The battle over whether America continues its steady progress towards increased firearm violence or formulating a cohesive and effective national strategy to reduce firearm violence and the resulting loss of life is again at hand. As the nation prepares itself for another contentious political battle it is anybody’s guess how it will shake out. Our best guess? Unfortunately until the rank and file GOP’ers in the Senate grow a set, stand up on their hind legs, and tell the NRA and Moscow Mitch to stick it nothing of any consequence is going to happen. Sad but true.
“We’re doing this quarter-million-dollar ad campaign to make sure we are a part of the conversation and policymakers know that the gun industry has been leading on this issue for some time,” an NSSF official told The Daily Beast. “We’re the ones who conceived of the instant background check system and are doing an average 38,000 of them every single day.”
The gun group will argue that nobody cares more than firearms manufacturers about keeping their products out of the wrong hands. It’s an argument that is likely to draw pointed criticism.
It’s been years since the NSSF launched an expensive campaign to shape the conversation about guns. In 2013, they funded a grassroots effort to oppose legislation from Sens. Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin that would have expanded background checks (the bill did not become law). But besides spending to support candidates, they’ve been publicly quiet since then.
The ad buy highlights the fact that supporters of gun rights take seriously the upcoming congressional debate on firearms. Last week, The Daily Beast obtained a letter from a top NRA official saying the group moved its scheduled mid-September board meeting from Alaska to northern Virginia so its team could be close at hand during Congressional talks on guns. The letter predicted “a fight of historic proportions.”
We are hoping for the best but expecting the worse. AGAIN.
More BELOW the FOLD.
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