Like a Cornered Rat, The Gun Lobby Is More Dangerous Than Ever
The National Rifle Association, the collection of grifters and scam artists who’ve milked the unfounded fears of the poorly educated* for the last half century or so, is in trouble.
As pandemic restrictions have eased, mass shootings are occurring with astonishing regularity. Mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado have reignited the debate over some kind of limitations in our national personal arms race.
The Biden administration has a series of executive orders coming down the pike, aimed at DIY guns, braces that make rapid fire more deadly, curating red flag (keep guns away from crazies) laws, collecting and disseminating more data on gun trafficking, and investing in community intervention programs.
The State of New York is coming after the NRA. Their long time cohorts in the misinformation business got burned and are really pissed. And the organization’s attempt to save itself through bankruptcy is turning into a textbook case on why the legal discovery process should always be considered as a two edged sword.
Oh and did I mention that they’re broke? The NRA owed the Internal Revenue Service $3.4 million, memberships are declining, and 40% of their staff has already been laid off.
*Lest anybody take issue with my description of the NRA faithful as poorly educated, let me lay out some inconvenient facts… things that people with common sense and full use of their faculties would have concluded don’t add up if they support this group….
The NRA has been telling the nation that Democrats are going to take guns away for 46 years. Since then, the number of guns in America has gone from 95 million to 393 million. There are more firearms than people in the U.S.
https://twitter.com/danielt10439873/status/1380310599767371776?s=20
Violent crime rates have fallen by over 50% in many major U.S. cities since these rates peaked in the early 1990s, yet the NRA’s selling point for more guns in homes is based on ginning up fear.
The NRA’s fearless leader, CEO and Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, has used the group as a personal ATM machine. Tens of millions of dollars have been diverted for personal trips and expenditures, and lucrative no-show contracts to buy people's silence.
When LaPierre couldn’t dip into the NRA’s treasury for personal expenses, companies under contract to the organization picked up the tab for things like safaris in Africa and hair and makeup for wife Susan La Pierre.
The man running the show for an organization telling Americans that protection from threats involved arming themselves regularly took refuge on two luxurious yachts, Illusions and Grand Illusion for “security reasons” whenever the organization was on the receiving end of bad press following a mass shooting.
LaPierre also cited "security" reasons for why he needed mosquito spraying at his house, the Washington Post reported. In 2019, LaPierre demanded that the NRA purchase him a $6.5 million mansion, also for his own security, the Wall Street Journal reported.
From Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:
Asked if the NRA security director signed off on this yacht experience, LaPierre was more evasive saying his security director just told him to “get out of town,” and so he “struggled” his way onto that 108-foot yacht, with a staff and a pool, and some WaveRunners … and a cook. But if you really want to see what rich and powerful people think and feel for the rest of us, and you want to see why it is hard to write dark satire these days, this exchange might chill you.
Question: When was your first stay on the yacht Illusions?
LAPIERRE: I think it was after the Sandy Hook shooting, the summer after the Sandy Hook shooting.
The NRA yacht story inspired Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri to suggest that perhaps all Americans needed a yacht to protect themselves from violence:
I am not mad that Wayne LaPierre was frittering money away and relaxing aboard a watercraft that contained not one but TWO wave runners and a “hydraulic swim platform.” No. I’m just relieved we finally know how to keep millions of Americans safe from gun violence. The only thing that remains now is to implement this solution at scale. Doubtless this will count as infrastructure now that we know how essential it is to keeping Americans safe and healthy, and we can tuck it into the American Jobs Act somehow.
We must band together as a nation and demand that all our schools be equipped with yachts. All places of work must have a big yacht (108 feet minimum, perhaps even bigger) with a cook and a hydraulic swim platform. I am not sure how putting supermarkets on yachts will work, but we had better try it. Not until everyone in this country is safe aboard their yacht can we breathe easily again.
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Much of this information has emerged since New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, sued the NRA last year, seeking to shutter it based on evidence of mismanagement and corruption.
In January, the NRA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, hoping to elude consequences by transferring its charter from New York to Texas.
It has come to light during recent testimony from LaPierre that this move was not disclosed to counsel, staff, and (most) board members of the NRA.
Via the Associated Press:
LaPierre said Thursday that he kept the bankruptcy secret from the full board because he was worried that someone on it would leak the plan. “We were very concerned,” he testified.
He also said he was within his authority to file for bankruptcy with only the assent of the board’s three-member special litigation committee, he attacked James and New York’s financial regulator as “corrupt,” and he repeatedly strayed beyond the bounds of yes or no questioning to defend his record.
Via the New York Times:
The N.R.A. has used the trial to argue that the group has reformed after making some modest blunders in oversight. “Compliance has become a way of life at the National Rifle Association,” Mr. Garman said, while acknowledging that there would be “moderately cringe-worthy” moments in the trial.
But those moments undercut claims of reform. Among the issues that have come up in the proceedings is that Mr. LaPierre’s longtime assistant, Millie Hallow, was kept on even after she diverted $40,000 from the N.R.A. for her personal use, including to help pay for her son’s wedding. (Before she was hired by the N.R.A., Ms. Hallow pleaded guilty to a felony related to the theft of money from an arts agency she ran.)
The role of John Frazer, the N.R.A.’s general counsel, also came under scrutiny, when it was disclosed that he had no prior experience in such a role and had only two years of private practice. He was left in the dark on key legal decisions, even though he is the organization’s top lawyer, and was not informed in advance by Mr. LaPierre that the N.R.A. was filing for bankruptcy. According to a former aide, Mr. LaPierre once said that he wouldn’t use Mr. Frazer “for my parking tickets.” In a pretrial deposition, Mr. LaPierre acknowledged that he might have made the remark as “a joke at some point.”
One consequence of the NRA’s favored candidate losing at the polls in 2020 will likely be a reopening of an investigation by the Federal Election Commission into allegations about whether Russian money was funneled through the National Rifle Association in 2016.
A 2019 report from the Senate Finance Committee's Democratic staff concluded that the NRA acted as a "foreign asset" for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election
https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1379833035537981451?s=20
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The National Rifle Association is down, but not out. Even as President Biden is urging congress to pass significant reforms, Republican dominated state legislatures are working to advance the NRA’s nightmare agenda.
Lawmakers in at least a dozen states have introduced legislation prohibiting local police officers from enforcing any federal gun-control laws passed by Congress. Some of the bills would make officers who do so subject to lawsuits or even criminal charges.
From the Associated Press:
Most adults over 21 would be allowed to carry firearms — either concealed or in the open — without a permit under a measure advanced by the state Senate in Tennessee this month.
Most states require background checks and firearm safety training for people who want to be allowed to carry weapons in public. But 15 states already have laws allowing permitless carry for concealed guns. Nine states are considering measures to allow or expand the practice. One was sent Monday to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, for her signature.
In Montana, Gov. Greg Gianforte, the first Republican to hold the job in 16 years, signed a bill that relaxes gun restrictions. It allows concealed firearms to be carried in most places without a permit and expands the list of places where guns can be carried to include university campuses and the state Capitol. Similar measures are being pushed in states that include Oklahoma and West Virginia.
Although comprehensive background checks taking advantage of modern database technology (the ATF is prohibited from using computers for this purpose) are often thought of as the first line of effective gun regulation, the Biden administration’s proposal lifting limitations on the liability of gun manufacturers may be the most powerful path forward.
From NBC News:
The law is not as well known as some other hotly debated proposals like universal background checks or banning assault weapons. But the National Rifle Association called the PLCAA “the most significant piece of pro-gun legislation in 20 years" when the law passed and gun control advocates have been trying to repeal it since then.
While many gun control advocates would still put universal background checks at the top of their agenda, repealing the PLCAA would be up there, too — though it admittedly faces a tougher climb in Congress, which is probably why Biden wanted supernatural help.
“The protections are unique in that they are defending the industry from the intended use of their product,” said David Pucino, senior staff attorney at the Giffords Law Center, which promotes gun control. “The industry knows that if the victims got their fair day in court, the industry would lose.”
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Here in California, where the NRA and it’s clones have mostly lost their battles, (but won the war, since guns pour into the state from elsewhere and some law enforcers can’t be bothered), the gun nut class has taken up whataboutism using racism as ploy to further its interests.
Thus we end up with a Union-Tribune op ed from Michael A Schwartz, executive director of San Diego County Gun Owners, arguing that “new gun-control laws are a form of institutional racism.”
The Armed Bears of the right, who make up the bulk of the gun nut movement, must be laughing like crazy in their man caves.
Here’s the thinking: because police are more likely to arrest black men for everything (including firearms violations), the laws themselves are racist.
California is well-known to have more laws governing gun ownership and use than any other state in the country. Each law carries severe penalties and creates more opportunities than anywhere else in the country to unintentionally break gun laws. Criminalizing gun ownership will not decrease crime statistics but will increase the number of people charged with gun crimes. What was a simple traffic stop yesterday will turn into a 10-year felony gun conviction tomorrow.
The fact is: The more laws we have that turn people into felons for possessing normal firearms, the more institutional racism will grow.
Terms like “keeping guns off the street” and “keeping guns out of the wrong hands” are merely dog whistles for policies that target and destroy the lives of people of color, especially young, Black men. As a result, families and communities are being irreparably destroyed.
So, guns for everybody is supposed to be an effective strategy for fighting racism. Riiight.
And…
The Biden administration, the Nancy Pelosi-led House, and the Chuck Schumer-led Senate are looking to spread California’s institutional racism across the country.
I’m sure radio host / grievance monger Carl DeMaio will explain this topic in depth as the guest speaker at the April 21st virtual meeting of San Diego Gun Owners.
The reception afterwards is hood-optional.
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Sixty-six years ago today, a trial showed that Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was highly effective. h/t Greg Mitchell @ Between Rock and a Hard Place
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