Page 2 - aruba-today-20230419

A2 UP FRONT
Wednesday 19 april 2023
NRA shows gun rights power but pushback grows from shootings

Continued from Front “Despite the fact that
they’ve reduced their foot-
This year’s convention print, they’re still not getting
came just days after mass enough revenues to cover
shootings at a school in their costs. So it suggests
Nashville, Tennessee and something has to give for
at a bank last week in Lou- this organization,” he said.
isville, Kentucky, the latter Still, a bigger piece of the
of which marked the 15th NRA’s influence has been
mass killing of the year in its ability to mobilize peo-
the U.S. in which four or ple to oppose gun control
more people were killed by creating a social iden-
other than the perpetrator, tity around gun owner-
according to a mass killings ship, said Matt Lacombe,
database maintained by a Case Western Reserve
The Associated Press and University political science
USA Today in partnership professor and author of
with Northeastern Univer- “Firepower: How the NRA
sity. That was the most dur- Turned Gun Owners into a
ing the first 100 days of a Political Force.” And peo-
calendar year since 2009, ple are motivated to op-
when 16 incidents had oc- pose efforts that feel like a
curred by April 10. threat to part of their iden-
“No one wants to see the tity, he said.
violence you see in schools “The NRA was responsible
and stuff today,” Randy Guests browse firearms in the Benelli display area at the National Rifle Association's Annual for creating that identity,
Meetings & Exhibits in Indianapolis, April 16, 2023.
Conner, a pistol and rifle Associated Press but it is now a thing that
instructor for the NRA from exists in the world some-
Waynesburg, Pennsylva- licans, including former restrictions are the answer of financial improprieties what independently of the
nia, told The Associated President Donald Trump to violence on the streets. can move forward, even National Rifle Association
Press during the event. “But and former Vice President It also came as the NRA though the judge rebuffed as an organization,” he
I don’t think taking the guns Mike Pence, potential rivals grapples with the fallout of Attorney General Leti- said. “So if the NRA were
away from ordinary citizens for the GOP’s 2024 presi- infighting and lawsuits. tia James’ bid to put the to fold tomorrow or to go
is going to change any of dential nomination. They A judge last year ruled group out of business. The out of business, it’s not as
that at all.” vowed to defend the Sec- that the New York attorney NRA filed for bankruptcy in though this constituency of
The Indianapolis gather- ond Amendment and dis- general’s lawsuit accusing 2021, but a judge dismissed people who own guns and
ing drew a slew of Repub- missed the idea that gun some top NRA executives that case, ruling it was not who largely view politics
filed in good faith. through this lens of being
Five years ago, the NRA a gun owner is going to go
had a $36 million deficit be- anywhere, at least over-
cause of lavish spending, night.”
followed by lawsuits from Gun sales in the U.S. rose to
its own members as well unprecedented levels dur-
as the attorneys general in ing the COVID-19 pandem-
New York and Washington, ic, and Florida just became
D.C. the latest state to do away
In the years since, the with requirements that
group appears to have people get a permit to car-
pulled itself out of a finan- ry a concealed weapon.
cial hole, but not because Meanwhile, the Supreme
of an influx of cash, said Bri- Court’s Bruen decision in
an Mittendorf, an account- June — in a case brought
ing professor at Ohio State by an NRA-affiliate — has
University who has studied prompted gun rights ac-
the group’s finances. Rev- tivists to file a flurry of chal-
enue fell by 4% in 2020, and lenges to firearm restrictions
by 18% the following year, across the country. Judges
he found. The group cut already have pointed to
back on spending on long- the ruling, which changed
standing programs, includ- the test that lower courts
ing education and training, long used to evaluate gun
recreational shooting and laws, to declare uncon-
law enforcement initia- stitutional measures de-
tives, Mittendorf said. signed to keep weapons
Their primary source of out of the hands of domes-
revenue has always been tic abusers and defendants
membership dues, but that under felony indictment,
base has also declined among other laws.
in recent years, and cuts Yet, the last decade also
to programs could make has seen a growing coun-
it harder to draw in new terweight in the gun-con-
members, Mittendorf said. trol movement.q