The New York Times, which did its best to ignore Fast and Furious, notices Gun Owners of America. Tom Coburn wishes they hadn't.
Upstart Group Pushes Harder Than the N.R.A.
When word surfaced in February that Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, was plotting with Democrats on a bill to expand background checks for gun buyers, Larry Pratt got really mad. Then, Mr. Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, got busy, mounting a lobbying blitz that helps explain why a bipartisan Senate deal on background checks remains elusive.
Within days, his staff, working from a nondescript space in a squat office building off the Beltway here — there isn’t even a nameplate on the door — was on the phone with supporters of his organization in Oklahoma. The group’s members were encouraged to inundate Mr. Coburn with e-mails and calls and to otherwise make it exceedingly clear to the senator that an enhanced background check law would not be tolerated.
It wasn’t long until Mr. Coburn, a gun rights advocate, had backed away from negotiations with Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, securing at least a temporary victory for gun rights activists and frustrating advocates of new gun safety laws.
Once largely unknown, Gun Owners of America, with its war chest, membership and lobbying strength dwarfed by the National Rifle Association, is emerging as an influential force as a series of gun control measures heads to the Senate floor. . .
Many lawmakers and gun safety advocates believe Gun Owners of America’s rising profile and heavy membership drive has led the N.R.A. to take a more aggressive stance against measures it once supported, like an expansion of background checks to include private gun sales. (In 1999, Wayne LaPierre, the chief executive of the N.R.A., said there should be “no loopholes anywhere, for anyone” on gun sale background checks.)
Part of the group’s mission, Mr. Pratt said, is to stay on top of the N.R.A. “when we don’t think they’ve gone far enough.”
Meanwhile, Coburn went home and got an earful:
Gun issues dominate Sen. Tom Coburn discussion at Oklahoma City town hall
A weary U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn tried to steer the conversation away from guns after responding to a couple questions about the topic during a town hall meeting Wednesday night. But questioners were determined to talk about gun control legislation, especially background checks.
“I know you want to get off guns, but that's why I'm here,” a woman told Coburn, R-Muskogee, after he twice told a crowd of about 150 at the Metro Tech Technology Center he that didn't want to field any more questions about guns.
9 comments:
Yeah! You can pretty much tell where he's at!
He's just a traitor in waiting and Oklahoma needs a new Senator before that happens.
"Many lawmakers and gun safety advocates believe Gun Owners of America’s rising profile and heavy membership drive has led the N.R.A. to take a more aggressive stance against measures it once supported..."
Well, just like Barack and Hillary's position on gay marriage, lets just call the NRA's changing position an "evolution" in it's views. Barack and Hillary have been lauded for their timely "evolution" in their views - shoudn't we thusly praise the NRA on theirs?
The problem with the NRA is all too often, they act like an adjunct of the Dead Elephant Party in the same way that unions have been a tool for the Democrats.
Having once when I was younger served as a chief steward for the union that represented the officers that I worked with for the State of Indiana, it was clear that whatever the agenda of the Democrats were, the union leadership was going to back that agenda even when 99% of it had nothing to do with labor rights. They were so wedded to outmoded notions of political patronage that the Dems assume that they "own" the unions... and maybe they do, which is why I gave up being a steward and quit the union.
I despise LaPierre. He is a redcoat in patriot garb. I gave up an NRA Life Membership, mailed mack my card and told them to stick it where the sun doesn't shine when they underhandedly stabbed gun owners in the back with their support of the 'veterans disarmament act' HR 2640 a few years back. Did some research and found a number of articles by Angel Shamaya of KABA, L. Neil Smith, and others whose own fact-checking, long experience, and direct witness to the NRA's compromise on gun rights convinced me to proceed with returning my NRA membership. By that point, I had already become a life member of Gun Owners of America (GOA), because of their track record as "America's no-compromise gun lobby".
Some of that RKBA scholarship can be read at
http://www.vlrc.org/articles/61.html - How the NRA Bargains Away Our Second Amendment: Betrayal of Trust by Nicki Fellenzer
and
http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=3219 - AARON ZELMAN TALKS TO THE NRA BOARD (1994) now at http://jpfo.org/filegen-n-z/speech.htm
And more material from JPFO cataloging the inconsistencies and compromises of the NRA regarding gun rights: http://jpfo.org/filegen-n-z/nraletter.htm
I find it interesting that so many activists of great stature and credibility have a problem with the NRA, and organizations that have come into existence over the last 40 years that have been openly critical of the NRA's softness on the gun grabbers, and also the jackbooted thugs of the BATF&E.
Larry Pratt & GOA: their integrity in sticking to principle over the many years is the reason why I joined GOA as a life member and why I respect them and the guys at JPFO too. Not because they took the NRA to task, but because they pick up the ball and are all over it whenever the NRA drops it; and because they stay on-mission in the courts and largely win their cases even when the NRA weeniewagon rolls up to the courthouse steps to interfere with cases that they are the Johnny-come-lately on, or because a court victory for gun rights doesn't fit the NRA's agenda of compromising to the gun-grabbers just enough to scare gun owners into giving more money to the NRA!
With friends like the NRA, who needs Chuckie Schumer?
Actually, think about this: Coburn is rated A by the NRA, yet is willing to do backroom deals with CHUCK SCHUMER to take our gun rights!! If this is the NRA's benchmark for 'pro-gun', no wonder we're still fighting tooth & nail to keep our guns!!
I know some of you who read this are gonna be fuming because you love your NRA. The NRA has a lot to offer in terms of education, safety, competition, and other aspects completely unrelated to RKBA defense, and in these areas they do fine! MY beef is with the NRA's presumptive position as the nation's gun rights defender, when in fact the title really goes to GOA. If you can objectively and dispassionately weigh the facts, you'll see that the gun community need not be 'divided' as long as the NRA leaves the RKBA defense to groups who are in it to WIN it!
To everyone else: If you haven't already, JOIN THE GOA. http://www.gunowners.org - If you're already a GOA member, then CHOOSE LIFE and ante up the $$ to become a life member. It will cost you less than a case of 1000 rounds of 5.56 NATO
Screw the pravda lie machine. It's so easy to find the truth via bypassing lapdog propaganda, even considering reading what the big lie arm of the .fed/traitors is shoveling gives me the willies and heebygeebies.
Speaking of truth, there is a 1st rate outstanding piece on police state acts of tyranny over to Accuracy In Media's website.
Very well written.
http://www.aim.org/special-report/police-militarization-abuses-of-power-and-the-road-to-impeachment/
PS,
Dear Mike,
Good to know you are OK.
God bless you.
Thank goodness for GOA. They will be getting all of my money in the future, and none will be going to the NRA. If we get out of this without any new gun laws being passed, then we will have the GOA to thank - not the NRA.
I've said it here before and I'll say it again 'till the cows come home: The NRA is not and never has been a gun rights organization. They were founded in the aftermath of the First American Civil War as a marksmanship training organization due to the disgust some Union generals had in their draftee's inability to hit the side of a barn.... from the inside. Since then they have branched out somewhat into firearms safety and hunting issues. Yes there was a brief atempt by Harlon Carter, Neal Knox, Tanya Metaksa and others to redirect some of the organization's attention to the defense of the Second Amendment but their gains were short lived. All of the Cincinatti Reforms they enacted have been rolled back.
NRA is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. They do draw a lot of attention from politicians and the press. They could be the tool we need to make the anti-gunners back off permanently. But they won't. Because the bulk of America's gun owners, and the bulk of the NRA's membership, think their gun rights were engraved on some mountaintop and no politician will ever dare touch them.
Yes those gun owners will get the message, but as in the case of the Connecticut citizens standing in line TODAY to buy an AR15, it will be too late!
Look at all the hateful,ignorant comments from libturds directed at GOA attached to the story in the link.
Any group that stirs that turd bowl up like that is doing the RIGHT thing in my book!
I've been watching this gun control lie since 1963 when Kennedy was shot and his commie brother helped start it. In reality the NRA has never done anything but negotiate away our rights while Americans kept throwing money at them..
The NRA needs to be gone from America and its membership needs to signup with the real gun rights orgs like JPFO and GOA or get ready to start shooting.
But...but...but, Chris-boy Byrne of TheGunCounter.com (the gun blogosphere's verion of Charles Johnson & Little Green Footballs) had this to say about Larry Pratt and the GOA:
"If you support the GOA, you are actually harming gun rights in this country, by supporting the self aggrandizing, fearmongering, lying con man, Larry Pratt."
Bandito
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