It began as a training club for marksmanship
and became
one of the most feared and effective lobbying groups in Washington.
But just what is the NRA, and how did it become
so powerful?
For NPR, I'm Ron Elving, and welcome to my
office hours.
Today the organization has more than 5 million
members
and it is active at both the federal and state legislating levels.
It lobbies, it raises money, it spends money
on campaigns.
The power of the organization is legendary,
especially the report cards that it issues
for legislators and their positions on gun
issues.
The cards have been credited with the election
or the defeat
of many a candidate – including many incumbents.
And that is how the NRA has been able to anchor
the opposition to every major piece of gun
legislation for the past 40 years.
But how did it get there?
The NRA started as an actual rifle association,
a marksmanship club, all the way back in 1871,
when a couple of Northern Army veterans from
the Civil War decided that Northern boys ought
to learn to shoot as well as their Southern
counterparts knew how to do in the Civil War itself.
Many people are surprised to learn today that
for generations the NRA worked with the government
to limit the traffic in guns, especially where
ex-convicts or mental patients were involved.
Then the NRA again worked with Congress and
the White House on major pieces of
gun limitation legislation in the 1930s and 1960s.
This actually angered much of their rank-and-file
membership.
Especially in the 1960s as people became concerned
about rising crime rates, major flaring riots
in major cities, and people were buying guns
for their personal protection.
In 1975, pressed by these rank-and-file members,
the NRA created its first lobbying arm,
the Institute for Legislative Action
in Washington, D.C.
And here’s the turning point from marksmanship
to hard-edge political activism.
Just two years later at the 1977 NRA Convention
in Cincinnati, Ohio, a power struggle that
had been going on for years burst into public
view as a rebellion broke out on the floor
and changed the NRA forever.
Now, that Institute for Legislative Action
I mentioned was headed by a Texas lawyer
named Harlon Carter.
He was an immigration hawk who had been head
of the Border Patrol in the 1950s.
When the NRA leaders tried to rein him in,
he organized what was called
the Cincinnati Revolt on the floor of that convention in
1977,
and he won the floor fight and became
the organization’s de facto leader.
Harlon Carter's new marching orders -- which
have been in effect basically ever since --
were to oppose all forms of gun control in Washington
and the state capitals
and to aggressively lobby for gun owners’ rights.
Harlan Carter proclaimed that his group would
be “so strong and so dedicated that no politician
in America, mindful of his political career,
would want to challenge our legitimate goals.”
Now, this change in mission for the NRA also
coincided with a new surge in political money.
Decisions made by the Federal Election Commission
and later upheld by the Supreme Court and
decisions of the court itself made it possible
for the NRA to tap a vast reservoir of campaign
cash, and thereafter they were able to fund
campaigns and candidates
at every level of the political process.
This, in turn, gave the group the muscle to
move pro-gun legislation
and to stop gun control legislation.
This is the NRA we know today.
This is the gun debate as we know it in the U.S. today, and for the time being it looks
like that's where things will stand.
For NPR, I’m Ron Elving.
Thanks for coming to my office hours.
