| Chapter
11
Guns and Gun Control
By David J. Krajicek
In the early 1980s, it helped spread another bromide: “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” At about the same time, the group tried to soften its harsh image under Carter with what some have called its image-correction campaign: “I am the NRA.”
The group suffered a public relations setback in March 1995, when a fundraising letter from LaPierre referred to federal ATF agents as “jackbooted government thugs" after the shootings at the Branch Davidian compound in Texas and on the property of a white separatist in Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
The letter prompted former President George Bush to resign from the association. (He had a history with the NRA, which endorsed him in 1988 but refused to do so when he ran unsuccessfully for reelection in 1992.)
Before apologizing, LaPierre first stubbornly defended the Nazi comparison, saying, "The American public needs to know the truth about BATF.”
But perhaps no five words about firearms have resonated as deeply—on both sides of the gun debate—than the declaration by Heston, then the NRA president, at the association’s convention in 2000 that gun control forces would have to pry his gun “from my cold, dead hands.”
‘Get What They Want’
As a lobbying force, the NRA uses the war room tactics of presidential campaigns, following gun issues assiduously and firing off statements to the press and “action alerts” to supporters.
One example was a May 2007 alert about a seemingly picayune matter in Nye County, Nev. Here was the NRA’s take:
Nye County, Nevada, County Commissioner Circulates Anti-Gun Petition!
In a move to ban the carrying of firearms into public meetings at the Bob Ruud Community Center, County Commissioner Peter Liakopoulos has begun to circulate petitions asking county employees to agree that a “NO FIREARMS” policy should be adopted in the building. Please take the time to contact the County Commissioners below and politely ask that they NOT change their firearms policy in the Bob Ruud Community Center!
Please spread the word to your family, friends, and fellow gun owners that our Right to Keep and Bear Arms is under attack in Nye County!”
The “action alert” was displayed prominently on the “news” page of the NRA website. It included the phones numbers and e-mail addresses of each of the county commissioners, including Liakopoulos.
In an interview, Liakopoulos said he was flummoxed to find himself standing in the NRA sights. He described himself as a “very conservative Republican,” a longtime hunter, owner of more than 30 guns and host of radio and television programs about hunting and shooting.
He characterized the NRA alert as “idiotic.”
“Do you think maybe they could have dropped a dime and said, ‘Hey, what’s going on there?’” said Liakopoulos. “They just slammed out their warning that their rights were being taken away from them…It’s comical.”
Liakopoulos said the issue arose when he got into a confrontation with an armed man in the county government building. Liakopoulos said he had suggested to board colleagues that angry citizens should not be allowed to carry guns into the government building.
The incident is illustrative of the NRA’s focus and tenacity.
Both friends and enemies say they admire the group’s success at rallying its supporters and railing at perceived opponents. (Liakopoulos said he got a modest 20 e-mail messages as a result of the NRA alert.)
The NRA website offers a detailed primer with suggestions on how individual supporters of gun rights can get their message in the media.
The association likes to quote praise from one unlikely source, George Stephanopoulos, the TV commentator and former aide to President Bill Clinton.
"Let me make one small vote for the NRA,” said Stephanopoulos. “They're good citizens. They call their congressmen. They write. They vote. They contribute. And they get what they want over time."
Political Influence
The NRA is officially nonpartisan and has endorsed Democrats, but it is regarded as a close Republican ally.
Since the Reagan era, many Republican presidential candidates have felt compelled to display their firearms bona fides. (Even Democratic hopeful John Kerry managed to have himself photographed hunting geese in 2003.)
Sometimes it backfires.
Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate, may have shot himself in the foot in the spring of 2007 by seeming too eager to claim a kindred relationship with the NRA.
Romney, once known as a gun control supporter, claimed he was an avid hunter and NRA “lifetime member.”
But reporters learned that he had joined the association just the previous August. The Associated Press disclosed that Romney had never had a hunting license in any of the four states he had lived.
What is at stake for a candidate like Romney?
The NRA is widely believed to deliver a solid voting block for the candidates it endorses.
The organization’s membership, 1 million when Harlon Carter took over in 1977, is said to have doubled by 1982. Today, the NRA claims 4.3 million members, about half of whom are said to be hunters.
More Information
Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence
Website: www.bradycampaign.org
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence grew out of the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981.
The organization has roots in the National Council to Control Handguns, founded in 1974 by Mark Borinsky, a college student who had been robbed at gunpoint. That organization, renamed Handgun Control Inc. in 1980, found its focus the following year when Reagan was shot.
His press secretary, James Brady, was seriously wounded in the attack by John Hinckley Jr. Brady and his wife, Sarah, soon grew active in Handgun Control Inc., and they became namesakes when the group changed its name again in 2001.
As the Brady Center says of Sarah on its website, “She and Jim knew the National Rifle Association bore heavy responsibility for the easy availability of guns…And they knew they had to fight back to keep the NRA from running roughshod over our nation 's gun laws. Ever since, Jim and Sarah Brady have led the organization and committed themselves to the fight to end gun violence.”
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