The Atlantic's Jordan Weissmann has an inside look at the organization that made big news this week.
By Tom Curry
National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre faces new scrutiny Sunday when he appears on NBC?s Meet the Press, following the strong reaction over his defiant stand during a Friday press briefing about the NRA?s response to the Dec. 14 school shootings in Newtown, Conn.
Amid a national debate over what security measures school administrators should take to ensure the safety of students, gun-control advocates reacted with disbelief Friday to LaPierre?s call for armed guards in every school and his blaming of Hollywood, video games, music, the courts, and more for school shootings such as the one in Connecticut.
In an impassioned statement in Washington Friday, LaPierre ridiculed the idea that ?one more gun ban or one more law imposed on peaceful, lawful people will protect us where 20,000 other laws have failed.?
LaPierre said America has left its schoolchildren ?utterly defenseless -- and the monsters and the predators of the world know it and exploit it.?
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J.,? who has proposed legislation to ban ammunition magazines that have a capacity of more than 10 rounds, said after LaPierre?s Friday statement that "it is beyond belief that following the Newtown tragedy, the National Rifle Association's leaders want to fill our communities with guns and arm more Americans."
See the Meet The Press page
The NRA is confronting its greatest legislative test in 20 years in the aftermath of the Connecticut shootings, as President Barack Obama and some members of Congress are moving to enact further measures to restrict gun sales and possession, most likely as part of a larger bill that would include increased funding for mental illness detection and treatment.
After a week of silence following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School the NRA responded, saying armed guns in schools is the answer. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," said Wayne LaPierre, NRA's executive vice president. NBC's John Harwood reports.
Obama has tasked Vice President Joe Biden with the job of consulting with members of the Cabinet and outside organizations to come up with legislative proposals by next month.
In a statement on the NRA?s Institute for Legislative Affairs website Friday, the group told its four million members that ?if you think the latest gun control debate will be limited solely to legislation to ban semi-autos and ?large capacity? magazines, think again. Calls have already been renewed to subject all private sales of firearms to background checks, even among family members and friends, and to end mail-order sales of ammunition.?
The statement added, ?We knew that this fight was coming.? But it's now crystal clear that this latest round is on an expedited track and the corresponding rhetoric has been amped up exponentially.? The group urged its members and ?the tens of millions of other law-abiding American gun owners? to contact members of Congress ?and let them know that gun bans and other restrictions on our Second Amendment rights are not the solution.?
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the author of the 1994 ban on certain types of semiautomatic firearms which expired in 2004, has announced that she will introduce new legislation early next year. Semiautomatic firearms, including semiautomatic weapons sometimes called ?assault weapons,? fire one round per pull of the trigger.
Her bill would outlaw more than 100 specifically-named firearms as well as certain semiautomatic rifles, handguns and shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds.
How firmly the NRA?s allies in Congress will oppose any new legislative initiatives from Obama, Feinstein or others remains an open question.
After a week of calls for tighter gun restrictions, the National Rifle Association called for putting more armed security officers in the nation's schools and expressed concerns about violence portrayed in video games, movies and music. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the NRA spent $18.8 million in the 2012 campaign on independent political spending and another $1 million on direct contributions to candidates.
The NRA suffered some significant defeats, as its efforts to defeat Obama and Democrats such as Sen. Sherrod Brown, D- Ohio, Sen. Bill Nelson, D ?Fla., and Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine fell short.
In a test of the NRA?s legislative influence, the House of Representatives late last year passed the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act, which has not yet been acted on by the Senate.
In the House vote, 229 Republicans and 43 Democrats voted for the NRA-backed bill.
The House bill allows a person with a photo identification card and a valid permit to carry a concealed firearm in one state to carry a concealed handgun in another state in accordance with the restrictions of that second state.
Senate Democrats who have worked with the NRA in the past and who are up for re-election in 2014, such as Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska, will be pivotal in the outcome of any legislative battle in the Senate.
?I get that some want to talk about (regulating guns), but we have a broader issue and we live in a violent society and we need to look at mental health and how to make our schools safer,? Begich said Friday?in an interview with the Fairbank Daily News-Miner.
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