weapons like the assault rifles used in the massacres at Newtown and Aurora, Colorado.”

USA Today “The National Rifle Association says proposals such as universal background checks for gun buyers won’t work and the nation must enforce the laws it has. But lobbying records and interviews show the organization has worked steadily to weaken existing gun laws and the federal agency charged with enforcing them.”

The Washington Post “A number of readers have wondered about the NRA’s claim that it has more than 4.5 million members. As can be seen above, just in the space of six months, the NRA’s estimate of the size of its membership jumped by 500,000, an increase of more than 12 percent.”