The National Rifle Association
Introduction
This page highlights the NRA, its history, and its lobbying power.
Other Resources on the National Rifle Association and Its Influence
Adam Winkler, The Secret History of Guns. The Atlantic, Sep 2011.
Michael Waldman, How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment. Politico, May 19, 2014.
Cliff Schecter, Why Isn't the NRA Defending Ferguson's Blacks? Daily Beast, Aug 19, 2014.
Christopher Ingraham, An NRA Board Member Blamed the Pastor Killed in Charleston for the Deaths of Members. Washington Post, Jun 19, 2015.
Randa Morris, New Harvard Study Obliterates Every Single NRA Lie About Guns. Addicting Info, Jul 13, 2015. A helpful video
Joshua Holland, Tactical Experts Destroy the NRA’s Heroic Gunslinger Fantasy. The Nation, Oct 5, 2015.
Jesse Paul, Colorado Springs Gunman, Victims ID'd; Police Quickly Confronted, Shot Suspect. Denver Post, Nov 2, 2015.
Elisabeth Parker, The NRA Gave These 9 Senators Over $22 Million To Vote Down Gun Laws. ReverbPress, Dec 6, 2015.
Nick Wing, Here's How The Nation Responded When A Black Militia Group Occupied A Government Building. Huffington Post, Jan 6, 2016.
Alex Yablon, The NRA's Long Love-Hate Relationship with the Police. Vice, May 31, 2016.
Brett Arends, What America's Gun Fanatics Won't Tell You. MarketWatch, Jun 14, 2016. Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Papers #29 explains "a well regulated militia" is a National Guard.
Dahlia Lithwick, Donald's Gun Gaffe: How Trump Accidentally Exposed the Longtime NRA Fantasy of "A Good Guy With a Gun". Slate, Jun 21, 2016.
Devin Hughes and Evan DeFilippis, The NRA’s Favorite Gun “Academic” Is A Fraud. Think Progress, Aug 11, 2016.
David Leonhardt, Ian Prasad Philbrick, and Stuart A. Thompson, Thoughts and Prayers and NRA Funding. New York Times, Oct 4, 2017.
Eric Lipton and Alexander Burns, The True Source of the N.R.A.’s Clout: Mobilization, Not Donations. New York Times, Feb 24, 2018.
Jon Greenberg, NRA Says Violent Radicals Are Behind the March for Our Lives. Politifact, Mar 23, 2018. NRA-TV host Grant Stinchfield receives a "pants on fire" score
Carlos Maza and Coleman Lowndes, How the NRA Hijacks Gun Control Debates. Vox, Mar 24, 2018. how the NRA describes itself as a civil rights organization, advocates for gun companies and sales, blocks the CDC from investigating gun violence, blocks meaningful legislation around background checks, and encouraging gun purchases. This is despite the opinions of gun-owners who favor background checks, etc. Comparison to the Tobacco Institute.
German Lopez, How the NRA Resurrected the Second Amendment. Vox, May 4, 2018.
Julia Belluz, When Gun Owners Meet for the NRA Convention, Gun Injury Rates Seem to Decline. Vox, May 4, 2018.
John Iadarola, NRA Gets Completely Exposed. The Damage Report, Mar 31, 2019. NRA coaches Australian politicians on how to respond to public shootings, to promote lifting restrictions on gun sales
Hasan Minhaj, The NRA’s Global Impact. Patriot Act, May 19, 2019.
Jeffrey Toobin, Politics Changed the Meaning of the Second Amendment - And Can Change It Again. New Yorker, Aug 5, 2019.
David Freid, The Extremely Inefficient—And Only—Way to Trace Guns in the U.S.. Vox, Aug 6, 2019. “On television, when a perpetrator leaves a gun at the scene, a quick computer search can point law enforcement to the weapon’s owner. In reality—at least in the United States—no such database of firearms exists. To have one would be illegal, according to legislation that passed in Congress in 1986, lobbied for by the National Rifle Association.”
Sam Biddle, NRA Ramped Up Facebook Advertising Immediately After Mass Shootings in El Paso and Dayton. The Intercept, Sep 16, 2019.
The Young Turks, Houston’s Police Chief RIPS Mitch McConnell After Shooting. The Young Turks, Dec 10, 2019. after officer Christopher Brewster was killed after intervening in a domestic violence incident
Rachel Maddow, NRA Collapsing Under Scandal, Criminal Investigation. The Rachel Maddow Show | MSNBC, Dec 24, 2019.
Jennifer Carlson, Policing the Second Amendment: Guns, Law Enforcement, and the Politics of Race. Princeton University Press | Amazon page, Sep 2020. “Examining how organizations such as the National Rifle Association have influenced police perspectives, she describes a troubling paradox of guns today―while color-blind laws grant civilians unprecedented rights to own, carry, and use guns, people of color face an all-too-visible system of gun criminalization. This racialized framework―undergirding who is “a good guy with a gun” versus “a bad guy with a gun”―informs and justifies how police understand and pursue public safety.”
Christopher Mathias, How The NRA Helped Foment An Armed Insurrection At The Capitol. Huffington Post, Jan 28, 2021.
Ian Milhiser, The Lawsuit Seeking to Impose the “Death Penalty” on the NRA, Explained. Vox, May 13, 2021. “The primary purpose of the NRA’s declaration, many outsiders surmised, is to cut many of its formal ties with New York and reincorporate it in the state of Texas, thus stripping James of much of her authority over the organization. On Tuesday, a federal bankruptcy judge agreed. Texas-based Judge Harlin Hale formally rejected the NRA’s attempt to use the bankruptcy courts in this way, ruling that “the NRA did not file the bankruptcy petition in good faith because this filing was not for a purpose intended or sanctioned by the Bankruptcy Code.””
Tim K. Mak, Misfire: Inside the Downfall of the NRA. Tim Mak, Nov 2021. . See Gabino Iglesias, 'Misfire' Is a Scathing Look at Nepotism, Fraud, and Corruption in the NRA. NPR, Nov 1, 2021. See also Lawrence O’Donnell, Lawsuit Alleges Trump, GOP Senators Took Illegal Campaign Contributions From NRA. The Last Word | MSNBC, Nov 4, 2021. which features Tim Mak and more of the book.
Rachel Maddow, Gabby Giffords Group Takes NRA To Court Over Millions In Donations To Republicans. The Rachel Maddow Show | MSNBC, Nov 5, 2021. re: Josh Hawley in Missouri, Matt Rosendale who lost in Montana, Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Tom Cotton in AK, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, Cory Gardner in Colorado, and President Trump; including coordinated advertising.
Amy Goodman, Gun Capitalism: How Lobbyists & GOP Fight Regulation & Push Gun Ownership Despite Deadly Shootings. Democracy Now, Apr 21, 2023. Historian Andrew McKevitt says, "We ought to conceive of our gun problem as a problem of gun capitalism." He covers the history of the proliferation of individual gun ownership since World War II in his forthcoming book, Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture & Control in Cold War America. McKevitt also discusses how the NRA and pro-gun lobby impedes progress on gun control through the implicit threat of “political violence.””
Gun Rights and Responsibilities: Topics:
The section on Gun Rights and Responsibilities examines the following issues: 2nd Amendment explores the history of constitutional law and how it was interpreted; Gun Death Stats and Culture explores why the U.S. has such an unusual gun culture; NRA and Its Influence spotlights the National Rifle Association, given its influence and political power; Gun Laws Outside the U.S. gives perspective on other countries’ gun laws and cultures.
Christian Restorative Justice Critique of the Right: Domestic Policy Topics:
This page is part of our section Critique of the Right, which engages the following topics: Banking and Finance examines the economic and political power of financial institutions; Bioethics discusses abortion policy; Business and Economics examines economic theories, taxes, housing, environment, corporate law, labor law, automation, and inequalities of wealth and power; Civil Unions makes the Christian case for civil unions for all and removing marriage from the culture wars; Criminal Justice examines crime statistics and definition, policing, prosecution, sentencing, prisons, and reintegration; Education examines public education and conservative resistance to it; Environment and Health highlights the many challenges we face related to animals, climate change, food, and health systems; Government Corruption spotlights political compromises and dealings contrary to the public good; Gun Rights examines gun policies and rhetoric; Media spotlights failures of, and possible fixes to, left-wing or left-leaning media; Power and Politics highlights the impact of racial considerations and racism on political campaigns, voting rights, public investments, and other political procedures; Race examines the impact of white supremacy on virtually every aspect of American life.
Christian Restorative Justice Critique of the Right: Philosophical Influences:
