The NRA – A Symbol Beyond Guns
Recent marches, demonstrations, news reports, editorials, and blogs detailing the urgency of new gun laws have brought to light the extreme and insidious powers of the National Rifle Association (NRA). We have learned that it isn’t just about mass shootings in schools, churches, theaters, and other public areas. It isn’t just about Stephon Clark and the other victims of police guns.
The problem goes deep. Gun violence is rampant across the nation. On an average day, 96 people are killed by guns in the US (seven of these are children or teens). For every one person killed by a gun, two more are wounded. (1) Nearly two thirds of all firearm deaths are suicides. Although less than 10% of general suicide attempts result in death, 85% of gun suicide attempts are fatal. (2) People kill themselves with guns in moments of deep depression or anger and without thinking. When they don’t have a gun and do have time to “cool off,” they are much more likely to realize that they want to live.
The problem goes still deeper. Nearly everyone in the US wants to stiffen gun control laws – 95% of us favor background checks for all gun sales, and 68% support banning military-style assault weapons. (3) Yet nothing happens. Why?
We all know the answer. The NRA is extremely powerful. It cares nothing for democracy. It has a national budget of some quarter billion dollars and a record of outspending its opponents (fifteen times as much on campaign contributions as gun-control advocates between 2000 and 2010) (4). However, that’s just a fraction of its insidious power.
The NRA is a metaphor, a symbol, for the biggest problem facing the US, one that is quickly transforming us from a respected world democracy (or at least republic) to something that resembles a banana oligarchy ruled by narcissistic autocrats who don’t give a damn what the people think or want. It is representative of the extreme power exercised by a relatively few in the name of profits and greed. Although it portrays itself as a defender of the Second Amendment, the NRA is a marketing and lobbying tool for gun manufacturers.
The NRA is just one of many. It has become apparent to all of us that the US government, including our elected officials, has become the servant of Big Business and the few very wealthy people who own and run the global corporations.
On March 13, 2018 Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, spoke with NPR's Sarah McCammon about the gun industry and its ties to the NRA.
SUGARMANN: The industry's history is one of peaks and valleys. And now they're running into a very deep valley. The industry is constantly trying to find the next big thing to sell to this traditional cohort of gun owners who are aging white males who are dying off. And to borrow a phrase from the tobacco industry, they're not finding the replacement shooters to take their place. At the same time, they work to exploit any opportunity to sell guns, whether it's passage of a gun control law, whether it's the election of Barack Obama - his re-election, whether it's 9/11.
One of the most drastic miscalculations the industry made was they assumed that Hillary Clinton was going to win the presidency. So when she didn't, the sales demand dropped precipitously. And that's why you're seeing the situation today with these leading gun manufacturers.
MCCAMMON: So what does that mean for the total market?
SUGARMANN: It means that the industry has to go find new markets. And once again, following a trail blazed by the tobacco industry, they're continuing to focus on women and also now very aggressively targeting children. (5)
President Eisenhower, in his last major speech as president, warned about the dangerous powers of a growing military-industrial-complex. He told us that we were faced with the very real possibility of becoming an oligarchy where a few wealthy individuals control government. The NRA is just one example of how that has happened.
Let us continue to march, demonstrate and blog for new and much stricter gun control laws. And let us also recognize that in doing so we are opening the door for a bigger movement – one to take business out of government. Let the NRA, Stephon Clark, all the other tragic gun-related deaths, as well as the courageous young people demonstrating in the streets, motivate us to truly become a country by, for and of the people.
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