Misappropriated tradition
After the sickening massacre in Orlando set a new record for mass shooting casualties, the question has again arisen: is the NRA still meeting the needs of the gun owner community? Or has it become “The National Republication Association,” awed by and beholden to the wealth and power of the American firearms industry?
A 2012 study conducted by Republican pollster Frank Lutz indicated that 74 percent of NRA members favored mandatory background checks for all firearms purchasers. The NRA hierarchy, however, opposes this position in a major conflict between the NRA’s official policy and its rank and its file membership.
The organization’s increasingly closer ties to the firearms manufacturers go back to 1999 when then NRA President Charlton Heston declared to a gathering of gun industry executives “Your fight has become our fight. Your legal threat has become our constitutional threat” But despite the millions of dollars donated to the NRA by the firearms industry, on its website it piously declares “The NRA is not affiliated with any firearms or ammunition manufacturers or with any businesses that deal with guns or ammunition.” Then what, pray tell, does “affiliated” mean?
An interesting aside: Any kind of news or publicity, good or bad, involving firearms seems to generate gun sales, probably in anticipation of their being restricted as a result.
A sobering statistic that should concern the NRA, but apparently doesn’t, is the fact that the homicide by firearms rate in the U. S. is about 20 times higher than in other advanced societies. Last year 12,942 Americans died due to firearms homicides, accidental shootings or homicide - suicides. But we Americans seem unwilling to relate these shocking numbers to anything we are doing or not doing.
Organized shortly after the Civil War by two Union veterans to improve the gun handling skills and marksmanship of civilians likely to serve in the army, until relatively recent times the NRA has mainly promoted firearms training and safety. The NRA also assisted Congress to write the first firearms control laws, the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1938 Gun Control Act. But after a substantial infusion of lobbying money by the firearms industry the NRA now claims that defending the rights of gun owners and the interests of the firearms manufacturers are one in the same. They argue that any legislation that limits the availability of firearms or restricts who can purchase them is a direct violation of Second Amendment rights. But this amendment speaks specifically to the rights of the states to form militias, not for individuals to own guns. That was unnecessary in 1793.
During the American colonial period an individual’s right to own firearms was assumed under the English Common Law dating back to the seventeenth century. In fact, some colonial governments even required gun ownership. Our founding fathers were no doubt aware of this existing precedent and probably saw no reason to reaffirm it by a constitutional amendment.
George B. Reed Jr., who lives in Rossville, can be reached by email at reed1600@bellsouth.net.