That is the title of this Vanity Fair story (authored by Sarah Ellison) which details a growing divide within the NRA’s ranks.
Here are some tidbits from the 7,200 word essay:
From the lead
“. . . the N.R.A. does face a genuine threat to its future: a growing divide between its ferocious leadership and sportsman rank-and-file.”
Ms Ellison starts by contrasting the NRA’s annual convention this past May with an earlier NRA sponsored event held in Harrisburg, PA. At the NRA convention, Chris Cox, the executive director of the N.R.A.’s Institute for Legislative Action, while warming up the crowd for Wayne LaPierre:
Cox offered this message to Hillary Clinton: “You want to turn this election into a do-or-die fight over the Second Amendment? Bring. It. On.” Cox received a standing ovation. Later in the day, Donald Trump would receive the N.R.A.’s endorsement.
In contrast, the event at the Great American Outdoor Show was much lower key (idyllic is how the author described it) and without Cox or LaPierre around to deliver vitriolic rhetoric .
While the NRA claims that it receives most of it’s revenue from memberships dues in an effort to portray itself as a grass-roots organization, the article states:
. . . according to a 2013 report by the non-profit Violence Policy Center, . . . among the contributors of at least a million dollars each to the N.R.A. were the Italian family-owned gun company Beretta, Smith & Wesson, Brownells, Pierce Bullet Seal Target Systems, and Springfield Armory.
Ms Ellison then goes into a history of the NRA including the fact that the NRA helped draft the first federal gun-control law, the National Firearms Act of 1934. She then details the overthrow of the old guard in 1977. In section IV, the article examines some of the ways “the N.R.A. has broadened its activities into political arenas that have little to do with the actual ownership of guns.”
Next she spends a few paragraphs on the ability to 3-D print plastic guns where she concludes that this may be point of friction between the NRA’s supposed unconditional support of the second (as they see it) and the needs of their real constituents, the gun manufacturers.
With all that as background gets to the meat of the matter promised by the headline. She starts with the 1994 re-election of then senator Bob Kerry, who targeted by the NRA, from the piece:
After the senator, a Vietnam veteran, was targeted in a Charlton Heston N.R.A. ad, Kerrey created an ad of his own, featuring himself shooting a rifle, and then picking up an AK-47. With the AK-47 in hand, he told the camera that he had hunted with a weapon like that in Vietnam, and added, “But you don’t need one of these to hunt birds.” Kerrey won re-election.
The article then reports some of the findings of a 2013 study: “more than 92 percent of the money spent by the N.R.A. actually went to elections in which the organization proved unsuccessful.” Also from that study: “86 percent of N.R.A. members favored universal background checks, a position that is opposed by the N.R.A.’s leadership.” She continues:
Background checks are the single most important step that government could take to improve gun safety.
That gap between the leadership and the rank and file was cited by Adolphus A. Busch IV, when he resigned from his lifetime N.R.A. membership after the defeat of the Manchin-Toomey bill. “Your current strategic focus places a priority on the needs of gun and ammunition manufacturers,” he wrote, while “disregarding the opinions” of the organization’s individual members.
Even if the NRA’s claim of five-million members is true, she notes that numbers represents only about 6% of gun owners. She continues:
And there are good reasons not to take the number at face value. . . . The N.R.A. itself, according to a 2012 document obtained by Bloomberg News, regards only half of its membership as “active and interested.”
She opens her conclusion with:
As the N.R.A. has advanced ever more radical notions of gun freedom, the group has begun to reach the outer boundaries of what it can achieve. One longtime gun-control activist told me that, ever since the Cincinnati revolt, in 1979, the N.R.A. had evolved into a group with what he called a Field & Stream membership and a Soldier of Fortune leadership. . . . Today’s battles appear to be fought on the N.R.A.’s terms. Shannon Watts, the head of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, an organization that is funded by Michael Bloomberg, told me that her group has aggressive goals for gun safety, but when it comes down to it, “we are fighting for things that the N.R.A. used to support,” such as background checks and keeping guns out of schools. The gun-control advocates also lack certain tools. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence compiles its own N.R.A.-style report card, publicizing a list of Lap Dogs—a member of Congress who “takes treats from the corporate gun lobby and blocks progress on expanding Brady background checks.” The problem is that gun-safety advocates are typically not single-issue voters. The most extreme members of the “Second Amendment community” emphatically are.
Two points here: 1) When speaking with NRA members try to figure out if they are of the Field and Stream or Soldier of Fortune variety and tailor your message appropriately. Remember that there are sensible NRA (hunters and target shooters versus ammosexuals) out there who might respond postively if you try to find common ground. 2) When communicating with your elected representatives about any issue, let them know that you care about gun control as well. I know that there is a danger of watering down whatever is your primary concern, but we need to keep the pressure on.
BTW — Vanity Fair has an excellent politics section which is well worth keeping an eye on.
UPDATE: Via the Huffington Post —Supreme Court upholds gun restriction
The Supreme Court ruled in a decision announced Monday that a domestic violence assault committed “recklessly” qualifies as a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, and therefore triggers the federal ban on gun ownership.
