Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6
I am disappointed in the NRA. It is the self-proclaimed protector of the Second Amendment and the foremost firearms education organization in the country. It has a lobbyist arm second to none.
Where is it on the issue of mentally unstable citizens legally acquiring guns and killing people?
Why is it not out front as the best champion of gun owners with ideas and solutions on how to fix this truly critical issue?
It is the single best equipped organization to offer concrete solutions but it's silent.
Disappointed that the entire debate is purely reactionary with no proactive engagement of the public and of government to fix this problem.
|
You must not be a member. Or at least not an active one paying attention.
The NRA has been very actively addressing these very issues for, oh, at least a couple of decades. As a matter of fact, their inability to affect change on these fronts speaks more to their "lobbying power" than their successes on the firearms rights front.
Our "ace in the hole" regarding firearms rights is well and truly the Second Amendment. Without that, we would have lost this fight 40 years ago. Without that "big stick" and courts that still recognize our Bill of Rights for what it is, the NRA would not have a leg to stand on.
That is where we stand with regards to these other issues. HIPAA is a great example wherein there is no over-arching Constitutional authority on which to base the fight. The NRA has lobbied quite aggressively to bring mental health history to the forefront of the whole "background check" issue, and has failed miserably. There is a massively entrenched liberal ideology surrounding the medical privacy of folks, engendered by some rather embarrassing, questionable behavior of many groups liberalism supports (ask any medical professional practicing at the time - HIPAA grew largely out of the AIDS epidemic, and the stigmatization of HIV positive folks at that time).
The NRA has lobbied tirelessly (and for the most part, futilely) for tougher sentences for firearms related crime. The NRA helped craft the "Three Strikes" legislation that many states use to lock up felons for good on their third felony conviction. Alas, many liberal governors, who disagree with such "harsh" treatment, have commuted far too many of these sentences on "humanitarian" grounds. We tried...
The NRA has pushed for mandatory minimum additional sentencing if a firearm is used in a crime. Some states have adopted these kinds of laws; most have resisted. I believe it's Virginia that was actually sued by its neighboring states on the grounds that its mandatory firearms "plus time" sentencing was so tough that its criminals were crossing state lines to ply their trade, driving up neighboring states' violent crime stats.
We also provide, free of charge, the best, most effective primary and middle school gun safety course available - the "Eddie Eagle" training program. We will go to your grade school or middle school to teach this program for free. Again, however, liberals have shown remarkable resistance to this program, fighting to keep the NRA out of their schools and away from their children. Funny, liberals are all for "sex education" at this age, recognizing the futility of preaching abstinence, recognizing the natural curiosity of youth (and they are absolutely correct). When it comes to firearms, however, our liberal friends suddenly become as Puritan as it gets, hoping their preaching of abstinence will somehow work.
So, yes, the NRA has very actively lobbied for both increased disclosure of mental health problems to public databases that can be used in background checks, and for far tougher sentencing when firearms are used in crime. The left has steadfastly resisted these efforts for decades. We've heard all of the go-to justifications for this resistance, including the notion that it is somehow "racist" (because blacks commit an enormously disproportionate rate of violent crime), to the hopelessly naive, coddling, "everyone deserves another chance" mantra - even a three strike violent felon.
It is interesting to note that our nation's hotspots for violent crime are, without exception, liberal utopias wherein the NRA has little influence or presence. Conservative folks who hold the kinds of values on which the NRA is founded have been driven out by their uber-liberal neighbors with their crazy, clearly unworkable uber-liberal ideals and philosophies. How ironic that the very folks who have driven us out then decry our inability to "do something" in the neighborhood cesspools of their own making. We work in our own neighborhoods, and what we do clearly works in our neighborhoods. Yet we are, for whatever reason, not welcome in yours...