The Definition of Gun Control

Do you know the definition of gun control?

Webster's will tell you it is “the regulation of the selling, owning, and use of guns.”

The legal definition posits the regulation of firearms is controlled “through licensing, registration, or identification requirements.”

However, understanding the impact of gun control does not concern regulations and licensing. Instead, gun control must be viewed as the might and influence of the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby on Republican lawmakers. So many congressional incumbents have gotten money and organizational help from the group, with many members having long-standing financial relationships with the NRA that date back years. Therefore, gun control is really the direct oppression over American politicians by those who profit from firearms.

You see, the donations themselves are clearly not the reason Republican lawmakers fear opposing the NRA and the gun lobby – the much bigger threat the gun rights group poses is its ability to mobilize and excite huge numbers of voters. Viewed in this light, gun control represents the powerful sway these groups have on lawmakers.

The sheer breadth of campaign support provided by the NRA alone over the years helps explain just how deeply the organization is engrained in elections. The National Rifle Association and its affiliates spent over $50 million in political advertisements in the last U.S. general election, boosting Republicans who promised to support the NRA and targeting Democrats who propose stricter gun laws.

In fact, the pro-gun lobby spent over twice as much to fight Democrats ($34.5 million), as it did to support Republicans ($14.5 million). President Donald Trump was the biggest beneficiary of those ad dollars ($11,438,118).

In the past 15 years, the NRA has spent a total of more than $132 million on ads supporting or opposing presidential or congressional candidates.

Politicians are refusing to stem the bloodshed of gun violence because they’re getting what amounts to a legal bribe from lobbyists. The money has two key effects:

1. It systematically elevates the priorities of the rich by forcing politicians to spend more time with them than they do with the poor; and
2. It helps businesses grease the legislative wheel.

Trump is in the pocket of the gun lobby.

Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, took executive action on gun control not long after a gunman slaughtered 26 children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in late 2012. But, one of Trump’s first actions as president was to undo an Obama regulation that would have blocked some people with mental impairments from buying guns.

The rule, which became effective just two days before Trump took office, required the Social Security Administration (SSA) to inform the FBI’s criminal background check system about disabled adults receiving benefits through a representative because a mental impairment limited their ability to manage finances.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has long followed a similar policy, which accounts for the bulk of mental incompetency referrals to the background check system from federal agencies, according to the Congressional Research Service. Most of the 4.6 million records prohibiting gun sales due to mental incompetency in the database as of 2016 came from state and local authorities.

Of course, just recently Trump inexplicably said …

"It's the people that pull the trigger, not the gun that pulls the trigger so we have a very, very big mental health problem and Congress is working on various things and I will be looking at it."

“Looking into it?” Enter the NRA. They looked into it, all right. The group "put it under the gun" so to speak. 

After Trump held lengthy phone calls with NRA chief Wayne LaPierre since the gun massacres in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, the president made clear he was listening. He reversed course and backed away from potential new restrictions on gun sales that he had embraced days after those massacres suggesting less controversial responses like more money for mental health care and stiffer prosecution of federal gun crimes.

LaPierre reminded Trump how NRA members helped get him elected, and argued Democrats wouldn't be satisfied no matter what measure he took. So once more, the NRA influenced gun policy, or lack thereof, in the Republican Party. Even with its leadership in disarray, the group has once more ensured that modest gun-control efforts are a nonstarter, turning a president who once boasted that he wasn’t “afraid” of the NRA into one of its most reliable advocates.

“A lot of the people who put me where I am are strong believers in the 2nd Amendment, and I am also,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Then, right on cue, Trump argued that any efforts to restrict gun sales would inevitably lead to confiscation of privately owned weapons from law-abiding citizens, although no one has proposed that drastic remedy on Capitol Hill.

“They call it the slippery slope,” he said. “And all of a sudden everything gets taken away. We’re not going to let that happen.”

“We have very, very strong background checks right now,” he said.

Once again, the Republicans refused to support a national dialogue on gun violence and solutions for tighter gun restrictions. The latest survey (Politico - August 09-11, 2019) found that Republicans who oppose stricter gun measures are more energized than those who support it: Twenty-eight percent say they are “strongly” opposed, up 5 percentage points from the post-Parkland high, compared to 20 percent who said they “strongly support” such measures, down 5 points.

Democrats remain willing to work with Trump to reach a legislative compromise on guns. But they are skeptical that it might happen, aware of his tendency to backtrack after past mass shootings.

Republicans will, ultimately, not move on legislation this time around unless it has the NRA’s endorsement. And the beat goes on.

Overall, NRA members make up only 1.5% of the US population. In fact, 80% of American gun owners are not NRA members. Yet the organization wields an outsized influence in the US debate over gun control, and has significantly shaped the US gun laws, through an aggressive attack mentality, sophisticated marketing, relentless political lobbying and big money.

Nearly 70% of US households don’t own any gun at all, and most gun owners say new laws to make America safer could be passed without taking away their rights. And, fewer Americans own guns than they did in the late 1970s.

This is gun control at its present state in America. The gun lobby controls Republican politicians through the influence of the almighty dollar and with threats of losing elective office. Considering themselves defenders of the Second Amendment, the NRA continues to incite citizens' fears with threats of gun seizures as it holds legislative power over attempts to stem gun violence. The immoral “control” of the gun lobby is nothing but blood money and ransom.

“Such fear-based incitements to hate and violence are the province of cowards.

The truth is that the NRA is engaging in shameless fear tactics to increase membership so they can put more money into the pockets of politicians in Washington so firearms manufactures can increase sales resulting in profits

and returns to shareholders.”