An Association that Stops at Nothing

Nowhere else are there more weapons per capita than in the United States. The might of the gun lobby is as powerful as the cynicism of its reaction to shooting sprees.

If one wants to understand why, despite the increasing number of massacres in schools, movie theaters and churches, guns are not becoming more regulated in the U.S., one must understand the power of the National Rifle Association. The gun owners’ club has been by far the most influential lobby in Washington for decades; a power that even the president cannot challenge. President Barack Obama kept it that way in his speech — as an indirect appeal to gun owners — after the recent attack at the Umpqua Community College in Oregon last Thursday in which 10 people were killed. Gun owners should contemplate, said Obama, “whether your views are being properly represented by the organization that suggests it is speaking for you.” On Friday he plans to personally visit the college in Oregon.

Obama was referring to the NRA and its absolute and uncompromising rejection of each check on, or regulation of, gun ownership. The club claims to represent the views of 4.5 million members. Its lobbyists have been able to easily block each restriction and even the systematic registration of gun ownership and additionally managed to abolish existing laws. If nothing else, the NRA can be thanked for the high percentage of private owners of weapons in the U.S., higher than in any other nation. The Geneva-based research institute Small Arms Survey counts more than 300 million guns in the United States, up to 97 guns per 100 citizens.

In second place is Yemen, and third place, Switzerland. The study was conducted in 2007; since then it can be assumed that little has changed in the United States. At the same time, America is the leader in the number of massacres involving firearms, according to a recent investigation by the University of Alabama. Between 1966 and 2012, there were 90 such attacks in the U.S.; worldwide the researchers count 292. Included in the study were only cases with four or more victims; serial criminals and family killings were not considered. Some 31,000 people die annually in the U.S. due to firearms; that comes to 85 people per day.

The proceedings after the attack in Newtown, Connecticut in December 2012 shows why the NRA has the reputation among U.S. legislative representatives of being unbeatable. Whoever thought that the NRA would change its demeanor as a result of 20 children’s coffins quickly saw the reality. Hardly a week after the massacre Wayne LaPierre, the voice of the NRA since 1991, stepped in front of the press. He accused the media, Hollywood and video game designers of being responsible for acts such as that of Adam Lanza. His speech peaked with the declaration that because schools are gun-free zones, they invite such attacks. “The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre explained. He offered to allow volunteers from the NRA to patrol schools – fully armed, of course.

His statement resulted in a public outcry. Some representatives and senators brought gun control bills to the floor that would require gun stores to perform background checks on all of their customers before they could sell them a gun. Regular stores already perform such a check; the law would have merely extended the checks to Internet sales and gun conventions. The sale itself would not be restricted by these laws. Such a requirement would not have prevented Adam Lanza from being able to obtain the rifles he utilized in Newtown. They belonged to his mother. But this relatively moderate attempt found no mercy in the eyes of the NRA. They fought the proposed laws tooth and nail, and won. In their final vote on the bill in spring 2013, the politicians folded.

You may remember President Bill Clinton. He had to atone for the ban on assault rifles – limited to ten years – when his party lost the majority in Congress in the 1994 election. The ban ended in 2004. The weapon that the NRA utilizes to intimidate politicians is a rating system. The gun club grades congressmen on a scale based on how much they fall in line with the NRA. Whoever gets good grades can expect an endorsement that can sway a million votes. And huge campaign donations. Whoever challenges the NRA has to expect serious opposition.

NRA Sidles Up Ever Closer To the Weapons Industry

The NRA wasn’t always an aggressive political lobby that put fear in the hearts of those in Washington. For more than 100 years, it was a club that mostly attracted sport shooters and hunters. It was originally founded by the Veterans of the Civil War, who wanted to ensure that the urban population in the industrial North could be just as good shooters as the population in the rural South. In its early days, the NRA actually helped to develop weapon laws. Eventually the unrest during the civil rights movement of the 1960s and ultimately the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King led to an intensification of gun regulations.

The new rules led to a radicalization of the NRA. The organization began to claim the Second Amendment, the right of every American to bear arms, as a fundamental individual right. The internal strife within the NRA mirrored the growing tensions between the more rural states — whose population felt encroached upon by the new restrictions — and the urban elites, who fought for even stricter controls. Among the first victories of the new, radicalized NRA was the elimination of the earlier, stricter regulations.

In recent years, the NRA has become cozier with the weapons industry. Under LaPierre, the NRA helped the industry fend off a dangerous threat. Cities plagued with increasing gun violence began to sue the weapons manufacturers for damages based on product liability. In 2005, the NRA scraped out its most important political victory. This resulted in a law that prevents weapons manufacturers from being sued over such claims. Simultaneously, the gun industry, which now operates with revenues of about $15 million annually, has shown its generous support for the NRA. How much exactly the organization receives is hard to guess, as the money flows through many channels. It either takes the form of direct donations or manufacturers’ ads in NRA publications.

With many of the products, many manufacturers divert one dollar from the sale price to the NRA. Between 2005 and 2013, the NRA received between $19 million and $60 million from weapons and ammunition producers, according to the Violence Policy Center, a pro-regulation institute. One of the companies that stuff a million dollars or more into the pockets of lobbyists, according to the Violence Policy Center, has been the Remington Outdoor Group (previously the Freedom Group), the manufacturer of the Bushmaster Rifle. That was one of the rifles that Adam Lanza used in his attack on the elementary school in Newtown. Additional top donators are Smith & Wesson, Beretta USA, and Sturm, Ruger & Co, according to the 2013 report by the institution.

The NRA started its most recent opposition to potential new efforts to introduce stricter gun controls merely hours after the attack on the college in Oregon. “The number of people killed with someone’s bare hands is more than double the number killed with a rifle,” according to a recent tweet that misleadingly interprets an FBI statistic. This time the NRA did not even wait until the victims were buried.