Guns in Church and the Myth of the NRA

Did you see the story in today's New York Times about a pastor who is holding a "bring your gun to church day"? Outrageous. But the real thrust of the article was the growing power of the National Rifle Association, which the article noted is "widely considered the country's most powerful lobby."

I know something about the mythical "power" of the NRA. I took them on -- and beat them -- twice in the 1990s as the president of Jim and Sarah Brady's Handgun Control, Inc (now the Brady Campaign). With a lot of hard work and organizing, we passed the Brady Bill, which requires background checks before someone can buy a handgun, and the assault weapons ban (which has now lapsed).

But the NRA looks like it is on the rise again. Federal instant background checks, the best indicator of gun sales, jumped 42 percent in November 2008, compared to November 2007. The NRA reports its membership is up 30 percent since November, and several states have recently passed laws allowing gun owners to carry firearms in more public places.

Most alarmingly, the gun lobby has succeeded in convincing some Democratic Party leaders that renewing and extending common-sense gun laws is politically dangerous.

Well here's what's really dangerous: Every day in America more than 80 people die from guns and another 200 are wounded. Over the course of the year, that's more than 29,000 Americans killed from gun-violence, and over 73,000 wounded.

We need politicians who are willing to take on the NRA -- which is far less powerful than it appears -- and impose sensible controls to protect the public and save lives. We need to bring back the assault weapons ban, close the gun show loophole and more -- not less.

In my campaign for Manhattan D.A., I have proposed several common sense law enforcement measures that would allow us to crack down on illegal guns. Parents who think there may be an illegal gun in the home should be able to call in law enforcement, who will search for the gun and, if it's there, take it away without filing charges. And law enforcement along I-95 should join together to go after illegal guns at their source, rather than waiting for them to get to our streets.

Of course, even sensible proposals like these get attacked by the NRA. But that is par for the course. I am confident that if we band together, we can make sure that our cities, states and country have effective, reasonable gun control laws that will maintain the right to bear arms, but protect innocent victims from tragic gun violence.

Comments

[Acad]

Why suggest that the police come and search your own home for a gun? Are parents incapable of searching their own homes? That's ludicrous. If you call in the cops and your child has broken a law - be prepared for your child to pay the price. The cops are not family arbiters, they are law enforcement.

If you have a child hiding guns, you have some pretty big problems.

[Civic]

Sir,
Out of 30 comments above, there were zero that concurred with the points you made. With all due respect, I’m afraid that you may be disconnected with the population here; perhaps you should review your sources. Furthermore, I’m a NRA lifetime member and a soldier stationed in Iraq, yet I have no idea what you’re talking about. Everyone here has a gun (and they’re true assault guns); not a single problem has ever occurred during my two tours. Training? I shot more times on my free time than in the army, so the every-day gun enthusiasts back home know how to shoot as good as me, if not better.

No guns in church? That reminds me of an incident in Colorado, where I’m stationed. In 2007, a women with a conceal carry permit stopped a murder with her hidden pistol during service. Guns laws didn’t stop that mad man, a legal gun in church did!

[djkrlsn]

Civic--the Bradybots are losing because they are so out of touch with reality

[molonlabe]

NRA: Common-sense = gun safety education for children.

Anti-gun lobby: Common-sense = Renewing a 10 year old ban which had no effect on crime with "assault weapons" because, uh, they never represented a problem in the first place. Oh, and yeah, gun safety programs are a conspiracy theory:

http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/eddiekey.htm

That is why you are losing, Richard. That, and the difference of about 4 million members

[djkrlsn]

What doesn't help is that many of the BC members are like Kelli who thinks that banning milsurp bolt action rifles and milsurp handguns is a good idea because they are "military weapons"--my M1917 is no more dangerous than any other bolt action rifle in the same caliber.

[dragn1]

Hey Richard how about you show me one gun law that has done anything to stop gun crime. The gun law that works best is the law that after a second chance for violent crime you should expect to spend the rest of your life in jail. 80 percent of the crime is committed by 10 percent of the people. Ask the father in Connecticut how it works when you let criminals out of jail that should never again see the light of day because of some restorative justice fantasy.

[djkrlsn]

Actually Project Exile works rather well--but that is NRA supported and specifically targets felons with guns and puts the felons in jail where they belong (bills like that are "reasonable, common sense laws" while dumbgun tech etc are neither reasonable or common sense

[Rod McGinnes]

So your proposal is to intercept the 150,000 vehicles a day that travel I-95 to "go after guns at their source".
How much would that cost?
What would happen if we spent that amount of money helping inner city kids get jobs?
How would that affect the homicide rate?
You can't fix social problems by banning inanimate objects.

[djkrlsn]

Better yet--how about making sure those inner city kids actually get an education instead of being worse at reading and math than I was in 4th grade when they "graduate"

[sidroski]

Your article was very interesting. However, I believe there are enough gun control laws on the books. These should be followed to the their fullest extent and punish those who break these laws (felons with handguns, crimes committed with the use of a handgun or the sellers.) before we add more to the books that we are not enforcing now.
Yes, the NRA is the 800 lb gorilla in the room because people are afraid to come out at night or go in certain areas and want the right to defend themselves. The NRA has done more to promote gun safety and awareness than any anti-gun crowd you can name.
Do you want the single waitress who gets off the midnight shift to pick up her kids from whomever she could get to care for them to not be able to protect herself and her children from an abusive ex who cares less about her restraining order against him to not be able to buy a handgun?

[Toonadude]

"The NRA has done more to promote gun safety and awareness than any anti-gun crowd you can name."

I'll bet that Harry Whittington wishes that Cheney would have read the NRA "gun safety and awareness" memo. The "alcohol and guns don't mix" part in particular.

[djkrlsn]

Toon--what I have seen indicates Cheney had ONE drink--and despite ALL your freaking denials--the NRA supplies a huge portion of the firearm safety training that goes on in this country and the Brady Campaign provides NO TRAINING AT ALL--you really need to work on your BDS, CDS and PDS

[OdinsEye]

"These should be followed to the their fullest extent and punish those who break these laws (felons with handguns,"

Correction - felons with firearms, period.

"crimes committed with the use of a handgun"

Correction - crimes committed with the use of a firearm.

"or the sellers"

Huh?

[dragn1]

Yes and the church had a wonderful meeting.

[Toonadude]

"We need politicians who are willing to take on the NRA ..."

Hmmm ... let's see:

George W. Bush - via his Gonzales DOJ brought us the Gonzales/Lautenberg gun-grabbing bill.
George W. Bush - endorsed by the NRA - twice.

Conclusion: Gun grabbers should look to politicians endorsed by the NRA to advance their objectives.

[djkrlsn]

If nothing else--the NRA did get the NICS improvements in as well as helping the 1994 Clinton ban to die a most dramatic death--I agree Bush was less of a friend than I would have liked but he was a much better friend than Albore or Jean Francois would have been

[twogunmojo]

for fpie....how did that awb work out for clinton...if you anti-gunners want to lose everything you have gained just try repealing the 2nd....

[twogunmojo]

i thought the nra was instrumental in helping to get nics passed....and the awb you passed help to kill bill clintons agenda cause when people realized they could lose a right they voted to throw anti-gunners out....one more thing...after reading my posts paul helmke has stopped using the 80 dead a day number....after myself and others pointed out that suicide cannot be counted as gun violence...the real truth is that less than one person per state per day is directly murdered with a gun of any kind...and i agree with posters down thread...lets have a huffpo big news page for guns and lets report both the positive and negative use of guns....and we can watch as support for gun control plummets to single digits.....or are you guys scared of transparency.....hahahahahaha...

[djkrlsn]

Considering the BC does not allow comments on the BC site, on their videos on Youtube and edit out all proRKBA posts off their Facebook page--I would say that the BC does not like seeing their lies exposed

[djkrlsn]

I just caught Helmke's speech concerning the guns owned by the Mexican drug cartels--he generated--and he generated enough fertilizer of the bovine, caprine, assinine, mulish and horse variety to fertilize every farm in the world into the next millenium.

[David Horton]

The Brady Bunch has no desire to ban only certain people from getting guns or scary looking guns. If so they would have packed up shop when they passed their unconstitutional brady law. But they just kept coming with more and more proposals. They are after power and control. Simple as that.

We should have a post right next to the people getting killed by guns a year(I assume they mean criminals misusing guns to commit crimes, Not a gun itself.) And then right next to that section we can post how many times a gun is used to stop a crime or save a life. (And I mean law abiding gun owners using the gun to protect themselves and their families)
And then we can see which one is longer. If we only post one side of it some of your readers might think that you are biased against guns like the Brady Bunch. And you wouldn't want that.

[djkrlsn]

The vast majority of gun deaths turn out to be a combination of suicides (which gun control does not affect--strict gun control and astronomical suicide rates in Japan and Russia) and criminal on criminal violence which gun control doesn't do much about either. If the NRA is such a paper tiger--why has the renewal of the AWB gone nowhere in the last 5 years, why was the NRA support needed to pass the NICS improvements, and why is the only gun legislation going anywhere pro RKBA?

[twogunmojo]

i don't know why dj....could it be that support for gun control is at an all time low according to gallop....

[latheman]

How many of those killed and wounded were shot in self defense and why do you consider self defense violent.

Furthermore, how many crimes were stopped by the "assault weapons" ban, because even though it expired, violent crime is still dropping.

Why don't you show the stats on how many of your so-called "assault weapons" are used in violent crimes. I own a semi-automatic .30-06 that I legally use to hunt deer with when i travel to WV, and with your definition of an assault rifle, that gun would be banned.

Oh, and you must have forgot, right after you got the assault weapons ban passed, the democrats lost congress. I would still consider the National Rifle Association THE MOST POWERFUL lobby group in America.

[OdinsEye]

"With a lot of hard work and organizing, we passed the Brady Bill, which requires background checks before someone can buy a handgun, and the assault weapons ban (which has now lapsed). "

Background checks which were an NRA idea. And at least one of those bills only passed after you made a compromise with the NRA, which isn't exactly "beating" them.

And as we have shown in the past, "common sense " and "reasonable" are favorite catch phrases used to hide some pretty dumb laws.

"Parents who think there may be an illegal gun in the home should be able to call in law enforcement, who will search for the gun and, if it's there, take it away without filing charges. "

They basically already can.

[SnowflakesInHell]

He's talking about them not being charged, which is the part that reveals exactly how these folks think. It's the gun that's dangerous, not the violent gangbanger in the house. And what's going to happen, when dear little Johnny gang member, finds out that mom had the five-o come over and take his gat? Does Aborn really think he's not going to be able to go get another one on the streets?

You have to get violent people off the streets. Violent people will find ways to get guns and other weapons. This is what the NRA has been saying for decades. That Aborn thinks this is why they've been losing sway with the American public on the issue of gun control.

[OdinsEye]

"He's talking about them not being charged, which is the part that reveals exactly how these folks think."

A parent who suspects there is an illegal firearm in the house and reports it will likely not be charged.

[live by the golden rule]

Dear Huffington Post=

Why not covert the important story of the number of people killed each day by guns. Let's have a page on Huffington Post where their names, short bios and how they were killed can be posted.

Maybe then the MSM will pay a bit more attention to this story.

[OdinsEye]

And we can post it right next to a page of how many people die in automobile incidents.

[djkrlsn]

how about also posting a listing of people who STOPPED crimes with firearms as well

[GoldenBoy22]

Good idea, and right beside it we can publish a list of self defensive gun uses.
Estimated illegal uses(29,00 dead + 73,000 injured)102,000
Estimated defensive gun uses 800,000 - 3,609,682
http://www.guncite.com/kleckandgertztable1.html
notice these are Time,Gallup L.A Times reports not NRA reports

[Breakwind]

Baloney. If you think you can get elected by threatening gunowners, especially in this day and age, you are crazy. And oh, by the way, I'm a New Yorker who legally carries concealed.

[fpie]

There you have it. When a guy going by the handle "Breakwind" gives election advice you know you can take it to the bank. snif, snif What's that smell?

[nicole44]

and your name is fpie, much better.

[djkrlsn]

regardless of the name--he is correct--the BC is a lying paper tiger whose stock in trade is violating the constitutional rights of law abiding Americans