The National Rife Association

The debate over gun control in America involves beliefs about the meaning of the Second Amendment, the precise meaning of "control," fears of gun confiscation, and other questions about gun ownership, the use of guns to commit crimes, the number of deaths attributable to guns each year, and so on. For those who propose or support gun control in some form, the issues may shift from time to time, with some groups seeing one aspect of the problem as more important and others emphasizing some other aspect. Opposition to gun control is often led by one organization, the National Rifle Association, and as a rule the issues never change for that group or its members. The NRA has a long record of absolute opposition to any form of gun control, a record broken only recently and only in order to prevent even greater gun control than was being proposed. The NRA has been extremely successful at stopping the passage of gun control legislation for two reasons: first, because it is an organization with a large war chest, it can influence through contributions to candidates; second, because it has a large membership, it can influence by mobilizing letter-writing and other means of expression from the membership.

Mitchell (1978) gives a good description of the history of this organization. The NRA was founded in New York State in 1871. In part, this was a response to the problems encounterd by many northerners entering the army during the Civil War some years before. They were not pro

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he 1934 legislation, using a tactic that would become standard by inundating Congress with mail on the subject. The NRA also attacked proposals by the Justice Department in editorials and circulars (p. 61). Sherrill (1973) emphasizes that the NRA would have gone out of business before the 1905 legislation if the gun and ammunition industry had not seen that it was a good organization to use for the promotion of gun sales. Operation expenses and expenses for conducting many of the early NRA matches were subsidized by DuPont Powder Company, Hercules Powder Company, Winchester, Peters Cartridge Company, and other such firms. The NRA has since been given to promoting rather than hiding its commercial backing, using this theme in its search for public support. It often claims that gun control will have an economic impact in that it will mean lost jobs, for instance, since this argument has more credence with many people than other aspects of the issue (pp. 212-213). Since the 1960s, the NRA has been in the forefront of efforts to preserve the rights of gun owners. By 1988, the NRA had 2.8 million members and a budget of some $70 million, with a staff of more than 350 working in its offices in Washington, D.C. Legislators genera

Category: Government - T