The NRA Is Losing Its Grip on Power

[SecularMotion]

No sooner had the toll from the latest mass shooting been tallied than came the world-weary predictions that the carnage would have zero political effect. "Why the Gun Debate Won’t Change After the Oregon Shooting," read the headline at The Fix, the Washington Post's political blog.

Without doubt, the gun rights lobby is a formidable force. It is backed by a truly grassroots network of committed and well-organized supporters who are willing to make calls to legislators and turn out in even low-turnout elections to back pro-gun candidates. This "intensity gap" bedevils gun control groups, which, however well some of their proposals poll, have trouble getting voters to agitate and to prioritize the gun issue the way gun rights defenders do.

But the invincibility of the gun lobby is being overstated. For one thing, gun ownership is becoming more concentrated in a smaller share of the population, one that is increasingly clustered in certain regions, thus limiting the lobby's political reach.

For another thing, the big recent defeat for the gun control movement, the 2013 failure to pass universal background checks for gun purchases, was a close call. Six senators with A-ratings from the NRA voted for the bill; it fell just five short of the filibuster-proof 60. Had it passed the Senate, there would have been great pressure from the Sandy Hook families to bring it up for a vote in the House, and it would have needed only about 20 Republicans to pass.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/propublica-gun-lobby-nra-losing-power

[ileus]

1. NRA = Negotiate Rights Away.

[DonP]

2. I've honestly lost track. How many times now has the NRA "lost its grip"?

This must be a column they recycle every 18 months or so with a few minor changes and are required by some obscure law to run prior to an election year.

It's a match for the ones we read the rest of the time, about how the NRA and all its money is an evil power house that steamrolls even billionaires like Bloomberg. How they stop any and all gun control bills, even when Dems are in the majority with the Whte House and with 90% public support.

Now, suddenly the NRA is nothing to be bothered with electorally.

I wish you gun control "fans" would make up your minds.

NRA evil powerhouse? Or NRA Fading influence?

[Eleanors38]

5. Stubborn Irishman to Noah: 'Tis only a shower.

[Duckhunter935]

8. I am so confused!!!!!

[GGJohn]

3. Wait a minute!!!

First you tell us that the NRA is the all powerful gun lobby that owns congress and that's why no gun control laws are passé, now you say it's not?
Which is it?

[pablo_marmol]

4. Good example of what happens

when you've lied with such frequency and length you've lost the ability to care about keeping your lies straight.

[beevul]

6. Tomorrow or next week, it will be the opposite.

Some time soon, it will change from 'the nra is losing its grip on power" to "the nra owns congress".


Its just a matter of time. Anti-gun sentiment see-saws between those two pretty regularly.

[Kang Colby]

7. Meanwhile, back on Planet Reality..

Maine and Kansas just passed constitutional carry laws.

[virginia mountainman]

9. You keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep..

This map helps the rest of us sleep..

[pablo_marmol]

10. Here's the line that really slayed me:

For one thing, gun ownership is becoming more concentrated in a smaller share of the population, one that is increasingly clustered in certain regions, thus limiting the lobby's political reach.

Masters of self-delusions The Controllers are!

[DonP]

11. Desperation is when you start to believe your own press releases

They have made the "fewer gun owners" part of their religious tenets.

Otherwise they'd have to accept that more people are buying guns for whatever reasons.

They studiously ignore places like Illinois where the FOID card is required for any gun or ammo purchase and over 500,000 new ones were issued in less than 2 years.

Each represents a first time potential gun owner. But you don't go through the multiple hoops with the Illinois State Police just to say you have a card.

[virginia mountainman]

12. Loosing power?!

Ok, if you say so............