How the NRA evolved into a powerful lobbying organization

[Skinner]

Some interesting history about the NRA, from today's Washington Post:

In gun lore it’s known as the Revolt at Cincinnati. On May 21, 1977, and into the morning of May 22, a rump caucus of gun rights radicals took over the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association.

The rebels wore orange-blaze hunting caps. They spoke on walkie-talkies as they worked the floor of the sweltering convention hall. They suspected that the NRA leaders had turned off the air-conditioning in hopes that the rabble-rousers would lose enthusiasm.

The Old Guard was caught by surprise. The NRA officers sat up front, on a dais, observing their demise. The organization, about a century old already, was thoroughly mainstream and bipartisan, focusing on hunting, conservation and marksmanship. It taught Boy Scouts how to shoot safely. But the world had changed, and everything was more political now. The rebels saw the NRA leaders as elites who lacked the heart and conviction to fight against gun-control legislation.

And these leaders were about to cut and run: They had plans to relocate the headquarters from Washington to Colorado.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-nras-true-believers-converted-a-marksmanship-group-into-a-mighty-gun-lobby/2013/01/12/51c62288-59b9-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html

[Buzz Clik]

1. Thanks for this. I recall when the NRA was just another group.

My dad gave me a membership to NRA when I was a teen (prior to 1977!). Their magazine was interesting, if you liked guns and hunting. I didn't continue my membership, and my dad loudly dumped his in the late 1970s. My dad had an array of various weapons, but he despised the NRA.

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. They overthrew their own leaders,

now they're scared the US government will come and take their guns.

What a bunch of sickos.

[pipoman]

3. I have felt for a long time

if the ACLU would have been doing their job, fighting for liberal interpretation of ALL civil rights/liberties, the NRA-ILA, maybe, would never come into existence.

It is important for people to differentiate the NRA and NRA-ILA. The NRA is still pretty non-political. They educate and train shooters and hunters of all ages and skill levels, from kids hunter safety to police training. There isn't another organization on the planet which has trained more people safe gun handling and safe shooting...to this day.

The NRA-ILA is the political arm of the NRA..

[Eleanors38]

4. Stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum...

A review of the language and 24-7 drumbeat anti-gun bias of MSM during this time and certainly afterwards played a big part in both the "culture wars" and the "revolt."

And WAPO can take credit for a lot of that.

[onehandle]

5. How paranoid ultra-right wingers evolved the NRA into a conservative PAC for gun company rights. nt

[Turbineguy]

6. All part of the Cold War.

[Rozlee]

7. There's a big part missing from this article.

That's the part of the Southern members of the NRA who equated "crime" and "violence" with African-Americans and wanted to increase gun ownership and relax gun restrictions to allow themselves to prepare for taking out large numbers of blacks that they were certain would be turning out in massive numbers in crime sprees and race riots around the time leading to the Civil Rights Act. The article touched briefly on this with the comments about Reagan, who indeed, did his best to incite racial tensions, but it was around this time that the NRA started it's climb from a bipartisan sporting organization into an arch conservative organization bent on gun legislation, not to mention the reliable Republican voting bloc it is today. But, the article skips over the fact that racism was a huge contributor to making the NRA what it is today.