After This Election, the NRA Is No Longer Calling All the Shots

OPINION — The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. It’s the mantra of the National Rifle Association, and a certainty for those who would brook no incursion into Second Amendment rights and definitely no gun control measures, no matter how small or “sensible,” as they are often described by those who propose them.

When children were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, and federal legislation that would strengthen background checkswent nowhere, gun control advocates despaired. If the murder of children failed to crack the gun lobby, what would?

But real-life events and political surprises indicate that the landscape might be changing. And the work of groups such as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun ViolenceMoms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and other large and small organizations has made a difference.

Where once politicians were loath to cross the NRA because of the organization’s hefty purse and powerful get-out-the-vote success, candidates in unlikely places are showing that a nuanced position is not a deal breaker. Earlier this month, Democrat Lucy McBath, a onetime spokesperson for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, won a House seat in Georgia that Newt Gingrich once held, no doubt surprising some leaders in her own party. Though the district has been trending away from its once deep-red hue for a while, a well-financed race by Democrat Jon Ossoff last year that engendered enthusiasm could not achieve what McBath did with far less attention.

Owning guns, not NRA dogma

When the NRA brought its annual meeting to Charlotte in 2010, I covered it for Politics Daily, but even if I hadn’t had the assignment, I might have stopped by. The convention center floor was certainly a spectacle, filled with displays of guns, ammunition, camouflage clothing and more. It would have made an entertaining afternoon out, especially with my husband – the serious gun owner in the family — who loves gadgets of every type.

I knew, though, that having to wade through the signs warning of an Obama gun grab would be a turn off for him. Excuse the weaponized puns, but he would have recoiled from the loaded rhetoric predicting ominous government conspiracies. I advised him that if he just wanted to see the “stuff,” he should stay away.

Compared to this year’s NRA meeting in Houston, the 2010 extravaganza seemed positively quaint in retrospect.

Will Obama’s proposals stop black gun violence?

CHARLOTTE – It’s not Newtown, Conn., where a massacre at an elementary school galvanized the nation and spurred Washington to act. Nor has it become a symbol of gun violence like Chicago. In fact, last year in Charlotte, the number of homicides actually decreased to 52, the lowest number in 24 years. But in a 2012 incident that echoes others around the country, a 17-year-old African-American boy here was shot and killed after another teen thought the victim disrespected him in front of a girl. The five young black men charged in his murder were teenagers as well.

So officials and community leaders here are closely watching the national debate over reducing gun violence. And when asked about the president’s proposals, which include a ban on assault weapons, universal background checks and limits on high-capacity magazines, they praise the ideas, but emphasize those are only a partial solution.