The N.R.A. Is Naming Names

The New York Times ^ | 10-13-03 | BOB HERBERT

[johnny7]

The National Rifle Association doesn't call it an enemies list, but deep in the recesses of the organization's Web site is a long, long compilation of the names of groups and individuals that the N.R.A. considers unfriendly.

I'm happy to report that I'm on the list, but my name is truly one among very many. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. is there, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The Children's Defense Fund and the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs are there. The United States Catholic Conference, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Y.W.C.A. of the U.S.A. are all there.

Among the celebrities on the list are Dr. Joyce Brothers, Candice Bergen, Walter Cronkite, Doug Flutie, Michelle Pfeiffer, Vinny Testaverde, Moon Zappa and the Temptations. Also on the list are the Kansas City Chiefs, Hallmark Cards, the Sara Lee Corporation, Ben & Jerry's, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City. I'm sure there's a method to the N.R.A. madness, but to tell you the truth, all I can see is the madness.

All of the groups and individuals listed are supposed to be anti-gun. I can't speak for the Kansas City Chiefs or Moon Zappa, but I'm not anti-gun. I think soldiers, the police and certain other law enforcement officials should have guns. Civilians, however, should be required to demonstrate a good reason for having firearms. We should go to great lengths to keep guns out of the hands of children, criminals and insane people. All guns should be registered. And all gun owners should be properly trained and licensed. The N.R.A. sees this as a radical, even lunatic position. So I guess we're at odds.

I asked Andrew Arulanandam, the N.R.A.'s director of public affairs, why the list had been compiled and displayed on the Web site. He said, "We put the list together in response to many requests by our members wanting to know which organizations support the rights of law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms, and which organizations didn't." I asked what he thought his members would do with the information. He said, "How they use the information is at their own discretion."

I recently read Jules Witcover's book "The Year the Dream Died: Revisiting 1968 in America." The murders that year of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were among the great tragedies of U.S. history. Both were killed by freaks with guns. What is not so well known now is that President Lyndon Johnson tried, in the aftermath of the murders, to get Congress to pass legislation requiring the registration of guns and the licensing of owners. The gun lobby fought and killed that effort, and it continues to fight to the death any attempt to bring sanity to the manufacture, sale and possession of guns. Between 1968, the year of Johnson's failure to get his legislation passed, and 2001, the last year for which complete statistics are available, more than one million Americans were killed by firearms.

No number of gun-related fatalities or serious injuries is sufficient to deter the N.R.A. from its fanatical course. A former N.R.A. lawyer has admitted in an affidavit in a lawsuit that distributors and gun dealers have for years been illegally diverting guns that end up in the hands of criminals, and that the industry has closed its eyes to the practice.

Instead of fighting to end this threat to the public's safety, the gun lobby and its allies in Congress are pushing legislation that would protect the practice by granting special immunity from liability to gun manufacturers and sellers.

The big item on the legislative agenda next year is the federal assault-weapons ban signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994. Because of a sunset provision, the law will expire next September if it is not renewed by Congress and the president. The gun lobby has made it clear that it will do all in its power to bury the ban. The plan is to not even let the issue come up for a vote.

The N.R.A. Web site and its enemies list (which looks like nothing so much as a broad cross-section of America) has led inevitably to a counter Web site, nrablacklist.com, created by a group called stopthenra.com. In addition to facing off against the gun lobby on legislative matters, the new group and its site are inviting people to volunteer for a spot on the N.R.A. enemies list. Ah, free expression. 

[Dan from Michigan]

BTW - Bobby. StoptheNRA isn't a new group. It is just another front group for the Brady group.

[Dan from Michigan]

The Goldman, MacArthur, Tides, and Tsunami foundations as well are gun grabbers. As is Mitch Albom.

[auggy]

Sounds to me, like they are talking out of both sides of their mouth. They say they want to keep guns out of juveniles hands. I think that is the parents job. I agree alot of parents don't do their job, but they already have a law , I think, where you have to be 18 to buy a gun.

They are just trying to appease both sides, but their actions only appease the gun control side. What have they done to guarantee the right of all law abiding citizens to carry and own guns?

Nothing! Like I say their actions speak louder than their words ever will.

Thanks for going to the trouble to write them.

[Dan from Michigan]

It is worth reminding everyone that Levi-Strauss makes the Dockers line of clothing as well

BUMP

[Vigilantcitizen]

"It is worth reminding everyone that Levi-Strauss makes the Dockers line of clothing as well."

Yep. And it's going to be hard doing without those Sarah Lee cheesecakes.

[Mini-14]

The is none, nada, zip, absolutly no evidence that any gun laws have EVER had a positive influence on crime. I challenge anyone to show any credible evidence that restrictive gun laws work.

Do you really believe that? You should visit "gun free" Chicago sometime. Honest citizens are disarmed by "gun control" laws, and murder is rampant. "Gun control" is the great enabler of criminals.

[Noumenon]

This is wehat I sent in reply:

Thank you for your response. I regard AARP's essentially anti-gun / anti-self defense stance as sufficient reason for my rejection of your offer for membership. Why in the name of John Moses Browning would I want to support an organization that wishes to restrict my rights and worse - makes common cause with those who wish to make ownership of firearms of any sort illegal?

Regards -
Ward Dorrity

PS -
Those who reject the first principles of a rational and humane existence - that your life belongs to you and that the disposition of the fruits of your labors is and should always be a matter of your personal conscience - are enemies of human freedom and dignity.

[Noumenon]

Carhartt clothing works for me. Durable stuff, too.

[El Gato]

Herman Wouk - Author

What did he do or say, or who did he support? It certainly doesn't sound like something the author of "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" would do. One of his principal characters gets turned into soap and lampshades in the camps. She was a basically non-religous American Jew, married to an American Submarine officer, who was trapped in Italy when the war began. (that's the short version anyway).

I do see him on the stopgunviolence.org site, but they'll count most any statement that doesn't directly contradict their views as supporting them. The list is everywhere, it's not clear that it originated with the NRA, in fact it seems to have come from the anti-arms rights sites.

[Travis McGee]

Something like the

"final solution to the right-wing Christian European homophobic reactionary gun-nut problem?"

[Travis McGee]

That's why I included the "Fed List" chapters in EFAD.

[El Gato]

And when did we start selling guns to children??

We used to, before the nanny state decided it knew better than parents. And not that long ago either. I know I could buy ammunition before I turned 18, which was in 1967, but I never had enough money to buy a gun before then, although I did own a 20 ga pump shotgun. However it was the 1968 gun control act, which banned dealer sales to minors, that is under 21 for handguns, and under 18 for long guns. (Not ancient history to those of us who are getting kind of ancient ourselves). You could buy 'em through the Sears Catlog (they even had their own "house brand" of ammunition and guns, as did Wards. (JC Higgens and Western Field, respectively). So about the time I got enough money to buy guns, most especially a handgun, I couldn't anymore. For awhile they still sold them through their catalogs, but you had to appear in person to pick them up, and of course you had to meet the legal, but unconstitutional, age requirements. Ever since then, a kid could be old enough to be handed a 1911A1 or the latter 9mm substitute, and be told (in effect) "prepare to defend your self", by Uncle Sugar, but couldn't buy one to protect his wife or girlfriend, not mention himself while off duty in some of the "wonderful and friendly" locals off-post where he might have to live, due to his meager pay. He couldn't even buy ammunition for a handgun. Until '86 you had to show ID and a record was kept for every box of handgun ammo, including .22 rimfire, that you bought. (I'm on "the list" for a bunch of boxes of .22 short, which I shot through my wife's grandfather's Browning semi-auto rifle in that chambering. After I went on active duty, I used my military officer's ID instead of my driver's license, just because it seemed even sillier that way, and embarrassed the poor clerk, who probably weren't old enough to the buy stuff themselves in many cases)

[El Gato]

Sorry .. but he IS anti-guns

Technically he's not, but he is anti arms rights, and thus a domestic enemy of the Constitution. Seems I remember taking an oath that had something to do with "domestic enemies" of the Constitution. Hmmmm. (No I'm not suffering Senior Moment, I remember it quite clearly)

[El Gato]

I sorta fall in with the liberals on gun control - if you have to load your weapon onto a trailer and hook it up to a semi-truck or locomotive to move it, individuals should not be allowed to own such armament.

Before 1968, you could, and before 1934, you could even fire a projectile that went BOOM when it got to the target. Didn't seem to be a problem, even if you were a producer or purveyor of Demon Rum, with "jealous" rivals.

And if you have to load it from the front, and only fire non-explosive projectiles, you can still keep 'em (or buy some more if you choose) You could certainly make a smell of a hess loading up with some Chain or grape, protecting your reload crew with a hand cranked Gatling, which are also still legal. But shhh, don't tell Sarah or Chuckie about that.

[auggy]

I think I dropped them a few years back when Algore and WBush were running for president. They were strong supporters of Algore.

[556x45]

You bet! Gett'em while you can b/c the RINOs and dems are bent on making it impossible.

[neverdem]

How fortuitous in timing. The gun grabbers validate my numbers here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1001182/posts

Notice how they consolidate their efforts with the NOW crowd and only write about women and children harmed by men. They deliberately ignore all the domestic violence initated by females, for which studies to document said violence is not politically correct to fund or publish.

Anyone serious about domestic violence will find it started by females most of the time. The men get the bad public relations because the men in defending themselves cause the female attackers to have worse injuries. IIRC, I read one study that stated about 90% of domestic violence was started by women.

When you think about it, how many men are willing to admit they we're physically assaulted by their wife or "significant other" and were too afraid to accuse the perpetrator, defend themselves or admit having their butt kicked by some virago.

Also, please return to comment# 23 on this thread where Brady embraces the socialist agenda.

[Joe Brower]

As I predicted a few days ago, the SHT has picked up this article and it was in today's op-eds.

The liberal media is nothing if not predictable.