Gun Owners of America

[safeinOhio]

A racist hate group?

From the SPLC on it's leader Larry Pratt.

Eight Lanes Out
Larry Pratt, 58
Larry Pratt, a gun rights absolutist whose Gun Owners of America (GOA) has been described as "eight lanes to the right" of the National Rifle Association, may well be the person who brought the concept of citizen militias to the radical right.
In 1990, Pratt wrote a book, Armed People Victorious, based on his study of "citizen defense patrols" used in Guatemala and the Philippines against Communist rebels — patrols that came to be known as death squads for their murderous brutality.
Picturing these groups in rosy terms, Pratt advocated similar militias in the United States — an idea that finally caught on when he was invited for a meeting of 160 extremists, including many famous white supremacists, in 1992.
It was at that meeting, hosted in Colorado by white supremacist minister Pete Peters, that the contours of the militia movement were laid out.
Pratt, whose GOA has grown since its 1975 founding to some 150,000 members today, hit the headlines in a big way when his associations with Peters and other professional racists were revealed, convincing arch-conservative Pat Buchanan to eject him as a national co-chair of Buchanan's 1996 presidential campaign.
The same year, it emerged that Pratt was a contributing editor to a periodical of the anti-Semitic United Sovereigns of America, and that his GOA had donated money to a white supremacist attorney's group.
Pratt is today close to the extremist Constitution Party and its radical theology.

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2001/summer/false-patriots?page=0,8#

While many gun forum posters love to bring up the small, broke Brady Campaign for exposure here, not much is said about GOA and it's powerful right-wing, racist agenda. I don't support either, but do seek a little balance in pointing out what is going on with gun issues.

[X_Digger]

1. They're bat-shit crazy, and thank goodness a fringe. n/t

[benEzra]

2. The "small, broke" Brady Campaign still has the mainstream corporate media in its pocket,

lots of Congressional support, a bunch of pages on HuffPo, and a bunch of admirers within the Democratic Leadership Council and the Third Way movement. The GOA, by contrast, mostly exists to generate press releases and bash the NRA. IMO, GOA is to the gun rights movement what LCAV is to the gun control movement---small, loud, extreme, and not particularly listened to, IMO.

FWIW, I am not a supporter of GOA, as I see them as much more of a Republican cheering section than a gun-rights group, as evidenced by the fact that they take positions on health care, taxes, and all that; at least the NRA tries to stay out of the peripheral issues and doesn't take a "repub right or wrong" stance like GOA does. And Pratt hasn't been particularly careful about his associations, which bothers me. I do believe some of the allegations of racism may be a bit exaggerated, given that he is married to someone of ethnic minority background and may even speak Spanish at home, but that doesn't excuse his indiscretions when dealing with those who are openly racist.

[Euromutt]

4. True, the GOA's been tainted by those it has associated with

Such as the "Patriot" movement (self-styled Sovereign Citizens, Freemen, Christian Identity, etc.) during the 1990s. I don't know that the GOA particularly espouses a racist agenda, but it sure as hell doesn't mind hanging out with those who do. I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

I can agree with your description of the GOA, though one major difference between the GOA and the LCAV is that the GOA doesn't get a cool million from the Joyce Foundation every year.

[safeinOhio]

8. GOA pac spends plenty

In 2004, GOA spent over $1.75 million lobbying the U.S. Congress. Between 1998 and 2004, GOA spent over $18 million lobbying Congress.<7> GOA's Federal Political Action Committee is "Gun Owners of America Inc. Political Victory Fund" (C00278101).<8>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_Owners_of_America

[onehandle]

3. They just don't have the same quality whitewash that the NRA does.

Republican front groups all have the same base.

[GreenStormCloud]

5. The NRA also support Democrats that are pro-gun.

That has been proven to you many times, yet you come back with the same libel.

[onehandle]

13. With lip service and pennies.

The Blue Dogs died as planned.

[friendly_iconoclast]

15. "As planned"? Another "Protocols of The Elders of The NRA" post.

Really now, do you think continually making shit up helps promote gun control?


Frankly, it gives it all the credibilty of a 419 scam email.

But then again, the scamsters do find a guppy on occasion....

[Atypical Liberal]

6. They gave high marks to my candidates

In the last election, all of my Democratic candidates except one had high marks from the NRA, and 2 or 3 of them were the endorsed candidate. I voted for all of them except the one Democratic candidate with an F rating from the NRA.

Doesn't sound like a Republican front group to me.

See my ballot in my sig.

[spin]

10. You must fall into the group of people that believes that if you say something ...

over and over again, people will agree with you.

There's more evidence to support the statement that the Brady Campaign is a Republican front organization than the NRA.

[Katya Mullethov]

12. But that is exactly the case

They call that conventional wisdom .

[Atypical Liberal]

7. I have heard of them.

I have heard of the GOA over the years, and I admired them for being less compromising on firearms issues than the NRA. But I never joined them, being an NRA member. Now I'm glad that I did not. I did not know about their racist connections.

[Big Al Mac]

9. That article is nine years old and

could very well be an attempt at smearing his reputation.
Also, although quoted often, it seems to be the only article like it. Others that seem to want to smear him don't come right out and say it but rather say it was reported in that article. That's how the lame stream media says something they know isn't true without actually lying. They state someone else said it.

http://www.thefullwiki.org/Larry_Pratt">This biography paints an entirely different picture.

OBTW - Just because someone is reported to have spoken to a hate group doesn't mean that he is an adherent to their beliefs.

[benEzra]

11. Nine years old? I didn't notice that. Why is it being dug up now? (n/t)

[friendly_iconoclast]

16. The Brady Camapign is having money trouble, and apparently...

...a little moral panic-mongering seemed to be in order.


Which is odd when you think about it a little, since we are being told on a regular basis how much Americans 'really want'

more gun control. That would mean either (gasp!) more gun control isn't as popular an idea as some have told us it is

- or gun control proponents are a bunch of cheapskates.

[lawodevolution]

14. the Brady campaign and gun control groups are racist hate groups

Gun control groups supported the gun bans in chicago and DC.

Racism: In the gun ban cities a disproportionate amount of law abiding citizens who had no criminal record and had their right to own a gun taken away without due process of the law were minorities. These racist laws were defended by the Brady campaign and other groups.

Hate: gun control groups work to demonize gun owners for practicing a civil right and they aim to discredit them as human beings, so they create a category of people and then they want to oppress them from participating in a fundamental right and on their (Brady campaign) blogs they refer to gun owners as "the gun people" or "those gun nuts" which seems like typical bigotry.