No. of Recommendations: 1
A decade ago, the National Rifle Association seemed like an unstoppable force in American politics. A shooter had killed 20 children at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. Democrats and Republicans in Congress appeared ready to pass new restrictions on guns. The N.R.A. called on its members to contact their representatives and voice their opposition, and the bills died.
Today, the N.R.A. has shed hundreds of thousands of members and large sums of money. It is standing trial for fraud and self-dealing in New York. “The N.R.A. is little more than a shell of itself after hemorrhaging hundreds of millions in legal fees,” Joshua Powell, a former top N.R.A. official who settled with the state before the trial, told The Times. The organization’s fall is not a death knell for Second Amendment advocates, but it is a blow.NYT
When I was a 13 year old in the 1960s I took a gun safety course sponsored by the NRA, back when it was a legitimate organization. Over the decades it morphed into something unrecognizable and dominated by the gun industry.
During Obama's first campaign for POTUS I got 2 phone calls from the NRA. Both times the callers read from the same script, telling me with urgency in their voices that if Obama were elected I would lose my guns. It required me telling them twice to f*** off to stop the calls.
During Clinton's presidency there was a rumor going around here in southern Utah that ATF agents disguised as burglars were breaking into people's homes and taking their guns. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. They said that this 'program' had gotten as far as the Mississippi and was heading west. As a result the paper in one county here printed a front page article that stated the county was going to have to require all males over the age of 18 to be members of a militia, as that was the only way they might be able to keep their guns.
During Obama's tenure an old college classmate told me that Obama was coming for their guns but they were armed and ready to defend their rights.
Now...I would like to see military style assault rifles banned. But even that seems unlikely to ever happen. So all the paranoia from the right has just been manufactured BS.
