The NRA and assorted gun enthusiasts made their case against background checks using the lie that it would lead to gun registration. Now, gun registration is already carried out in some states, as can be seen here in this Wikipedia summary. In spite of this, and the fact that the country hasn't already descended into post-apocalyptic hippie liberal zombie tyranny, ought to suggest something to these concerned citizens. But that's not really the point. There was no legislation to establish a federal gun registry, because it's already prohibited by law.
Since the NRA is just an extremist right-wing organization out to protect the profit margins of gun manufacturers, though, I suppose their rejection of reality is understandable. And when Mother Jones reported yesterday on an "action survey" mailed out by the NRA to its members, and one of those members gave it to MJ, they have allowed us a look inside the organization at the way the NRA lies to its own.
Mother Jones has made the "survey" available online, and they choose to use scare quotes (as do I) because it is a misleading push-poll masquerading as a survey. S.O.P. for the right wing, I know, but it reinforces the point that the NRA is just another part of the right wing, and not an honest broker in the debate over gun laws. Here's some of what Mother Jones had to say about it.
The survey, provided to Mother Jones by a reader, claims that "President Obama has supported a national gun registration system allowing federal government officials to keep track of all your firearm purchases." This is an all-too-common NRA talking point. NRA honcho Wayne LaPierre echoed it in January, saying that Obama "wants to put every private, personal transaction under the thumb of the federal government, and he wants to keep all those names in a massive federal registry."
Poor Joe. The precious made us do it!
Of course, this lie should come as no surprise to anyone following the debate here, as gun enthusiasts have been making the same false point at every opportunity. But as Mother Jones points out -- and many of us supporting the new laws also have mentioned -- a federal gun registry is already prohibited, and the Manchin-Toomey proposal expressly banned it again. And that is why Senator Manchin went on the record,
accusing the NRA of lying about his now-failed bill. Then again, it's not as if he would leave the NRA in disgust over them lying their asses off to kill his bill, eh? No, far from it. He wants to
"change from within."
Mother Jones mentions this NRA so-called "survey" being "riddled with bad information and leading questions designed to make recipients fear the worst." They have 'questions' about the UN treaty on guns, but they call it a "gun ban" treaty and claim that our country's gun laws will be dictated by foreign interests. They mention the assault weapons ban, as usual, as a "ban on semi-auto firearms," a definition loose enough to include every semi-auto handgun in the country. Just the sort of intentionally loose, gun-enthusiast-frightening rhetoric I see here all the time.
And they throw in a 'question' about demanding a litmus test on prospective Supreme Court justices to affirm the "fundamental, individual right" notion of the Second Amendment recently crafted out of nothing but Samuel Alito's sense of American exceptionalism. The 'survey' document is worth the read, and it's not long at all. Interesting to have a look at these sorts of things that the NRA would otherwise have kept secret from the public -- the reality-substitute they offer to their membership. Pity they take this sort of thing seriously.