Is It Time To Start A New Gun-Rights Organization?
Our friends at Media Matters have posted a pretty good summary of the financial/management problems at the NRA, even though the situation could change tomorrow and what we thought yesterday no longer holds. But the bottom line is that some of the recent disclosures on Wayne-o’s spending habits in Beverly Hills could not only cost him his job, but result in the loss of the organizations’ tax-exempt status as well. And if it turns out that there was a conscious effort to disguise personal expenditures as business expenses, and if this effort resulted in a conscious mis-statement of IRA filings by either the NRA or its PR firm, Ackerman-McQueen, someone could be going to jail.
So let’s pretend that Wayne-o copied Paul Manafort and spent thousands of dollars on various baubles at the Zegna boutique on Rodeo Drive. And let’s further pretend that the NRA covered these purchases, and others, by billing the receipts to Ackerman-McQueen. And then let’s take the next step and pretend that Ackerman-McQueen billed these costs to the NRA as a business expense and the NRA paid the bills out of tax-exempt funds. And let’s not forget that NRA President, Carolyn Meadows, has gone on record as denying that anything untoward has happened at all. If all of this flim-flam turns out to be true, and you can read a good summary in a column on Rolling Stone, America’s gun owners may be forced to look for a new organizational home to call their own.
Well you say, that’s no problem. After all, according to our friends at the Hopkins-Bloomberg school, overwhelming majorities of gun owners support some gun restrictions, including universal background checks, higher standards for concealed-carry licensing, red flag laws and stricter controls over dealer operations. So why not form a new organization that will continue to support 2nd-Amendment ‘rights,’ while at the same time, advancing ‘reasonable’ restrictions on guns?
And just
to keep Gun-nut Nation happy, the new NRA
will continue to hold its annual jamboree as well as sponsor even more grass-roots events. Right now there are 31 NRA events scheduled in Florida between now and October 1st.
South Carolina has 10 events coming up, California has 38!
Just
imagine if all these events were sponsored by a new gun-owners organization
which would give you a full rack of ribs, two corn-on-the-cob and cherry pie
for free, because Mike Bloomberg is happy to pay for the dinner of any gun
owner who signs a pledge that he’s in favor of comprehensive background checks?
There’s
only one little problem with this fantasy. It’s not going to happen. It’s not
going to happen because advocacy movements that make a real difference have to
be led by the people who will be affected most by the laws that are going to be
changed. The civil rights movement was
successful because it was led by African-Americans beginning with Martin Luther
King. The gay rights movement became a potent force for gender equality when
gay men and gay women felt strong enough to stand up and declare their true
sexual orientation for all to see.
The
problem with the movement which seeks to reduce gun violence is that new gun
regulations, no matter how ‘reasonable,’ won’t really make a dime’s worth of
difference to the lives of most gun-control advocates, for the simple fact that
they don’t own guns. So why would they care if I want to give one of my guns to
my son but he and I have to drive 30 miles to a gun shop to do a background
check?
But wait a minute. I thought most gun owners also favor comprehensive background checks. That’s true. But you know what other ‘reasonable’ law gets the approval of most gun owners? A law that would let them carry a handgun in all 50 states. And I guarantee you that no gun owner will join any gun ‘rights’ organization whose agenda is determined only by folks who don’t own guns.
