How powerful is America’s gun lobby ?
Children going to school, people buying groceries, people walking on the sidewalk, no one is safe from the big guns of the US. But, despite the weekly, sometimes daily horror stories of mass shootings, the US legislature continues to allow the sale of guns like vegetables.
Ever wondered why?
During the recent weekend, there were 11 mass shootings in the US. 17 people died and 62 were injured. These numbers will only increase.
The weekend rain of bullets on innocent people comes after the tragic mass shooting at a Texas elementary school, which left 19 children and two adults dead. Stories of how teachers died trying to save the children and a 10-year-old dying to save his teacher are all heart breaking.
US President Joe Biden after the school shooting asked, “When, in God’s name, are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?”
The answer to gun problems in the US is the gun lobby.
The gun lobby of the US
The gun lobby in the US is a term used to define several major and minor groups of influential people, who influence state and national politics in the country, to ensure anti-gun control policies remain in place.
The NRA
One of the major lobby group is the NRA or the National Rifles Association. The NRA was started by two war veterans as a rifle club to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis'. Today, it funnels money to anti-gun control politicians and ensures the lax policies on guns remain the same.
Investigations have also revealed that the all-powerful NRA has ties to the multibillion-dollar firearms industry in the US. And hence, through policies, it ensures the sales remain high, despite the price of mass shooting and lost innocent lives.
Its current president is Wayne LaPierre. And there have been several prominent members of the NRA including former President of the US George Bush (who later resigned), actor Whoopi Goldberg, etc.
NRA’s generous donations
It is said that the NRA grades US politicians from A to F based on their stance on gun control issue. Politicians who vouch for gun control laws are graded poorly, and sometimes these politicians also end up losing their seats.
According to non-profit organization OpenSecrets, former US President Donald Trump received the largest donation from the NRA in 2016 for the presidential campaign. Besides that, Republican politicians from the state of Texas also received the largest donations from the NRA than any other state politicians.
If you want to know more about how exactly the gun lobby in the US operates, then the film Miss Sloane provides some insights. NRA also uses “civil defenders” to argue for the so-called constitutional right of Americans to bear arms.
Their influence is such that even after the harrowing Texas school shooting, the NRA went on with their convention in Texas itself, attended by Texas mayor Ted Cruz.