The NRA Gets More and More Powerful

Despite continuing massacres, cries for change in American gun laws come to nothing because of bought-and-paid-for politicians and primitive ideas about the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of gun ownership.

How many more tragedies have to happen before Americans finally start putting restrictions on gun ownership? Many commentators both inside and outside the United States are asking that question ever since the Aurora, Colorado bloodbath.

It’s not a new question, but nothing will ever come of it. A glance at the slate of presidential candidates brings the dilemma into sharper focus: Barack Obama, the incumbent president, once vowed to renew the ban on assault rifles that had been tossed out back in 2004. Once he was in the Oval Office, he did nothing.

The Colorado shooter had an AR-15 in his possession — the prototype for the military’s M-16 assault rifle. Republican Mitt Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, had also adopted a similar ban on assault rifle ownership, an action today he says was a mistake.

Both candidates rightly fear the growing influence of the gun lobby as embodied in the National Rifle Association (NRA). The NRA is well-funded and supports politicians with large sums of money. They strive to push through pro-gun legislation on both the national and local levels — and have increasingly less to fear from determined opponents.

The NRA categorically rejects any form of gun control, referencing the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution that reads: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The amendment dates back to the year 1791, and the militias to which it refers have long since ceased to exist.

The Constitution as a Weapon

But the amendment, now interpreted as virtual blanket permission for every American to own weapons, persists. The predominantly conservative Supreme Court decided in 2008 and again in 2010 that local anti-gun laws in Chicago and Washington, D.C. were unconstitutional.

One commentator in Colorado noted in the Denver Post that there was little chance of anti-gun legislation being enacted because the “Rocky Mountain Gun Owners” organization was especially influential in the state.

Gun Fans Uniting

The Rocky Mountain Gun Owners pressured state legislators in recent weeks to oppose ratification of the United Nations Small Arms Agreement. On Saturday, their managing director, Dudley Brown, wrote a withering tirade against New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has long advocated for stricter gun control laws, saying: “The blatant attempt by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to use the blood of these innocents to advance his radical political agenda is disgusting.”

Gun owners are now using the internet to warn of new attempts at gun control — and are also vowing that they will never go to the movies again unless they’re armed.