The massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland this past Valentine’s Day has brought forth a debate, the same one that comes up after every mass shooting in recent memory. The issue of gun control is a hot-button; it ignites so much passion on both sides of the aisle that it’s hard to get past the rhetoric and the finger-pointing and the conspiracy theories to see what’s really going on.
The National Rifle Association has been blamed for the rising number of people killed by firearms, including assault weapons – rifles designed for the sole purpose of killing many people in the shortest amount of time with minimal effort. Supporters fight back, citing the Second Amendment, unwilling to give even one inch of ground, for fear of creating a slippery slope of bans, regulations, and limitations.
I’m not against gun ownership. I come from a family of law enforcement officers, and have owned firearms myself. Most NRA members are in favor of responsible and sensible gun laws. I am; however, against owning guns designed for offensive and systematic mass murder.
The Constitution is vague by design, and can be interpreted in a number of different ways. It’s this vagueness that has made the NRA extremely influential in US politics, and the reason assault rifles and other non-civilian firearms are sold in such vast numbers. While a handful of Democrats have taken money from the NRA, the vast majority of recipients are Republicans.
But this is the tip of the iceberg. Just under $6 million was directly donated to candidates’ campaigns during the 2016 election cycle. The bulk of the NRA’s influence is due to outside, or independent spending – terms that encompass expenditures for everything other than lining a politician’s pockets. A case in point, an October 2017 Politifact article reveals that the NRA spent more than $200 million on political activities since 1998. Other spending includes promotional efforts, totaling about $250 million per year.
The NRA didn’t start out as the perceived supporter of murder and mayhem, as some gun control advocates might believe. The humble beginnings consisted of a group of apolitical hobbyists who supported gun safety and responsible gun laws. Some events appear to have changed the focus of the NRA to a lobby for the GOP – the 1966 University of Texas shooting that killed 17 people caused a furor of calls to ban guns, with an equally passionate defense of gun ownership. The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, among other violent events, resulted in the 1968 Gun Control Act, which started a tug or war between the NRA and gun control advocates, and served to start the ideological path of the association to the hard right. The Cincinnati revolt of 1977 also widened the chasm between sensible gun ownership and rabid Second Amendment defense.
Membership numbers swelled, which put the NRA on the path as a lobby with money to promote its ideology. Currently membership is around four million members, but donations by members, corporations (including gun manufacturers) and other political entities are significant. Total annual donations by individuals totaled $22 million in 2014.
It’s easy to see how the NRA morphed from advocate for firearms education and safety to radical right-wing lobby, willing to halt any and all legislation to regulate firearms. Let’s call a spade a spade – the NRA doesn’t care about the multitudes of adults and children that are killed by bullets. They relish it – gun control proposals make membership surge, and causes a spike in gun sales. It seems that after every massacre, the NRA gains more power.
However, the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida seems to have given rise to a movement that has the potential to give the NRA a taste of humble pie. These kids are sick of active-shooter drills, and hearing the NRA offer “thoughts and prayers.” They will be the ones in office in just a few years’ time, and are likely to change the face of gun ownership for decades to come.
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For the GOP to be concerned about the safety of Americans they sure keep getting this one wrong. We’re just asking for “responsible access” to weapons. Fatal DUI crashes- there are regulations to discourage an intoxicated person from driving. Suicide bomber- you got take off your shoes to get to your airport gate, you gotta go through detectors to get into certain spaces in Washington D.C. Regulation!!!! This shouldn’t be about party lines or When Sandy Hook happened and the GOP was still calling for your second amendment right was when I was done with this discussion. It’s not even about the amendment anymore. It’s about safety. And actually this doesn’t make any sense because Republicans want to keep Muslims out of the country because they’re concerned for their safety but aren’t willing to regulate access to guns
So, after whoring himself out to the NRA for 30 million dollars, for which he promised to do, and did nothing, to stop men, woman and children from being murdered in mass shootings by psychopaths with assault weapons, Trump is all of a sudden trying to sound like a human being. Why? Because he and the rest of the GOP sociopaths finally reallize that the american public are fed up with children being killed in mass school shootings that they let happen because they are whores for the NRA money. Now that they are up for re-election in 7 months, and are scared shitless that they will be put out of office. And the GOP will lose control of the congress. And Trump will be powerless to make himself and family richer with his worldwide corruption, they are trying to look like they care about people, and are not the lying cheating money grubbing sociopaths that trade childrens murders for NRA money. We will see more and more of the GOP hypocracy the closer we get to the 2018 elections in November. These people are the worst group of political garbage in american history.