Free Republic

ABC News' Sunlen Miller and David Wright Report: Timing is everything in politics and, for Barack Obama's campaign, today's endorsement by the American Hunters and Shooters Association showed both good and bad timing. The good news, for Obama: the support of this gunowners' rights group may help him overcome the controversy over his suggestion that small voters "cling to guns and religion" because they're "bitter." The bad news? Today was the anniversary of the deadly Virginia Tech massacre. “Sen. Obama will be a strong voice an unabashed voice for America's hunters and shooters and it is with great pleasure that...

Advice for Bush 5/6/2004 Commentary by Robert A. Ricker "The GOP's over-reliance on the NRA is risky. But it is a risk that will pay off for the GOP unless the leaders in the Democratic Party wise up -- and quickly." That was the advice I offered Democrats in an op-ed I wrote for the July 23, 2003 edition of The Los Angeles Times. I told them not to believe the NRA when it promised it would go easy on vulnerable Democrats come election time if they would just support legal immunity for the gun industry -- the gun lobby's...

<p>SAN DIEGO — Breaking ranks with industry insiders, a former lobbyist claims gun makers have consistently ignored sales of weapons to criminals by corrupt dealers and sought to scuttle reform, according to court documents.</p> <p>Robert A. Ricker said in a court affidavit that the gun industry has consistently failed to address the problem of the "felons among us." Ricker is a former executive director of the American Shooting Sports Council, a now-defunct lobbying group, and served on the legal staff of the National Rifle Association in the early 1980s.</p>

A former senior firearms industry executive said in an affidavit filed in court in San Diego yesterday that gun manufacturers had long known that some of their dealers corruptly sold guns to criminals but pressured one another into remaining silent for fear of legal liability. It is the first time a senior official in the gun industry has broken ranks to challenge practices in the business. The affidavit, by Robert A. Ricker, a former chief lobbyist and executive director of the American Shooting Sports Council, then the main gun industry trade organization, was filed in California Superior Court in support...