How the NRA undermined the last gun control push
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The National Rifle Association is gearing up to fight President Obama’s proposals for banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and requiring universal background checks. Pro Publica shares some insight on how the gun lobby might approach its task in an analysis at nationofchange.org.
To get a sense of what the NRA might do, it’s helpful to look at how it scored a victory during the last major federal initiative to tighten gun control.
That push happened after the Virginia Tech mass shooting, in which 32 students and faculty were killed on campus in April 2007. Afterward, the Bush administration proposed that all states be required to give the Federal Bureau of Investigation the names of residents involuntarily committed to a mental health treatment facility. The names would then be entered into a database used for federal background checks, thus blocking sales by licensed dealers to those individuals.
The NRA won concessions in the House of Representatives that have prevented many states from participating. Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., have reported fewer than 100 records apiece.
States can’t get federal grants to pay for the data collection unless they create a program for individuals with a history of mental illness to regain gun rights. The NRA added new concessions when the bill moved to the Senate allowing automatic gun rights restoration in some cases. Virginia is a full participant in the database. A New York Times investigation found that the state has restored gun rights in some instances after receiving no more than a letter requesting the action.
Will the NRA try to kill Obama’s proposals, will it simply fill them with loopholes, or will Congress be less willing to give the gun lobby everything it wants this time?
January 24, 2013 - 6:51 PM
What a travesty. The NRA protecting citizen’s rights from bureaucratic restrictions.
Demanding due process and right of appeal. Disgusting.
I find it interesting that defending the Constitution is seen as undermining efforts to destroy it.
Just for S’s & G’s, what does a .25 caliber, 5-6 round, 100 year old pistol have to do with “assault weapons” or “high capacity magazines?
I think you have your answer.
Indeed.
#4 (and especially #5)….what?
#2 “…defending the Constitution…” One man’s “defending” is another man’s “misinterpreting”, 89Hoo.
7 – just as claims to enact gun control for safety reasons can be interpreted as gun control to allow the state to disarm its citizens.
A defense of a constitutional right, for whatever reason, is still a defense of that right. And an erosion of that right, for whatever reason, is still an erosion of that right. The Bill of Rights put no conditions on its limitation of state power.
Let’s all recall the reasons and not forget ex-President George H.W. Bush’s resignation from the NRA. He saw them for what they represent.
From May 3, 1995 go read http://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/11/us/letter-of-resignation-sent-by-bush-to-rifle-association.html
What’s Bush got to do with anything? Another liberal returning to his roots.