The NRA and the Presidency
The National Rifle Association (NRA) was formed in 1871 by a number of Civil War veterans, with the belief that American soldiers had fallen behind European soldiers when it came to using firearms. General Ambrose Burnside was the NRA's first president, and he had said of his soldiers "Out of ten soldiers who are perfect in drill and the manual of arms, only one knows the purpose of the sights on his gun or can hit the broad side of a barn." Eight U.S. Presidents have been NRA members: Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. Grant was the 8th President of the NRA. Bush resigned in 1992 after he was attached by the NRA in a politically charged ad.
The NRA has inserted itself into a number of Presidential elections. For examples, three days before election day in the 1980 presidential election, the NRA endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time in its history, backing Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter. Reagan had received the California Rifle and Pistol Association's Outstanding Public Service Award. Carter had appointed Abner J. Mikva, a fervent proponent of gun control, to a federal judgeship and had supported the Alaska Lands Bill, closing 40,000,000 acres to hunting.
The NRA supported George H. W. Bush in the 1988 election and contributed six million dollars in ads supporting Bush. But early on in his term Bush broke with the NRA when his Treasury Department outlawed the importing of several models of assault weapons. The NRA, tried to preserve its relationship with the Bush White House, believing that the measure was a temporary moratorium as providing a cooling-off period for a discussion of the assault weapon issue. But when Bush dramatically expanded the import ban to cover many dozens of additional firearms models, his relationship with the NRA became strained. In May of 1989, Bush made the import ban permanent, and proposed a ban on all magazines holding more than 15 rounds. Bush proposed that all large-capacity ammunition feeding devices currently in private hands would have to be registered with the federal government, under terms similar to the current registration of machine guns.
For the rest of the Bush administration, gun rights advocates were shut out of the White House. Even when Bush was trailing badly in the polls in the late summer of 1992, the Bush administration refused to have anything to do with the gun lobby.
In the spring of 1995, the NRA had sent out a fund-raising letter stating that out-of-control rogue federal agents were endangering public safety, and behaving like "jack-booted government thugs." In response to this, Bush wrote a scathing letter to the President of the NRA. "Your broadside against federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor, and it offends my concept of service to country," Bush wrote NRA President Tom Washington. "It indirectly slanders a wide array of government law enforcement officials, who are out there, day and night, laying their lives on the line for all of us."
In 2008 the NRA campaigned against President Barack Obama and it has declared itself to be against Obama in the upcoming election as well. In spite of this, neither Obama nor his Republican opponent Mitt Romney have spoken in favour of increased gun control, according to Los Angeles Times reporter Doyle McManus, who wrote in his column today:
This week, days after a gunman with an assault rifle killed 12 moviegoers in a Colorado theater, neither Romney nor President Barack Obama raised the now-radical notion of reviving the federal assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. Even the ban's principal author, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., admitted that it was a lost cause for now.
Feinstein blamed the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups for blocking new laws. "They pour a lot of money (into election campaigns), and some people lost office after they voted for the legislation before," she said.
But powerful lobbies and callow politicians aren't the only impediments to stricter gun laws. Over the last two decades, public support for them has collapsed. In 1990, before the assault weapons ban, a Gallup poll found that 78 percent of Americans favored stricter regulation of guns. But that number has declined steadily ever since. Last year, Gallup asked the same question, and only 43 percent of those polled said they favored stricter gun laws.
The public doesn't agree with the NRA that gun laws should be eased further -- only 11 percent hold that view, according to Gallup. But on the core issue -- the right to gun ownership with only minimal government oversight -- the NRA has won the debate.
Social scientists have differing opinions about why public opinion has shifted so remarkably, but one likely explanation is that crime is down. Twenty years ago, when murder rates were high, sponsors of gun control legislation billed it as a way to help get guns off the street and reduce the murder rate. It's not clear that gun control got many firearms off the street, but violent crime has declined sharply and, with it, some of the impetus for more laws.
Another probable reason for the shift is a precipitous drop in citizens' confidence in the federal government. In 2011, Gallup found that only 43 percent of Americans said they trusted the federal government to handle domestic problems, the lowest ever recorded; 49 percent said they considered the federal government "an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens," the highest ever recorded. When people are that suspicious of federal power, they're wary of federal gun laws too.
Political polarization is also a factor. Gone are the days when the two parties could find middle ground on gun control. Pew Research Center polls found that from 2007 to 2012, the percentage of Americans who believed that controlling guns was more important than protecting gun rights fell from 59 percent to 45 percent. But most of that change occurred among Republicans; only five years ago, the GOP was closely divided on the issue, but now only about one-fourth of Republican voters call gun control a higher priority than gun rights. Among Democrats, by contrast, about two-thirds want gun control, and their views have hardly budged in 20 years.
Over the last two decades, Federal Election Commission records show that the NRA has spent almost $49 million on independent campaign expenditures, second only to the Service Employees International Union. And that kind of spending sends a message.
Like other Republicans, Romney has taken note of the NRA's muscle. The presumptive Republican nominee signed his state-level assault weapons ban in 2004, but as soon as he began contemplating a run for president, he moved to the right. Romney quietly joined the NRA in 2006 and campaigned for the Republican nomination in 2008 as an unbending supporter of gun owners' rights.
"I do not support any new legislation," Romney said that year. This year, the issue has hardly come up.
I conclude these observations with the following poll:
The NRA has inserted itself into a number of Presidential elections. For examples, three days before election day in the 1980 presidential election, the NRA endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time in its history, backing Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter. Reagan had received the California Rifle and Pistol Association's Outstanding Public Service Award. Carter had appointed Abner J. Mikva, a fervent proponent of gun control, to a federal judgeship and had supported the Alaska Lands Bill, closing 40,000,000 acres to hunting.
The NRA supported George H. W. Bush in the 1988 election and contributed six million dollars in ads supporting Bush. But early on in his term Bush broke with the NRA when his Treasury Department outlawed the importing of several models of assault weapons. The NRA, tried to preserve its relationship with the Bush White House, believing that the measure was a temporary moratorium as providing a cooling-off period for a discussion of the assault weapon issue. But when Bush dramatically expanded the import ban to cover many dozens of additional firearms models, his relationship with the NRA became strained. In May of 1989, Bush made the import ban permanent, and proposed a ban on all magazines holding more than 15 rounds. Bush proposed that all large-capacity ammunition feeding devices currently in private hands would have to be registered with the federal government, under terms similar to the current registration of machine guns.
For the rest of the Bush administration, gun rights advocates were shut out of the White House. Even when Bush was trailing badly in the polls in the late summer of 1992, the Bush administration refused to have anything to do with the gun lobby.
In the spring of 1995, the NRA had sent out a fund-raising letter stating that out-of-control rogue federal agents were endangering public safety, and behaving like "jack-booted government thugs." In response to this, Bush wrote a scathing letter to the President of the NRA. "Your broadside against federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor, and it offends my concept of service to country," Bush wrote NRA President Tom Washington. "It indirectly slanders a wide array of government law enforcement officials, who are out there, day and night, laying their lives on the line for all of us."
In 2008 the NRA campaigned against President Barack Obama and it has declared itself to be against Obama in the upcoming election as well. In spite of this, neither Obama nor his Republican opponent Mitt Romney have spoken in favour of increased gun control, according to Los Angeles Times reporter Doyle McManus, who wrote in his column today:
This week, days after a gunman with an assault rifle killed 12 moviegoers in a Colorado theater, neither Romney nor President Barack Obama raised the now-radical notion of reviving the federal assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. Even the ban's principal author, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., admitted that it was a lost cause for now.
Feinstein blamed the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups for blocking new laws. "They pour a lot of money (into election campaigns), and some people lost office after they voted for the legislation before," she said.
But powerful lobbies and callow politicians aren't the only impediments to stricter gun laws. Over the last two decades, public support for them has collapsed. In 1990, before the assault weapons ban, a Gallup poll found that 78 percent of Americans favored stricter regulation of guns. But that number has declined steadily ever since. Last year, Gallup asked the same question, and only 43 percent of those polled said they favored stricter gun laws.
The public doesn't agree with the NRA that gun laws should be eased further -- only 11 percent hold that view, according to Gallup. But on the core issue -- the right to gun ownership with only minimal government oversight -- the NRA has won the debate.
Social scientists have differing opinions about why public opinion has shifted so remarkably, but one likely explanation is that crime is down. Twenty years ago, when murder rates were high, sponsors of gun control legislation billed it as a way to help get guns off the street and reduce the murder rate. It's not clear that gun control got many firearms off the street, but violent crime has declined sharply and, with it, some of the impetus for more laws.
Another probable reason for the shift is a precipitous drop in citizens' confidence in the federal government. In 2011, Gallup found that only 43 percent of Americans said they trusted the federal government to handle domestic problems, the lowest ever recorded; 49 percent said they considered the federal government "an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens," the highest ever recorded. When people are that suspicious of federal power, they're wary of federal gun laws too.
Political polarization is also a factor. Gone are the days when the two parties could find middle ground on gun control. Pew Research Center polls found that from 2007 to 2012, the percentage of Americans who believed that controlling guns was more important than protecting gun rights fell from 59 percent to 45 percent. But most of that change occurred among Republicans; only five years ago, the GOP was closely divided on the issue, but now only about one-fourth of Republican voters call gun control a higher priority than gun rights. Among Democrats, by contrast, about two-thirds want gun control, and their views have hardly budged in 20 years.
Over the last two decades, Federal Election Commission records show that the NRA has spent almost $49 million on independent campaign expenditures, second only to the Service Employees International Union. And that kind of spending sends a message.
Like other Republicans, Romney has taken note of the NRA's muscle. The presumptive Republican nominee signed his state-level assault weapons ban in 2004, but as soon as he began contemplating a run for president, he moved to the right. Romney quietly joined the NRA in 2006 and campaigned for the Republican nomination in 2008 as an unbending supporter of gun owners' rights.
"I do not support any new legislation," Romney said that year. This year, the issue has hardly come up.
I conclude these observations with the following poll:
Do you think that gun control be a major issue in the 2012 election?
Yes
1(14.3%)
Only in some parts of the country
1(14.3%)
No, it won't be much of an issue at all
4(57.1%)
Something else (what?)
1(14.3%)