The NRA Can't Stop Gun Safety Legislation This Time

[marmar]

The NRA Can’t Stop Gun Safety Legislation This Time
Weakened and bankrupt, the NRA is no longer the insurmountable wall it once was.

By Shannon Watts


(The Nation) It’s become an all-too-familiar routine in America: A mass shooting in a public place that shakes our collective consciousness is quickly followed by thoughts and prayers, media attention, and calls to action. Then days go by, the news passes, and nothing changes in Congress.

That ends now. This year is different. Not only did the American people send the strongest gun-sense trifecta in history to Washington, but the once-feared National Rifle Association is now desperately trying to stay relevant as its money and power run dry in Washington.

Support for background checks on all gun sales were already overwhelmingly high and bipartisan before two deadly mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder shook our country—93 percent of Americans support them, including 89 percent of Republicans and 89 percent of gun owners. In fact, voters ranked background checks on par with creating jobs and passing another Covid-19 relief package when it came to priorities for this new Congress and Biden administration in the first 100 days.

....(snip)....

In 2019, the most recent year for which tax data is available, the NRA was $57 million in debt. The financial situation is so dire that NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre was secretly recorded telling board members the group had taken “about a $100 million hit” between 2018 and 2020, and that he had to pull “about $80 million” from the budget in order to “survive.”

In fact, the NRA is so weighed down with its own scandals, allegations of self-dealing, and legal troubles that it paid some $38.6 million to its top lawyer in 2018 and 2019 alone. With troubled finances comes waning influence: In 2020, the group spent roughly half of what it did in 2016 to support Donald Trump and other Republicans, and about one-third less on lobbying. .........(more)

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/nra-atlanta-boulder-guns/

[bahboo]

1. Inshallah....

[lagomorph777]

2. Thoughts and prayers.

I think I'm praying for LaPierre to meet the same fate that he has sentenced thousands to.

[hack89]

3. The real obstacle will be Senate Democrats from pro-gun swing states

that is what killed gun control after Sandy Hook and there is no reason to believe anything has changed.