Posted on 04/18/2005 9:36:07 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
City woman set to be top gun at NRA
Tough defender of firearms may soften group's rhetoric
By Tom Beal
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
It's understandable, in an organization that still divides its convention luncheons into "ladies" and "sportsmen" categories, that publicity about the National Rifle Association's incoming president highlights her gender.
But while Monday's expected election of Tucson attorney Sandra Froman as president of the nearly 4 million-member organization might inject a more civil tone into the arguments over gun control in the United States, it doesn't signal a softening of NRA policies.
"She's not the new pope who's gonna let priests marry," said Mick Rusing, Froman's friend, former law partner and sometime hunting companion. Her election doesn't signal a liberalization of NRA policies, Rusing said, but it could produce a ramping down of its rhetoric.
"She is very comfortable defending gun issues on an intellectual, constitutional level and not the 'Pry 'em from my cold, dead fingers' attitude," said Rusing in a phone call from Houston Friday, where he was attending the annual NRA meeting as a member of its hunting and conservation committee.
Froman said in a phone interview from Houston that she wasn't bothered by the headlines that highlight her gender and hopes her expected elevation to president will entice more women into the ranks. "I'm not insulted. I'm clearly a woman. I enjoy being a woman."
But she said: "There is a lot more to me than just my gender. I'm just hoping that people will underestimate me."
No image-softening move
Froman will be named president because she earned it, said NRA board member Todd Rathner of Tucson. "Is it a tactical move by the NRA to soften our image? Absolutely not."
Froman and other female board members have been shaping NRA policies for years, Rathner said.
Froman, 55, currently first vice president of the NRA, is in line to ascend to the top job Monday at the board meeting that follows this weekend's convention in Houston. It's a two-year term that will make her the spokeswoman for the most powerful hunting and gun-rights group in the world.
She won't be the first female president. Marion Hammer, a Floridian who led that state's groundbreaking drive to allow citizens to carry concealed weapons, was elected in 1985 and served for three years.
Froman will become, essentially, the chairwoman of the board of an organization with 550 employees and an annual budget of $120 million.
She seems an unlikely candidate for reasons other than gender, said Rusing, who said many will be surprised to see the NRA headed by a Jewish woman from the Bay area who graduated from Stanford University and Harvard Law School. "It's not the Bubba image we NRA types get painted with," Rusing said.
A lawyer for 30 years, Froman has been a law professor, worked as a civil litigator for large law firms in Los Angeles and Tucson and currently has her own office on the Northwest Side, where she specializes in business and employment law, intellectual property rights and mediation.
Froman said her mediation skills serve her well in her NRA duties. She knows how to "get people to come to the table and agree to a solution that is maybe not in their best interest," she said.
"Our primary mission"
Sometimes, though, compromise is not possible - in the NRA's case, when it comes to "our primary mission to protect and defend the Constitution," Froman said.
Froman "embraces heavily the 'slippery slope' position that while, in the abstract, you may be able to give up a little, once you go down that road, it's all over," Rusing said.
Over the past two decades, the NRA has defended its position on that slippery slope, waging defensive fights against attempts to register handguns, require waiting periods for their purchase or ban certain categories of guns.
Times have changed, said Rathner.
"We're fighting a different battle, playing a more offensive game right now," he said.
Rathner noted that he worked on four "pro-gun bills" in the Arizona Legislature this year and didn't have to defend against a single gun-control measure.
The measures include one that would allow Arizonans with concealed weapons permits to carry their guns into bars and restaurants. Another would promote rifle safety training in the state's schools.
"I think nationwide what's happened is the political opponents of gun control, not the Sarah Bradys and other ideologues, but the political opponents, traditionally in the Dem-ocratic Party, have found that it's a no-win battle for them," said Rathner.
Sen. Harry Mitchell, D-Tempe, said it's certainly true in the Legislature. He introduced a bill again this year to require background checks for those purchasing guns at gun shows. The Republicans who control the Senate committees never gave it a hearing.
Mitchell said he opposed the bill allowing guns in bars, but voted for school rifle training.
"I'm for gun safety," he said. "I'm for reasonable laws. I'm not trying to take anybody's guns away," said Mitchell.
A potent lobby
The NRA is annually recognized as one of the most potent lobbying organizations in the world.
It gave nearly $15 million directly to candidates in federal elections in the past 15 years and spent $20 million in the single election year of 2000 on issue ads and other election-related activity, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog of campaign contributions and lobbying expenses.
The NRA's recent successes include persuading Congress to allow the 10-year-old "assault weapons" ban to expire last year. This year, it is again pushing a bill that would shield gun manufacturers from lawsuits.
"The NRA is at the top of its game," said Froman.
Peter Hamm, communications director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, one of the NRA's principal opponents, sees it differently. "The NRA is doing a very good job of taking the maximum advantage of the current political reality in America," Hamm said. "The Republicans and the social conservative branch of the Republican Party have control of the White House, the Senate and the House."
But that will change, he said.
"I really think that what's going on in Arizona right now is a perfect illustration of how the gun lobby is overstepping. It is putting its current political position at risk by taking it to the extreme," Hamm said.
Froman said she wants to increase her organization's already significant clout in the legislatures and the Congress. "I think one of the great freedoms we have in this country is to participate in elections. I'm going to encourage people to get involved."
"One of the issues I'm going to address in my presidency is with the NRA members who have been so active in elections. I want to tap that tremendous resource and look at the kind of judges appointed to the federal judiciary. A single federal judge can have more power than the Congress and all the legislatures combined," she said.
Froman also intends to continue her work making the NRA more attractive to women and youth members. In her 13 years on the NRA board, she encouraged creation of Women's Outlook, a monthly publication about shooting and hunting from a woman's perspective. She also helped Hammer create the "Refuse to Be a Victim" program that teaches personal safety. It was created for women but now encompasses men as well.
Froman's "epiphany"
Froman bought her first handgun a couple of years before moving to Tucson in 1985 after a man tried to break into her Los Angeles home. It is a moment she describes as her "epiphany."
She was divorced and living alone at the time. "I decided I wasn't going to be a victim, so that's when I learned to shoot," she said in a 2003 Star interview. "I did well right from the start," said Froman, who is now an NRA-certified instructor.
Froman remarried, and she and her husband, Bruce Nelson, who died in 1995, moved to Tucson in 1985 for its open spaces and the opportunity to own a home with more land attached to it, she said. Nelson, who had retired from the California Department of Justice, was a firearms instructor for that department and the FBI.
Froman was originally slated to become president of the NRA in 2001, but her rotation into that job, along with that of current president Kayne Robinson, was held up when the board twice waived its bylaws to allow actor Charlton Heston to remain at the helm for five years.
Bang....
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