After eight years of an Administration that catered to the gun lobby, deprived gun violence victims of their rights, and turned a deaf ear to law enforcement and communities seeking to strengthen, not weaken, our gun laws, the incoming Obama-Biden administration represents an historic opportunity for this country to responsibly address our gun violence problem. ... As was the case in 2006, there is no evidence that any candidate, at any level, lost because of support for sensible gun laws.
So why was 2008 a failure for the NRA? Brady explains why:
G求 Candidates from both parties with an "A" rating from NRA lost in the primaries;
G求 Brady-endorsed candidates won 90% of their races;
G求 NRA spent 31 times more money campaigning against Obama than Al Gore in 2000;
G求 NRA endorsed McCain on Oct. 9 despite opposing McCain for his past support of gun-show background checks and campaign-finance reforms;
G求 Obama's "bitter" comments obviously didn't sway voters in the rural or frontier states he won or competed well in;
G求 NRA ran TV ads in Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin, and Obama won all but Texas and Missouri;
G求 Obama's endorsement by the National Hunters and Shooters Association, a sportsmen's group that touts a right to bear arms but also supports practical firearms laws;
G求 FactCheck.org's refutation of NRA's outrageous claims about Obama;
G求 Two of NRA's board members - Jim Gilmore and Bob Barr - were defeated, and another, Sen. Larry Craig, chose not to run again after the bathroom scandal;
G求 Adding moose-hunter Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket did more to hurt it than help it;
G求 "NRA voters" had no impact on the Republican primary or general election;
G求 It's hard for NRA to oppose the assault weapons ban when President Bush, Bob Dole running in 1996 and a majority of the American people support it;
G求 A poll in spring shows Americans overwhelmingly support universal firearms background checks;
G求 The Heller case has forever quelled NRA's exaggerated propaganda that any gun-control laws will inevitably lead to mass firearms confiscation or banning private firearm ownership;
G求 And, most importantly, Obama said repeatedly on the campaign trail he supports Second Amendment rights and will not "take your guns" but also said he supports measures to prevent prohibited purchases and gun trafficking.
Meanwhile, NRA is at it again. CEO Wayne LaPierre was in Bristol on Friday and predicted Obama would break his promise to protect Second Amendment rights. "The elite is really out of touch with the rest of the party, you know, the union workers ...," he said. "The truth is that the NRA is about as mainstream as you can get in terms of the American public."
Wow, where to begin? First off, it's NRA's holier-than-though attitude that's out of touch with reality. In recent years they've supported softer gun laws that the individuals and institutions they directly affect - law enforcement, universities, chambers of commerce, local governments - oppose. One example of this going way too far lately is conceal-carry advocates in Georgia suing for their right to carry firearms into Atlanta's airport up to the security gates after the Legislature approved a bill allowing conceal-carry weapons on mass transportation. There is no exhaustion of adjectives to describe this insanity.
Secondly, as for "the union workers," NRA got in trouble this year when they tried to interview miners at a West Virginia work site for an anti-Obama ad. The miners alerted the union, and the United Mine Workers of America, which endorsed Obama, told NRA to get lost and took a day off in protest of management letting the film crew onto the work site.
Lastly, a poll just before Heller was decided showed that although a majority of Americans believe the Second Amendment affirms an individual right to own firearms rather than a collective right or militia service, a majority also support tougher gun laws. About one-third of Americans are gun owners, meaning that NRA's membership encompasses only 10% of gun owners and 1% of all Americans.
The Herald Courier's opinion editor talked to her kids about the election, and her 11-year-old son, who enjoys hunting, said McCain won his school's mock election because, he thought, his classmates' parents said Obama would take their guns away. So she asked him if she believed this.
"No, Mom. Obama has said he supports the Second Amendment. Plus, you would have to change the Constitution and that's not gonna happen."
Maybe he should've had a chat with Wayne last week.