The Administration May Have Changed, But the NRA Is Still In Power

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman

Back during the primary election season, Democrats vilified "lobbyists" as the enemies of the people. No self-respecting Democratic candidate was going to let the unscrupulous K-Street lobbyists run Washington any more!

Too bad they didn't really mean it. Now that Democrats have won the White House and solid majorities in Congress, one of the nation's strongest lobbies, the National Rifle Association (NRA), has been on a real upswing. As it turns out, "Fear of Obama's been good for business," Scott Vogel of Freedom States Alliance told BuzzFlash today -- which is ironic, since the NRA poured some $40 million into the 2008 elections trying to defeat Obama and other Democrats.

But since January, the NRA has enjoyed tremendous message success along with legislative success. On the message side, the NRA did everything in its power to scare the wits out of conservatives. "They're coming to take your guns away," was the warning, with the result that there was a tremendous run on guns and ammo. Buyers literally emptied gun store shelves, and dealers and manufacturers, who provide deep financial support to the NRA, raked in the dough.

And as Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center observed in February, "Military-style weapons are the guns that are flying off the shelves and into the homes of people frightened about the 'change' that an Obama Administration represents." Assault weapons, high-powered hand guns, sniper rifles, oh yeah. This was not about a sudden urge to go duck hunting.

Meanwhile, of course, in Washington this year there hasn't been the slightest move to take guns away or curb gun ownership. That's just right-wing mythology. In fact, only one regulatory baby step that could be construed as "anti-gun" has been taken since Obama's inauguration. The new administration did slightly alter the Tiahrt Amendments, so that a city's police chief -- but only that person -- now may access records that trace guns involved in criminal activity.

Is it a new era of government "transparency"? In this case, Obama created at best a little translucence. Prior to the first Tiahrt Amendments of 2003, records tracing the ownership of crime-involved guns had been open to anyone via a Freedom of Information Act request. Now, thanks to NRA lobbying and congresspersons like Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan), it's illegal for even a mayor or elected city council member to see where guns used in crimes came from. You've got to wonder, just who gets protected by that?

While the Obama Administration and pro-regulation legislators have maintained a low profile on gun issues, the gun lobby and their allies have moved swiftly to fill the leadership void. They attached a gun amendment to the very popular credit card bill ostensibly to "protect innocent Americans from violent crime in national parks and refuges." To their discredit, the Democrats were split evenly on that vote, 27-27 with 3 abstentions. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) championed the move that will bring the most liberal gun-carry law of any local jurisdication into Yellowstone or Williamsburg or any other national park. On their website, the NRA's lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) kindly thanks those who were most helpful: "We appreciate the efforts and leadership of Senators Max Baucus (D-MT), Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Representative Doc Hastings (R-WA) ..."

How does the gun lobby intimidate or coopt politicians of both parties? First, by boasting of "nearly 4 million members" who supposedly oppose regulation of guns altogether, and supposedly will vote accordingly. Second, with dubious evidence, they convinced many politicians that the partial assault weapons ban enacted in 1994 and then allowed to expire in 2004 led to Democratic electoral defeats. And, finally, they have deep pockets. "In NRA Headquarters in Fairfax, Va., and in offices in Washington, D.C., and in Sacramento, Calif., the Institute employs a staff of more than 80, with a team of full-time lobbyists defending Second Amendment issues on Capitol Hill, in state legislatures and in local government bodies." That's just one arm of the lobbying force, not it's entirety. And they've lobbied successfully for state and local laws like the new one in Tennessee that allows carriers of concealed guns to freely enter bars and restaurants.

Meanwhile, the opposition -- the anti-violence, pro-regulatory advocates -- must make do with meager funding and overworked staffs.

The result of this imbalance in lobbying power is that guns are everywhere and making headlines. The right-wing militia movement and other extremists have been emboldened and are recruiting, as a leaked Homeland Security memo revealed in April. Mexican drug cartels, which operate also inside the US, are heavily armed and freely assassinating Mexican police officers.

Since January, well-armed political extremists in the US have shot dead a clinic doctor in Kansas, a museum guard in Washington, DC and a young soldier at a military recruiting office in Arkansas. A man on parole and convicted of prior firearm assault killed four law enforcement officers in Oakland, CA. A white supremacist in Pittsburgh, PA killed three more officers.

Is this the "well-armed militia" that our Constitution assured and envisioned as needing weapons? Does the NRA, which has fought to make guns available to everyone including these extremist killers, believe that?

Who knows. It hardly matters whether the gun lobby is unprincipled or irrational. They'll use the Second Amendment to argue against local regulation such as the gun laws enacted to protect Washington, DC or Chicago. Then they'll turn around and use the Tenth Amendment to argue against national regulation. They'll even use a credit card bill, of all things, to extend concealed carry laws into states and cherished national wilderness lands that didn't need or want them.

They're the NRA. They're omnipotent gods. They've constructed convincing myths that keep them growing. Now, even chaos fueled by hate and well-aimed bullets -- bordering on domestic terrorism -- seems insufficient to rally the principled opposition and the less militant. Unless you count baby steps.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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