". . . the National Rifle Association swaggers into Charlotte today . . ."
Drop this weenie a line at: twhitmir@charlotteobserver.com
You can cc his editor at:
buckner@charlotteobserver.com
http://www.charlotte.com/0519thenra.htm
Ready, aim, convene
Group stands ground before meetings begin
By TIM WHITMIRE
Undeterred by the scorn of a Million Moms, the National Rifle Association swaggers into Charlotte today to begin a pivotal annual meeting, the 129th for the group synonymous with guns in America.
On the agenda for 40,000 visitors expected to attend are an unprecedented third term for NRA President Charlton Heston, exhibits of guns and shooting accessories and plenty of Second Amendment speeches to counter last weekend's Million Mom March for tougher gun laws.
And the group has a surprise in store: Boosted by surging membership and a fat wallet, the NRA plans to open a store in the heart of New York City, in Times Square.
"We're going right into the marketing center of the world with a megastore marketing operation," NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told The Observer. "We're going to be right there down the street from World Wrestling Federation, from the ESPN Zone."
Though no guns will be sold, the image of an NRA marquee around the corner from the Disney Store and the All-Star Cafe is still an image some will find shocking - not least, perhaps, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a staunch gun-control proponent. But it is in keeping with LaPierre's effort to sell his 3.6 million-member group as part of the American mainstream.
"We are going to bring shooting in this country back to its rightful, historic pride and heritage," he said.
"You have 50, 60, 80million people out there owning guns, engaged in the sport" of shooting, LaPierre said. "It's still bigger than basketball, it's still bigger than tennis, it's bigger than golf in terms of participatory activity on the American public."
To many, though, the organization is not just the PGA of shooting. School and workplace violence have heightened long-held concerns over the relatively easy access most Americans have to guns and the NRA's dogged defense of that access.
"They're no longer a group that represents the general gun owner," says Osha Gray Davidson, who has studied the NRA for a decade and who wrote the book "Under Fire: The NRA and the Battle for Gun Control."
"They really do appeal to a certain segment - a small segment - of the gun-owning public. Whenever you narrow your base like that, you're in trouble."
Few national organizations inspire the combination of devotion and hostility directed at the NRA, which comes to Charlotte with membership at an all-time high - 3.6million, according to the group.
In a Gallup poll last month, 51 percent of 1,006 adults questioned said their opinion about the NRA was "mostly favorable" or "very favorable." However, a sizable minority has anti-NRA feelings: 39 percent said they held mostly or very unfavorable views of the organization.
In another April poll, sponsored by the Pew Research Center, 42 percent of 1,184 adults surveyed said they believe the NRA has too much influence over gun control laws in America. Twenty-eight percent said the group has the right amount of influence; 17 percent said too little.
The NRA believes that in this general election year, with the White House and both houses of Congress up for grabs, the stakes have never been higher.
"I think this is the most important election in the history of firearms ownership in the country," LaPierre said.
"We're either going to go down the road (with Democrat Al Gore) of registering every firearm owner with the federal government, licensing every firearm owner, federal tests. And I think that leads you right to the knock on the door" and the seizure of guns, he said.
"Or we're going to be much better off with someone (Republican George W. Bush) who will respect the freedom, but also be much tougher on people who abuse the freedom" to have a gun.
LaPierre repeats the same moderate, law-and-order theme whenever he's asked to outline the NRA's current priorities: We don't need new gun laws, because there are enough gun laws already on the books; what we need is for those laws to be enforced.
"What we're focused on right now is, one, trying to get the existing laws enforced against the bad guys and, two, preventing where they're trying to take this debate in terms of registering every American firearm owner with the federal government, licensing every American firearm owner," he said.
Recent polls show increased support for the enforce-the-laws-we-have position. A month ago, an Associated Press poll found that 42 percent of those surveyed thought stricter enforcement was more likely to cut gun violence, while 33 percent said enacting tougher gun laws was a better approach.
A year earlier, after the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado, just over half the people surveyed supported tougher laws, while four in 10 favored tougher enforcement.
Ellen Freudenheim heads the New York-based group Silent March, which lobbies for increased federal regulation of firearms. She said the NRA's actions speak louder than any moderate words.
"It's not what the NRA says it's for, it's what they oppose in the state legislatures and the Congress," Freudenheim said. "And what they consistently have opposed is fairly moderate regulatory measures on the state and federal level."John Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation, a Raleigh-based conservative think tank. Ideologically sympathetic to the NRA, he blames the media for many of the gun group's image problems.
"Part of the problem is that the media coverage of the NRA tends to focus on it stopping bills," Hood said. "Which is understandable. It's newsworthy when the NRA stops a bill. But that's the only thing that really gets out there.
"Then you get the impression that the NRA is simply against all gun control, which is not correct. You also miss all their safety activities, which are extensive."
However, Hood said the NRA also has a tendency to undermine its moderate mission with extreme statements and actions.
LaPierre made headlines in 1995 for a fund-raising letter that referred to federal agents as "jack-booted government thugs" and two months ago for suggesting that President Clinton was "willing to accept a certain level of killing to further his political agenda."
Another longtime NRA board member, Neal Knox, theorized in print that the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were part of a plot to make gun control more palatable to Americans.
And Tanya Metaksa, who at the time headed the NRA's lobbying wing, had a 1995 meeting with the ultra-right-wing Michigan Militia. The meeting became controversial after the militia was associated with the men eventually convicted in that year's Oklahoma City bombing.
Hood said NRA leaders tend not to think beyond how their rhetoric and actions will play among their group's members.
"That comes from the tendency of the organization to talk to its own members, rather than thinking about crafting its message for the general public," he said.
J.R. Robbins, communications manager for the NRA, said tough talk comes with the territory. "We fight hard for what we believe in. We believe very strongly in what we're doing, and with that comes a certain relentless attitude."
Davidson, the author, believes the NRA faces oblivion if it doesn't moderate its message.
"For all their talk now about how they respect the rights of all Americans and they're not extremists, they still refuse to make blanket condemnations of militia groups, which I think most Americans are very uncomfortable with," Davidson said. In 15 or 20 years, "they'll have no role whatsoever if they continue the path that they've been on."
Reach Tim Whitmire at (704) 358-5046 or twhitmir@charlotteobserver.com.
------------------
The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.
[This message has been edited by Oatka (edited May 19, 2000).]
Drop this weenie a line at: twhitmir@charlotteobserver.com
You can cc his editor at:
buckner@charlotteobserver.com
http://www.charlotte.com/0519thenra.htm
Ready, aim, convene
Group stands ground before meetings begin
By TIM WHITMIRE
Undeterred by the scorn of a Million Moms, the National Rifle Association swaggers into Charlotte today to begin a pivotal annual meeting, the 129th for the group synonymous with guns in America.
On the agenda for 40,000 visitors expected to attend are an unprecedented third term for NRA President Charlton Heston, exhibits of guns and shooting accessories and plenty of Second Amendment speeches to counter last weekend's Million Mom March for tougher gun laws.
And the group has a surprise in store: Boosted by surging membership and a fat wallet, the NRA plans to open a store in the heart of New York City, in Times Square.
"We're going right into the marketing center of the world with a megastore marketing operation," NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told The Observer. "We're going to be right there down the street from World Wrestling Federation, from the ESPN Zone."
Though no guns will be sold, the image of an NRA marquee around the corner from the Disney Store and the All-Star Cafe is still an image some will find shocking - not least, perhaps, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a staunch gun-control proponent. But it is in keeping with LaPierre's effort to sell his 3.6 million-member group as part of the American mainstream.
"We are going to bring shooting in this country back to its rightful, historic pride and heritage," he said.
"You have 50, 60, 80million people out there owning guns, engaged in the sport" of shooting, LaPierre said. "It's still bigger than basketball, it's still bigger than tennis, it's bigger than golf in terms of participatory activity on the American public."
To many, though, the organization is not just the PGA of shooting. School and workplace violence have heightened long-held concerns over the relatively easy access most Americans have to guns and the NRA's dogged defense of that access.
"They're no longer a group that represents the general gun owner," says Osha Gray Davidson, who has studied the NRA for a decade and who wrote the book "Under Fire: The NRA and the Battle for Gun Control."
"They really do appeal to a certain segment - a small segment - of the gun-owning public. Whenever you narrow your base like that, you're in trouble."
Few national organizations inspire the combination of devotion and hostility directed at the NRA, which comes to Charlotte with membership at an all-time high - 3.6million, according to the group.
In a Gallup poll last month, 51 percent of 1,006 adults questioned said their opinion about the NRA was "mostly favorable" or "very favorable." However, a sizable minority has anti-NRA feelings: 39 percent said they held mostly or very unfavorable views of the organization.
In another April poll, sponsored by the Pew Research Center, 42 percent of 1,184 adults surveyed said they believe the NRA has too much influence over gun control laws in America. Twenty-eight percent said the group has the right amount of influence; 17 percent said too little.
The NRA believes that in this general election year, with the White House and both houses of Congress up for grabs, the stakes have never been higher.
"I think this is the most important election in the history of firearms ownership in the country," LaPierre said.
"We're either going to go down the road (with Democrat Al Gore) of registering every firearm owner with the federal government, licensing every firearm owner, federal tests. And I think that leads you right to the knock on the door" and the seizure of guns, he said.
"Or we're going to be much better off with someone (Republican George W. Bush) who will respect the freedom, but also be much tougher on people who abuse the freedom" to have a gun.
LaPierre repeats the same moderate, law-and-order theme whenever he's asked to outline the NRA's current priorities: We don't need new gun laws, because there are enough gun laws already on the books; what we need is for those laws to be enforced.
"What we're focused on right now is, one, trying to get the existing laws enforced against the bad guys and, two, preventing where they're trying to take this debate in terms of registering every American firearm owner with the federal government, licensing every American firearm owner," he said.
Recent polls show increased support for the enforce-the-laws-we-have position. A month ago, an Associated Press poll found that 42 percent of those surveyed thought stricter enforcement was more likely to cut gun violence, while 33 percent said enacting tougher gun laws was a better approach.
A year earlier, after the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado, just over half the people surveyed supported tougher laws, while four in 10 favored tougher enforcement.
Ellen Freudenheim heads the New York-based group Silent March, which lobbies for increased federal regulation of firearms. She said the NRA's actions speak louder than any moderate words.
"It's not what the NRA says it's for, it's what they oppose in the state legislatures and the Congress," Freudenheim said. "And what they consistently have opposed is fairly moderate regulatory measures on the state and federal level."John Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation, a Raleigh-based conservative think tank. Ideologically sympathetic to the NRA, he blames the media for many of the gun group's image problems.
"Part of the problem is that the media coverage of the NRA tends to focus on it stopping bills," Hood said. "Which is understandable. It's newsworthy when the NRA stops a bill. But that's the only thing that really gets out there.
"Then you get the impression that the NRA is simply against all gun control, which is not correct. You also miss all their safety activities, which are extensive."
However, Hood said the NRA also has a tendency to undermine its moderate mission with extreme statements and actions.
LaPierre made headlines in 1995 for a fund-raising letter that referred to federal agents as "jack-booted government thugs" and two months ago for suggesting that President Clinton was "willing to accept a certain level of killing to further his political agenda."
Another longtime NRA board member, Neal Knox, theorized in print that the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were part of a plot to make gun control more palatable to Americans.
And Tanya Metaksa, who at the time headed the NRA's lobbying wing, had a 1995 meeting with the ultra-right-wing Michigan Militia. The meeting became controversial after the militia was associated with the men eventually convicted in that year's Oklahoma City bombing.
Hood said NRA leaders tend not to think beyond how their rhetoric and actions will play among their group's members.
"That comes from the tendency of the organization to talk to its own members, rather than thinking about crafting its message for the general public," he said.
J.R. Robbins, communications manager for the NRA, said tough talk comes with the territory. "We fight hard for what we believe in. We believe very strongly in what we're doing, and with that comes a certain relentless attitude."
Davidson, the author, believes the NRA faces oblivion if it doesn't moderate its message.
"For all their talk now about how they respect the rights of all Americans and they're not extremists, they still refuse to make blanket condemnations of militia groups, which I think most Americans are very uncomfortable with," Davidson said. In 15 or 20 years, "they'll have no role whatsoever if they continue the path that they've been on."
Reach Tim Whitmire at (704) 358-5046 or twhitmir@charlotteobserver.com.
------------------
The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.
[This message has been edited by Oatka (edited May 19, 2000).]
