By Thomas Gift
In the wake of the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 children and two teachers, Democrats in the US – led by the president, Joe Biden – have once again called for stricter national gun laws. Yet many experts believe prospects for reform remain bleak, a reality attributed to the overwhelming influence of the gun lobby.
The National Rifle Association promised to “reflect on” the tragedy at its national conference in Houston, Texas, the weekend after the May 24 shooting. Several speeches – including one by Biden’s predecessor in the White House, Donald Trump – expressly addressed the incident.
But the NRA has vigorously rejected any charge that its policies contribute to America’s gun problem. Unsurprisingly, opponents of gun reform have accused the media and Democrats of “politicising” Uvalde to press an ideological agenda.
The NRA, meanwhile, has continued to advance proposals such as improving mental health responses, “hardening” schools with increased security, and potentially even arming teachers, which leaders claim (without evidence and against educators’ wishes) can serve as a deterrent. These recommendations align with the NRA’s longstanding message: tightening gun laws would do nothing to prevent mass shootings in schools.
All of this is occurring as the NRA feels more emboldened with the renewed “culture war” focus sweeping America. Although not entirely new, many GOP lawmakers are leveraging gun ownership as part of a “package deal” – along with what they portray as leftist issues such as trans rights and critical race theory – to animate conservative voters. So, instead of the recent spate of shootings causing the NRA to back way from its uncompromising positions, it has instead doubled down.
NRA: an exercise in power
The NRA publishes an A-F rating of lawmakers that grades elected officials on their voting records with respect to the second amendment, which guarantees the rights of Americans to bear arms. The formula is simple: supporting looser gun regulations earns a higher grade, whereas making it harder to access guns earns a lower grade. For Republicans from conservative districts, where guns are embedded deeply into the culture, any grade below a perfect A+ can hobble a politician’s electoral prospects.
Perhaps most importantly, the NRA also flexes its muscles by unseating incumbent politicians directly at the ballot box. If Republicans (or moderate Democrats) waver on the gun issue, the NRA will – particularly in the primaries – pour money and resources into the campaigns of opponents who back more lax gun mandates. Even the threat of that challenge is often enough to intimidate many politicians from defying the NRA’s agenda.
Lastly, the NRA also maintains a large, deep-pocketed lobbying arm in Washington that’s involved in pressuring members of Congress to resist any legislation that might be construed as even mildly anti-gun. In the first quarter of 2022, for example, the NRA spent well over US$600,000 (nearly £500,000) on lobbying. That number is only expected to increase in the second half of this year amid the 2022 midterm elections as well as renewed demands for gun reform by liberals.
Will of the people?
Data shows that slightly more than 50% of Americans want tighter gun control laws overall. Support is even higher for outlawing assault-style weapons (favoured by 63%), for prohibiting “high capacity” magazines (64%), and for imposing background checks on private gun sales and purchases at gun shows (81%). Although partisan divides exist, even many rank-and-file NRA members think some gun legislation should be on the table.
Still, these figures can be misleading, for a simple reason: they don’t reveal anything about how important Americans feel gun law reform is compared with other pressing issues. When polls ask Americans what the most important problem is that their country faces, virtually no one – often fewer than 1% – ranks guns at the top of that list. So, it’s one thing for voters to say that they support stricter gun laws in the abstract, but it’s another to actually prioritise the issue at the ballot box.
It’s an iron law of governing: politics involves trade-offs. Because other policy areas such as immigration or the economy rank higher in the minds of voters, politicians don’t expend scarce political capital on guns. This provides space for a pressure organisation such as the NRA, with its concentrated interests around the gun issue, to have huge sway over how lawmakers set the policy agenda and vote. That’s true both at the state and federal levels in America.
Could this time be different?
After a mass school shooting, it’s natural to think that “this time is different”. We heard that after Columbine in 1999, after Sandy Hook in 2012, after Parkland in 2018. Now we’re hearing it again after Uvalde.
The outrage is palpable and it’s hard not to think the culmination would move the needle in the direction of reform. The reality? Expect the status quo.
At least 60 votes are still needed to usher any legislation through the Senate and avoid a “filibuster”, which allows lawmakers to stall or prevent a vote on bills. Even apart from the NRA’s clout, a major challenge is that the gun control movement is subject to what political scientists label an “issue attention cycle”. In short, focus on the issue is fleeting. A calamity like the one in Texas gets considerable press for a while but then fades into the backdrop and is replaced by other headlines. The sustained political will needed to pass gun reform simply doesn’t persist.
For all the horror mass shootings, most gun violence in America occurs through a “slow drip” of casualties. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 45,000 Americans died from gun-related causes in 2020, with about 43% being homicides.
But according to the Gun Violence Archive, only about 1% of these victims – just over 500 Americans – died in mass shootings. Most of those deaths never make national news, and regrettably, are too often ignored by the nation’s leaders.
Thomas Gift is Associate Professor and Director of the Centre on US Politics, University College London.
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BL says
Maybe they are so successful because they are correct.
David Schaefer says
Someone needs to get rid of this organization period..
MikeM says
Why , because they are successful? Because your opinion only matters?
Move to a blue big city where guns are strictly controlled and murder by gun has skyrocketed. Those same cities where the police have been defunded criminals get away with murder.
Bill Mann says
Long live the NRA, freedoms only true defender, its made up of millions of law abiding citizens that don’t want to become subjects of a tyrannical central government.
JPK says
A well-regulated militia attacked an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 students and 2 teachers. If you want to argue that it wasn’t a well regulated militia that attacked the school, and, instead, an individual, then you already understand the difference between what the Constitution says and what you want the Constitution to say.
Sherry says
@bm. . . please explicitly define “tyrannical central government” and tell us precisely how you personally have been directly “subjected” to anything detrimental by the federal government.
Otherwise, we will consider you comment nothing more than brainless talking points of ginned up hate by FOX/NEWSMAX/Social Media.
Jerome says
NRA owns the republicrumb party Romney – 13+ Million
Burr – 6+ Million
Rubio – 3+ Million
Mcconnell – 1+ Million
Cruz< Cotton and the rest the fox entertainment contributors are on the list that the nra contributes to!!!!!
Skibum says
As a career law enforcement officer and police firarms instructor, as well as being agun owner and hunter from my pre-teen years, I used to be a member of the NRA. I say USED to because the NRA used to be a credible and ethical national organization that promoted gun ownership as well as gun safety. They were the pre-immenent organization that helped train most firearms instructors for years and years. Well, many years ago now the NRA lost its way and started becomming more and more political, and not only a political arm of the Republican Party but their decision making started going way off in right field to the point that they were promoting real anti-police safety laws. Some may choose not to believe this but it is absolutey true, and the reason I ended my NRA membership years ago when I was a deputy sheriff in CA. I can still vividly recall the debate over what was referred to police killer ammunition that was being sold in gun stores that would go right through law enforcement kevlar ballistic vests. Law enforcement asked the NRA to support federal legislation to outlaw this type of ammunition, and the NRA’s response? Nope, it was firmly on the gun and ammo manufacturers’ side and refused to put our nation’s law enforcement officers lives as a higher priority above gun and bullet manufacturing companies. That is when I knew, finally, that the NRA was NO LONGER an ethical or moral organization that I could be a member or or support in any way. And bear in mind that this was years ago, and since then the NRA’s stances as well as their very public ethical and moral lapses have grown even worse! While they have every right to exist, the NRA has lost millions and millions of its members due to either the same issues I have mentioned or similar and ongoing ethical and moral organizational failures that I and others may not even know about yet. I hope more people who are still NRA members wake up to what kind of horror the NRA really is and take the action that many of us former NRA members have taken, because the only way America will be able to take the NRA down is to leave this despicable organization en-masse until it is no longer the powerful gun nutty, anti-police, anti-school children, anti-human organization that it has become.
Sherry says
WOW! Skibum. . . what a story! I had no idea. You should do an interview on a news TV program. Thank you so much for cluing us in!
Bill Mann says
How about supplying us 5.5+million NRA members, families and friends, with statistics on how many LEO’s were murdered or injured by your defined
‘police killer ammunition’ versus other ammunition?
I would opine that, as a former LEO, you would be championing mental health reform versus attacking our Constitutional Right to defend ourselves against tyrannical/corrupt governments and agencies ?
Skibum says
So glad you mentioned the mental health crisis we are NOT dealinng with here in the U.S. It slowly started getting so many times worse when, during the Reagan administration, mental health facilities were put on the chopping block, eliminating critical resources for mentel health outreach in communities as well as secured mental health lock-up facilities for those deemed a danger to others. Since that time what exactly has happened in the U.S. is that far too many people who have committed crimes and have mental health issues have been forced into America’s state and federal prison systems despite the fact that prisons were never designed or expected to deal with the mentally ill. So the result is that a whole lot of mentally challenged individuals, instead of getting the mental health treatment they need, instead get fixed prison sentences and are released back into society without EVER receiving the treatment they need, and are not monitored for behavior or mental health meds once they are back in communities. You can imagine how effective (NOT!) that is, and it becomes a rotating door back through the criminal justice system over and over again. The next important point is that the vast majority of our young, teenage school mass murders are NOT documented with any mental health issues, so your assertion of the opposite must be coming from the likes of Tucker Carlson who is a brainless, spineless wimp and NO journalist. I spent my entire 29-year career both working the streets as well as inside facilities, was a state certified trainer/instructor, and have dealt with far too many individuals with serious mental health issues. And not one of those mentally challenged individuals who I ever had to deal with went out and bought an AR-15 and committed mass murder of school children… NOT ONE! It is usually teens who are rejected, or bullied, or are outcasts/loners, or have personal grudges against other students or school officials or the teen’s own family members that cause them to decide to kill others and die in what they weirdly seem to fantasize as “going out in a blaze of glory”, NOT documented mental health concerns. As to your last idiotic comment, when you said defend against tyrannical/corrupt governments, you do realize don’t you that you sound like an insurrectionist trying to overthrow the U.S. government? Just saying…
Sherry says
@bm. . . please tell us all precisely what tyrannical/corrupt government and agency has you so terrified that you are so very willing to continue to allow innocent little children to be blown to smithereens in their classrooms by teenagers legally arms with mass weapons of destruction?
In my opinion “you” are precisely the kind of person who needs to be “red flagged”, and have your guns taken away. . . because you sound unhinged and filled with FEAR. I would encourage our sheriff to keep a close eye on you.
In the mean time, please take care of yourself and engage in the extensive counseling you so obviously need.
Carol says
It is time the DOJ investigates the NRA.
Timothy Patrick Welch says
The problem is Lobbying.
Our elect should represent the wishes of the electorate not party bosses, lobbyists, corporations, unions, and especially not outsider (foreign or domestic) interests.
“Real” safeguards are needed to sanction this type corruption and collusion.
Sherry says
@tpw. . . You are spot on. . . unless and until $$$ is taken out of the political process our system will continue to be completely corrupt! Unfortunately, the Supreme Court opened the “flood gate” to absolute political corruption with the
infamous “Citizens United” decision. Putting that horrific genie back in the bottle is likely impossible.
We are now living the downside of “Capitalism” just “Follow the Money” to find the motivation for decisions at ALL levels of government. . . and, in private industry as well. Money buys power! “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely!!!”