NRA Feels the Heat...Has It Seen the Light?

Young girls bicycling to the rifle range in Switzerland.


"Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." 

—Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, 20 February 1788


Consistent supporters of the right to keep and bear arms have had many reasons over the years to grow despondent. In one 1990 poll, seventy-eight percent of those responding answered "Yes" to the question, "In general, do you feel that the laws covering the sale of firearms should be made more strict?" 

President George H. Bush had sent a strong message to pro-gun America that he was quite willing to compromise on their rights; pro-gun America responded by staying home on Election Day in 1992. Enter Bill Clinton, and years of anti-gun rhetoric, anti-gun legislation, and an acceleration of the police state — often justified in the name of policing gun-owners.

The country's ostensibly pro-gun lobbying group, the National Rifle Association, spent these several years engaged in political tap dancing. While often taking a hard line publicly, signals were sent to the anti-gun Left that compromise was possible. As it had in the years leading up to the 1968 Gun Control Act, the NRA looked ready to make a deal. 

In 1993, Congress passed, and the president signed, the so-called Brady Law, which required a five-day waiting period, later to be replaced by a federal background check for firearm purchases — a compromise engineered by the NRA. Emboldened, anti-gun activists and politicians pushed through a highly-touted "assault weapon ban" the following year, but it was more show than substance. Everyone knew a stronger push was coming. 

Gun-owners responded at the polls again, but this time they helped catapult the Republican Party to power in the 1994 mid-term elections. For the first time in 40 years, the GOP controlled the House of Representatives. In his autobiography, President Bill Clinton credits pro-gun voters for the swing.

Still, the NRA didn't seem to get it.

In 1999, after two teenage killers went berserk at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, murdering twelve of their fellow students and a teacher, it was open season on gun-owners in general and the NRA in particular. Angry protesters denounced the NRA, calling it, among other things, a "pusher of Child Killer Machines". Earlier that year, movie director Spike Lee had told the New York Post that NRA president Charlton Heston should be shot.

The NRA caved. Its annual convention was scheduled to take place in Denver that year, but the group voted to seriously curtail convention activities. Testifying before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre reiterated his support for background checks and gun-free school zones. 
  
Many NRA members were outraged by this perceived sell-out, and some, including this writer, resigned from the organization in protest. Like the two main political parties, the NRA seemed to have adopted a "Where are you going to go?" attitude, taking its membership for granted. 

Many, like myself, joined the Gun Owners of America, identified by former US Representative Ron Paul as "the only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington" — and have never looked back. 

The NRA's claim in 2000 that it would "work out of the White House" under George W. Bush — a candidate who supported a re-authorization of the "assault weapon" import ban and expanded background checks — along with its decision to endorse Wyoming gubernatorial candidate Dave Freudenthal in 2002 and US Senate candidate Kirsten Gillibrand in 2008, neither being what you would call Second Amendment stalwarts, certainly did not indicate a move in the right direction.

Fast forward to 2013, and how the times have changed. The percentage of Americans supporting greater restrictions on the sale of firearms dropped to just forty-nine percent — a drop of nearly thirty points. 

Despite the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy just a few months earlier, in December 2012 — and the anti-gun Left's rabid push for more gun control laws in its wake — Americans were again punishing anti-gunners at the polls and pressuring their representatives to reject gun-control legislation.

In September 2013 voters in two Colorado recall elections sent anti-gun politicians, including the president of the state senate, to the unemployment line; a third state senator targeted for recall resigned rather than face the wrath of pro-gun voters. A New Hampshire bill that would have required a federal background check for all firearm sales in the state went down in flames by a vote of 242-118. Across the nation, state legislators refused to toe the anti-gun line. At the federal level, all significant gun-control efforts were stymied.

The NRA seems to be listening. 

When a group called Open Carry Texas recently began a popular campaign rallying gun-owners to openly carry semi-automatic rifles in public places, and calling for repeal of Texas's ban on the open carry of handguns, the NRA's initial reaction seemed typical of past waffling. The website of the Institute for Legislative Action — the NRA's lobbying wing — at first criticized the rallies, calling them "downright weird" and counterproductive. 

But this time it wouldn't be a handful of members resigning in protest — OCT's leader pledged that his organization, and its growing membership, would withdraw all support for the NRA if it did not retract the statement. In a quick response, NRA executive director Chris Cox called the statement "a mistake" that "shouldn't have happened." He added that the NRA "unequivocally" supports open carry.  

Perhaps responding to the polls, perhaps feeling the heat from members, perhaps seeing groups like GOA (whose leadership needed no encouragement to support OCT) creeping up in their rear view mirror, the NRA's leadership is learning — ironically — that gun-owners are passionate about their rights and, regardless of their divergent views on every other matter, will unite strongly in defense of the Second Amendment — and they're tired of compromise. 

Eleven years ago I wrote that, "We may be a long way from abolishing all of our failed, immoral, and unconstitutional gun-control laws, but...however slowly, the tide is finally moving in that direction." Public opinion is behind those who consistently stand up for the right to keep and bear arms. The NRA may finally be on board as well.