The National Rifle Association (NRA) with over four million members, is the most powerful gun lobby in the United States and maybe even in the world. Until last year, I was a member of the NRA because I am a strong supporter of 2nd Amendment rights. However, I surrendered my membership because I no longer wanted to be associated with an organization that advanced lies, fabrications and drastic policies just to promote their agenda and existence. Given what happened to Gabby Gifford in Tucson last year and what went on recently in Aurora, Colorado, I believe that certain gun control legislation and regulations are essential. For example, why would any American citizen need to own an AK-47 assault or AR-15 rifle or have access to an unlimited amount of ammunition or even body armor without some justification? The NRA apparently believes that anyone should have access to guns and an unlimited amount of ammunition regardless of their mental stability. To further justify their position, the NRA has unleashed a host of lies against President Obama as an attempt to influence his reelection as the President who wants to take away our guns.
The Second Amendment concern is no longer an issue in American politics. The NRA is winning and the Obama Administration has done nothing to aid proponents of gun control. Nearly one in two Americans have a gun in their home and only 26 percent favor an all-out ban on handguns, down from 60 percent in 1959, according to a recent Gallup survey.
Here are some facts that the NRA refuses to share with its constituency: The NRA does not want to remind its members that President Obama signed a bill in 2009 that allows people to carry loaded guns into most national parks. In 2011, he basically avoided a discussion about strengthening gun laws following the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and he received a failing grade from the nation’s preeminent gun control group, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. In addition, there is nothing on Obama’s re-election website concerning gun policies.
Rich Wilson, a GOP political consultant said, “The gun control debate is over.” “We live in a country where guns are a fundamental part of mainstream American culture. The moment I saw that Walmart now sells AR-15s (a type of semi-automatic rifle), I knew the debate was over.” Of course, the NRA will not discuss the President’s policies that have supported the NRA initiatives. In a new campaign mailer, the NRA is casting Obama as a gun control crusader who is “coming for our guns.” PolitiFact put some of the NRA’s claims to the Truth-O-Meter.
The NRA says that Obama supported former Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy’s proposal “to outlaw all deer-hunting ammunition.” That is a lie. The NRA claim is cherry-picking an extreme, worst-case interpretation of a 2005 amendment to expand the definition of armor-piercing ammunition, which is legal to own or use in the United States but illegal to purchase or make. Kennedy’s proposal had nothing to do with deer hunting, but the NRA contended it could be threatened by the bill. Yet Kennedy said his proposal wasn’t meant to target rifle ammunition commonly used to hunt deer, and since the language was never approved, we don’t know how it would have been applied. More importantly, we have no idea if Obama would have supported a hypothetical deer ammo ban as the NRA claims.
“It is absolutely ludicrous to believe that a Democratic administration would have risked the political fallout of trying to use this section to prohibit rifle ammunition,” said William Vizzard, a criminal justice professor at California State University-Sacramento and a former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms agent. “The Democrats have avoided all gun control controversies assiduously.” To ban deer-hunting ammunition “would be suicide politically,” added David “Mudcat” Saunders, a pro-gun Democratic strategist. “There might be some way the NRA could twist the facts. But it’s not true.”