8 ms·

I think we all know why. In fact. This author implies it: the NRA actually represents the business interests of people who manufacture and sell firearms. They m

by ixtli 10y ago

I think we all know why. In fact. This author implies it: the NRA actually represents the business interests of people who manufacture and sell firearms. They may mask these interests as a public service, defending your rights and hobbies and whatnot but it is always the case that they oppose anything that would reduce firearm sales and support anything that makes it easier for you to get a gun.

fiatmoney 10y ago
That's absolutely false. The NRA's membership drives their policy, not the other way around - manufacturers have historically been perfectly content to give into things like the assault weapons ban or magazine capacity limits (they make roughly the same amount of money if they sell their guns with a scary flash hider or a sanctified muzzle brake). In fact there are numerous groups, like the Gun Owners of America, who are even more membership-driven and essentially exist in order to keep pressure on the NRA to avoid making "deals" with gun control partisans. This idea of the NRA as a manufacturer-driven astroturf organization seems to have been made up out of whole cloth over the last 5 years or so and is only sustainable to the extent that its proponents avoid actually talking to any gun owners.
- jonstokes 10y ago
  OP article author here: You are correct and the parent comment is incorrect. The NRA actually used to support background checks, but after decades of "compromises" where they basically gave up ground and got nothing in return, they went hard-line at the membership's insistence. This cartoon does a great job of explaining the average NRA members view of what it means to meet the gun control lobby "halfway" on an issue: http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/11/08/cake-and-compromise-illustrated-guide-to-gun-control/ http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/11/08/cake-and-comprom... I'll link another piece I wrote on this topic, which is way too long and incoherent and should have gotten edits but didn't: http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/11/12/why-fake-moderate-gun-owner-orgs-like-arcog-fail-every-time/ http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/11/12/why-fake-moderate-gun-o... For discussion of the evolution of the NRA into a hard-line, no-compromise lobbying group, see the last section, "NRA: The Original Moderate Pro-Gun Group".
  - caseysoftware 10y ago
    I missed your first article the first time around but read both. I just wanted to say that you did a fantastic job... well-researched and explained. Thank you. Also, the parallels with how legislators cluelessly approach the adoption of any new technology were painfully clear.
  - Dagwoodie 10y ago
    The problem is, left leaning politicians constantly threaten their fundamental constitutional rights, either overtly or not. Every time a gun is used in a crime that rises to national prominence politicians sprint to the microphone to decry gun ownership or at very least to make it harder or much harder to acquire a gun. Bigger than that though, the entertainment media is largely left wing and extremely vocal of their disdain of not just "allowing crazy to buy guns" but their hatred of all gun owners and the second amendment. Never mind belligerent crazy people, I can't remember a single TV show or movie in the last thirty years that depicted responsible gun owners, i.e. the vast majority of gun owners, in any positive light. Can you? Every time I see a gun on TV it's either used by a police officer or used in a crime of some sort. Test me on this next time you see a gun shown on TV or in a movie that comes out Hollywood.
    - hga 10y ago
      And then there's all the dramatic productions of written works where positive uses of guns are somehow dropped on the floor. Schindler's List I remember reading about, he armed "his" Jews before they left, and as I recall, being armed made a big difference in their subsequent survival. This sort of thing was dropped from the dramatization of a novel by a totally PC woman black? author, I could probably find a reference if anyone is interested. At minimum this is part of a wide spectrum culture war which these gun-grabbing politicians are on one side of, at worst, well, we gun owners know our 20th Century history (see above).
      - objclxt 10y ago
        > *dramatization of a novel by a totally PC woman black? author I fail to see how the gender or sex of the author has anything to do with anything, but it's good to know where your own biases lie.
crazy1van 10y ago
> NRA actually represents the business interests of people who manufacture and sell firearms But this is in no way mutually exclusive from representing the interests of citizens who want to buy and possess those firearms. It makes total sense that an organization lobbying against outlawing a product would be supported by both the manufacturers and consumers of that product.
jboggan 10y ago
I disagree. The NRA has 4 million American members which I think makes it the largest lobby by membership. I doubt they're all pawns of the gun industry. If the NRA wanted to solely juice sales and sell more guns they would give heavily to elect more Democratic candidates. The current presidency has been great for sales [0]. 0 - https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/nics_firearm_...
- Dagwoodie 10y ago
  Saying that 2nd amendment supporters want politicians who threaten their rights is like saying heavy eaters are in favor of natural disasters because they justify buying a lot of extra food.
- cvwright 10y ago
  Left-wingers ranting about the "gun lobby" are like right-wingers ranting about the "LGBT lobby". Everybody loves to pretend that the opposing political party is driven by some strange, inhuman machine, not by a bunch of normal people pretty much just like themselves.
  - atemerev 10y ago
    LGBT lobby? And what this lobby political agenda would be? Promoting skinny jeans? (I consider myself to be a right-winger, as I am certainly pro-gun and pro-business, and straight as a rail, but I never heard about LGBT lobby concept, except in jokes about fashion. LGBT guys and gals are fun.)
    - hga 10y ago
      Try https://www.google.com/#q=target+transgender https://www.google.com/#q=target+transgender for example.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    I have never, once, heard anyone utter "LGBT lobby".
hga 10y ago
Except that organization is the National Shooting Sports Foundation, NSSF. The NRA represents the interests of gun owners, you know, the 5 million or so dues paying members. Looking at their 2013 Form 990 (http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/530/530116130/530116130_201312_990O.pdf http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/530/5301161...), member dues totaled $175,577,863, which swamps the money they get from the industry including advertisements, and that's not counting the donations from members which are on top of their dues. Which is a large part of the $83,356,202, from the figures I saw in one of the linked hit jobs, I would guess the majority, and advertising is a mere $24,468,824. No dice.
gozur88 10y ago
No it doesn't. The domestic US gun industry is tiny - not nearly big enough to have this kind of influence. Beyond that, the government is a big customer, so they have a history of going along with regulations as long as the police and military contracts come through.
koenigdavidmj 10y ago
Banning private sales means that I have go to into a gun shop to transfer a gun to a friend. That implies: - Buying new now no longer has additional hassle compared to buying used, since the difficulty of the latter has been increased. - Two people are now forced to go into a gun shop where they wouldn't have before. They might browse for accessories or maybe a new piece. This is rather similar to the software industry's attacks on the ability to resell. If the NRA was just a lobby for gun businesses, why would they not support private sales bans? They should want this kind of captive audience.
- hga 10y ago
  And the government can shut down all sales nation wide by shutting down the NICS. Which they do upon occasion because it's a computer system, and it's not always able to handle the load.
brandonmenc 10y ago
> the NRA actually represents the business interests of people who manufacture and sell firearms NRA member here. I neither manufacture nor sell firearms, and the NRA represents my interests re: gun ownership.

by ixtli 10y ago

fiatmoney 10y ago

That's absolutely false. The NRA's membership drives their policy, not the other way around - manufacturers have historically been perfectly content to give into things like the assault weapons ban or magazine capacity limits (they make roughly the same amount of money if they sell their guns with a scary flash hider or a sanctified muzzle brake). In fact there are numerous groups, like the Gun Owners of America, who are even more membership-driven and essentially exist in order to keep pressure on the NRA to avoid making "deals" with gun control partisans. This idea of the NRA as a manufacturer-driven astroturf organization seems to have been made up out of whole cloth over the last 5 years or so and is only sustainable to the extent that its proponents avoid actually talking to any gun owners.

jonstokes 10y ago
OP article author here: You are correct and the parent comment is incorrect. The NRA actually used to support background checks, but after decades of "compromises" where they basically gave up ground and got nothing in return, they went hard-line at the membership's insistence. This cartoon does a great job of explaining the average NRA members view of what it means to meet the gun control lobby "halfway" on an issue: http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/11/08/cake-and-compromise-illustrated-guide-to-gun-control/ http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/11/08/cake-and-comprom... I'll link another piece I wrote on this topic, which is way too long and incoherent and should have gotten edits but didn't: http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/11/12/why-fake-moderate-gun-owner-orgs-like-arcog-fail-every-time/ http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/11/12/why-fake-moderate-gun-o... For discussion of the evolution of the NRA into a hard-line, no-compromise lobbying group, see the last section, "NRA: The Original Moderate Pro-Gun Group".
- caseysoftware 10y ago
  I missed your first article the first time around but read both. I just wanted to say that you did a fantastic job... well-researched and explained. Thank you. Also, the parallels with how legislators cluelessly approach the adoption of any new technology were painfully clear.
- Dagwoodie 10y ago
  The problem is, left leaning politicians constantly threaten their fundamental constitutional rights, either overtly or not. Every time a gun is used in a crime that rises to national prominence politicians sprint to the microphone to decry gun ownership or at very least to make it harder or much harder to acquire a gun. Bigger than that though, the entertainment media is largely left wing and extremely vocal of their disdain of not just "allowing crazy to buy guns" but their hatred of all gun owners and the second amendment. Never mind belligerent crazy people, I can't remember a single TV show or movie in the last thirty years that depicted responsible gun owners, i.e. the vast majority of gun owners, in any positive light. Can you? Every time I see a gun on TV it's either used by a police officer or used in a crime of some sort. Test me on this next time you see a gun shown on TV or in a movie that comes out Hollywood.
  - hga 10y ago
    And then there's all the dramatic productions of written works where positive uses of guns are somehow dropped on the floor. Schindler's List I remember reading about, he armed "his" Jews before they left, and as I recall, being armed made a big difference in their subsequent survival. This sort of thing was dropped from the dramatization of a novel by a totally PC woman black? author, I could probably find a reference if anyone is interested. At minimum this is part of a wide spectrum culture war which these gun-grabbing politicians are on one side of, at worst, well, we gun owners know our 20th Century history (see above).
    - objclxt 10y ago
      > *dramatization of a novel by a totally PC woman black? author I fail to see how the gender or sex of the author has anything to do with anything, but it's good to know where your own biases lie.

crazy1van 10y ago

> NRA actually represents the business interests of people who manufacture and sell firearms But this is in no way mutually exclusive from representing the interests of citizens who want to buy and possess those firearms. It makes total sense that an organization lobbying against outlawing a product would be supported by both the manufacturers and consumers of that product.

jboggan 10y ago

I disagree. The NRA has 4 million American members which I think makes it the largest lobby by membership. I doubt they're all pawns of the gun industry. If the NRA wanted to solely juice sales and sell more guns they would give heavily to elect more Democratic candidates. The current presidency has been great for sales [0]. 0 - https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/nics_firearm_...

Dagwoodie 10y ago
Saying that 2nd amendment supporters want politicians who threaten their rights is like saying heavy eaters are in favor of natural disasters because they justify buying a lot of extra food.
cvwright 10y ago
Left-wingers ranting about the "gun lobby" are like right-wingers ranting about the "LGBT lobby". Everybody loves to pretend that the opposing political party is driven by some strange, inhuman machine, not by a bunch of normal people pretty much just like themselves.
- atemerev 10y ago
  LGBT lobby? And what this lobby political agenda would be? Promoting skinny jeans? (I consider myself to be a right-winger, as I am certainly pro-gun and pro-business, and straight as a rail, but I never heard about LGBT lobby concept, except in jokes about fashion. LGBT guys and gals are fun.)
  - hga 10y ago
    Try https://www.google.com/#q=target+transgender https://www.google.com/#q=target+transgender for example.
- gozur88 10y ago
  I have never, once, heard anyone utter "LGBT lobby".

hga 10y ago

Except that organization is the National Shooting Sports Foundation, NSSF. The NRA represents the interests of gun owners, you know, the 5 million or so dues paying members. Looking at their 2013 Form 990 (http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/530/530116130/530116130_201312_990O.pdf http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/530/5301161...), member dues totaled $175,577,863, which swamps the money they get from the industry including advertisements, and that's not counting the donations from members which are on top of their dues. Which is a large part of the $83,356,202, from the figures I saw in one of the linked hit jobs, I would guess the majority, and advertising is a mere $24,468,824. No dice.

gozur88 10y ago

No it doesn't. The domestic US gun industry is tiny - not nearly big enough to have this kind of influence. Beyond that, the government is a big customer, so they have a history of going along with regulations as long as the police and military contracts come through.

koenigdavidmj 10y ago

Banning private sales means that I have go to into a gun shop to transfer a gun to a friend. That implies: - Buying new now no longer has additional hassle compared to buying used, since the difficulty of the latter has been increased. - Two people are now forced to go into a gun shop where they wouldn't have before. They might browse for accessories or maybe a new piece. This is rather similar to the software industry's attacks on the ability to resell. If the NRA was just a lobby for gun businesses, why would they not support private sales bans? They should want this kind of captive audience.

hga 10y ago
And the government can shut down all sales nation wide by shutting down the NICS. Which they do upon occasion because it's a computer system, and it's not always able to handle the load.

brandonmenc 10y ago

> the NRA actually represents the business interests of people who manufacture and sell firearms NRA member here. I neither manufacture nor sell firearms, and the NRA represents my interests re: gun ownership.