How to get those politicians to listen (Leftie professor bemoans the NRAs power over congress)

A confession. I have always admired Sarah Palin, not for her intelligence or her looks, but for her aggressiveness, even in the face of defeat. She and John McCain went down in flames to the man who became America's first black president. But even now, all these years later, she doesn't yield.

There is a lesson in that for those of us who believe background checks will help cut into gun violence.

If you can't muster the same passion (or actually more passion) on the side of sensible gun law, background checks in particular, then maybe we have no business winning the legislative controls we say we want.

At the most, there are 5 million members of the NRA and not all of them sign on to its political agenda, for sure. Still, those who do, supported by a gun industry behind the scenes and some other groups that are even louder than the NRA, have managed to frighten enough U.S. senators to prevent background checks from becoming a part of federal gun law.

The NRA's argument seems to be that if we just had more guns, many of these heartbreaking murders would not happen because someone would plug the perp before he or she had a chance to pull that trigger 15 or 16 or 30 times.

Here's the problem with that thought. If you want to look at a place where there are plenty of firearms already, look at the most troubled neighborhoods on Chicago's South and West sides. This is proof that packing heat does nothing to cool down murderous crime. When everyone is finally armed, we can all be murderers! Is that a solution?

The NRA's argument seems to be that if we just had more guns, many of these heartbreaking murders would not happen [ . . . ]

Here's the problem with that thought. If you want to look at a place where there are plenty of firearms already, look at the most troubled neighborhoods on Chicago's South and West sides

A more accurate way to frame the NRA's argument is if we had more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens. The author of this piece picked a place where nearly all of the gun-owners are not law abiding, or even "otherwise" law abiding.

Currently I am not an NRA member. I have been an NRA member in the past for many years. I am currently the member of two NRA affiliated organizations (a gun range and a arms collectors association) I am active in politics and I wrote to my two federal senators (plus six other senators in others states where I do business) along with my federal Representative and my State lawmakers about various firearms legislation.

In my communications to elected officials on gun laws, I gave specific examples of problem language in proposed legislation and what it would take to fix those problems. I also told them the unintended consequences of some of the legislation. My arguments against supporting the proposed legislation were always focused on specific problems and defects in the legislation.

I regularly get NRA-ILA emails, Second Amendment emails, and various RTKBA groups emails. What the author of the article doesn't realize is that while the NRA and its members are a key component in defeating the proposed federal gun control laws, it was a lot more than just the NRA. The NRA did a superb job of getting some of the word out, but it was individual gun owners who found out what the legislation said and wrote, called and emailed their legislators telling them in no uncertain terms that the legislation was bad from multiple perspectives.

At the State level, my legislators were shocked to find out what some of the implications were of some of the legislation they had signed up to support. In fact some of them withdrew their support from legislation once they understood what the language meant.

That is what I see as something the gun owners really need to do. For example, even though I live in WA State, I contacted Senators in Alaska and Montana and explained to them how Schumer original proposed Universal Background check language with its unusual definition of a “transfer” and extremely limited exemptions to a transfer would probably destroy my ability to hunt big game in either Montana or Alaska and how that would impact their economy.

My feeling is that it was a lot more than just NRA members who pressured the Senate.

I think that in hindsight, Bill Clinton's advice to the Democrats and Obama that they should be very careful in approaching the topic of gun control was his passing along a very harsh lesson he learned as President.

No, it isn't, this is a complete straw man. The NRA's position is that nothing in the legislation proposed would have addressed the issue and that everything in it would have constituted a restriction misdirected at innocent people. Madigan is either an ignoramus or a liar, or both.

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