How the NRA Went From Best Friend of the Nation's Police to Harsh Enemy of Law Enforcement
"Nearly 1,300 Kids Killed by Guns Each Year, Study Finds"
As it became more unwilling to compromise over even minor gun controls, the NRA is now on the bad side of police.
By Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet January 24, 2013, 2:55 PM GMT
Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
For years, the National Rifle Association cultivated a reputation as an unbeatable political powerhouse—a legacy that was challenged on Thursday with the introduction of major new gun control legislation in the U.S. Senate banning more than 100 military-style guns.
But the NRA’s tough reputation unwinds if one delves into the history behind its harshest rhetoric—which began in the 1970s and escalated as former allies, notably America’s police, rejected its increasingly militant demands. What today’s NRA would like to forget is how its unbending extremism led to a losing streak in Congress two decades ago, a period whose gun politics echo today but gun controls nevertheless passed.
[...]
For much of its 143-year history, the NRA’s survival depended on a cozy relationship with the government.It relied on state subsidies at its founding and then federal subsidies for marksmanship contests for generations. The U.S. military provided free guns or sold them at cost to NRA members for decades. Thousands of soldiers helped run annual shooting contests. Local police departments turned to the NRA for training.
In the late 1960s, that relationship began to change—and so did the NRA. Democrats in Congress threatened to end a $3 million shooting competition subsidy, asking why it was needed at the height of the Vietnam War. In 1968, Congress increased the regulation of guns sales and dealers in response to that decade’s urban riots and the assassinations of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sen. Robert Kennedy. By 1977, these perceived slights allowed libertarian hardliners in the NRA to wrest control, ousting old-school sportsmen and claiming that America’s gun owners needed aggressive new defenders.
Today, many people forget how the NRA started calling agents at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, who were charged with enforcing federal gun laws, “Nazis” in the early 1970s and again after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building by NRA member Timothy McVeigh. They forget that when District of Columbia proposed a ban on handguns, an NRA member on its city council said the ban would help revive the Klu Klux Klan in nearby Maryland and Virginia. They forget that the NRA opposed banning bullets that could pierce police vests, opposed banning guns with plastic parts that were not seen by airport x-ray scanners, and launched vicious PR campaigns aimed not just at members of Congress who supported gun controls but likeminded city police chiefs.
[...]
In 1971, ATF agents raided the apartment of a lifetime NRA member for illegal military weapons. Initial press accounts reported both sides fired shots. William Leob, a rightwing New Hampshire newspaper publisher and NRA’s Public Relations Committee chairman quickly called the agents, “Treasury Gestapo,” before the police confirmed illegal arms were found. That was the first time that the NRA loudly attacked the ATF as "Nazis."
[...]
The NRA and organizing through thousands of gun clubs were a key part of the effort that elected Ronald Reagan president in 1980.During his first year, Reagan proposed dismantling the ATF in a speech before police chiefs in September 1981. Stunned police organizations sided with the ATF. To placate police, the White House said it would reassign ATF agents to the Secret Service. Davidson recounts what happened next:
- At first everyone (except, of course, ATF executives) was happy with the compromise. It took a while, but soon it dawned on the NRA that if this plan went through, its goose was cooked. Enforcement of gun laws would no longer be in the hands of the low-profile—and low-prestige—Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Instead, the NRA would have to contend with the superstars of law enforcement: the Secret Service. The NRA realized that it wouldn’t be able to call Secret Service agents “jackbooted fascists” and get away with it. Overnight, issuing from the NRA’s black granite headquarters at 1600 Rhode Island Avenue came the sound of furious backpedaling. -
After Reagan’s staff dropped the idea, the NRA and Republicans in the Congress started pushing for a loosening of federal gun controls.
Australians Turn In 12,500 Guns in National Amnesty’s First Weeks
In the USA - "Nearly 1,300 Kids Killed by Guns Each Year, Study Finds"
By ISABELLA KWAIAUG. 11, 2017
Detective Chief Inspector Wayne Hoffman of the New South Wales Police at a news conference in Sydney on Tuesday, with guns previously seized from criminals behind him. Credit Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
SYDNEY, Australia — The first numbers for the National Gun Amnesty are in, and more than 12,500 unregistered firearms have been surrendered since it started last month, Michael Keenan, the minister for justice, announced on Thursday.
The amnesty, which is running from July 1 to Sept. 30, allows people to hand unwanted or unregistered firearms over to the police and to licensed firearm dealers without fear of prosecution. Ordinarily, the possession of an unregistered firearm can bring a fine of up to 280,000 Australian dollars ($220,000) or 14 years in jail.
Are potential criminals lining up to hand in their guns? Maybe not, said Philip Alpers, an associate professor at the University of Sydney and a gun policy specialist. While he called the amnesty “a real success,” he described many of the weapons being handed in as “rubbish guns.” “I would suspect the great majority of guns that have been surrendered are long guns, which have very little value to their owners and even less value to criminals.”
Long guns, such as rifles, which are typically used by farmers, are less valuable on the illicit market than handguns. “Those are the highly desired guns, the guns criminals will pay thousands of dollars to buy,” Professor Alpers said. “They’re the criminal’s choices because they’re so concealable.”
The largest hand-in so far has come from New South Wales, with 6,400 firearms surrendered. “We’ve also received more than 110 prohibited weapons, including samurai swords, knives and other edged weapons,” said Wayne Hoffman, a detective chief inspector with the New South Wales Police.
In a news conference on Friday, Paul Millett, a superintendent in the Victoria Police, confirmed that of the 751 firearms handed in, a majority were long guns. “A lot of them have come from deceased estates or people who have had a change in life and may have moved from a country property into a metropolitan area, and therefore they’ve handed their firearms in,” Superintendent Millett said. “Our position on this is that one firearm off the street is a win for the Victorian community.”
While the last nationwide firearms amnesty in 1996 was hailed as a success for Australia .. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/australia/index.html?inline=nyt-geo , the most important changes over the last 20 years may have been in the public’s attitude toward gun safety.For example, Professor Alpers said, Australians are now more likely to believe that the person most at risk from a firearm in the home is a member of their own family, either from suicide or accidents.
“Try telling gun owners that 15 years ago — they largely laughed at you,” he said. “Now they’re starting to take it far more seriously.
President Donald Trump note: "Nearly 1,300 Kids Killed by Guns Each Year, Study Finds" .. it's too bad this question does not seem to be a priority at all of yours .. in this latest amnesty in Australia, to today over 20000 guns have been turned in.
Australians Shocked by U.S. Killing: ‘It Would Have Never Happened Here’
By DAMIEN CAVE and ISABELLA KWAIJULY 19, 2017
Commemorating Justine Damond on Freshwater Beach in Sydney, Australia, on Wednesday morning. Credit Dean Lewins/European Pressphoto Agency
SYDNEY, Australia — Dozens of Justine Damond’s closest friends and relatives gathered at sunrise on Freshwater Beach in Sydney on Wednesday, with candles and flowers in hand, to commemorate the life of a woman they described as a ray of light.
Horrified and sad, they said they could hardly believe that a woman so calm — a spiritual healer and meditation coach — had been fatally shot on Saturday night by a police officer in Minneapolis, where she was soon to be married.
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