The Turning Of The NRA Screw.

Those of you who read me regularly likely already know that I have been happily, nay, with almost sadistic glee, covering the sudden downfall of the NRA. But it doesn’t take any explicit bias on my part, it turns out that these jokers are fully capable of handling the job by themselves.

For most of my lifetime, the National Rifle Association has been the dominant industry lobbying group in the country. But why should this be so? After all, the oil industry is worth billions, and spends millions every cycle in lobbying and direct campaign contributions, and they don’t carry the kind of clout in Washington that the NRA does. Ditto with Big Pharma. They flood the halls of congress with lush, green cabodle year after year, and they aren’t as omnipotent as the NRA. What’s their secret anyway?

While it’s true that the NRA spends millions of dollars every cycle on election races great and small, that’s not the reason that they are so universally feared and respected in Congress, and even the White House. The NRA has something that no other industry lobbying group in the world can claim. And that’s 7.5 million members who almost religiously vote! They vote solely on the issues regarding the second amendment, and they vote exactly how the NR tells them to vote. People buy gas every day, but they don’t listen to Exxon-Mobil. And people who need their medications don’t dote on every word that Lily spews forth. Only the NRA has such a dictatorial hold over their flock.

But even without the fallout from the NRA’s current organizational kerfuffle, there are signs that their hold on congress in general, and the GOP in particular may be slipping. One problem, not only for the NRA, but for the Republican party as well is imaging. Thanks to Maria Butina, the NRA is now under federal investigation for possibly funneling millions of dollars illegally from Russia to GOP campaign coffers. And with the Mueller investigation still fresh on everybody’s mind, the last thing the GOP needs right now is another connection between themselves and Russia.

But it’s even worse than that for the gruesome twosome. Despite the NRA’s best efforts, something like 14 GOP incumbents with either “A” or “A+” records with the NRA lost their seats to Democratic challengers. And more importantly, in 2018, for the first time in the history of exit poling, for people who listed gun rights as their primary motivation for voting, gun control advocates outnumbered unrestricted gun rights advocates at the polls.

This is bad news for the NRA, and it’s bad news for the GOP. because, even if we do not suffer another mass shooting at a school in this country between now and next November, the continued, and even spiking number of mass shootings in this country will certainly keep this issue front and center for the 2020 election. And at this point, any mass shooting will only have the young activists of Parkland reminding everybody of the vulnerability of our schools, and the children contained therein.

This bears close watching. because it’s not the Democrats that are widely considered to be so covered in NRA pocket lint that you want to run the load through the dryer again, it’s the Republicans. Even if the NRA-Russia connection doesn’t bubble up, if future national polling shows that the trend towards sensible gun rights legislation and against unfettered access to military grade weaponry grows, the GOP will be faced with a dilemma. Either GOP candidates begin to actively support common sense measures, and run like a clutter of kittens from their past association with the NRA, and the votes and cash it provides, or they stand their ground, and hope that both the NRA and their own popularity in the district are strong enough to withstand the onslaught.

You know, it’s funny when you think about it. it’s really kind of funny. In the good old days, it used to be a Republican incumbents greatest nightmare to inspire the ire of the NRA and drive them away. But now, if public sentiment continues to move away from the NRA, and unlimited access to weapons of mass carnage, and the slaughter they continue to produce, it could end up being the Republican incumbents who end up fleeing the NRA like rats deserting a sinking ship. The 2020 election could well be decisive in determining whether 0r not the stranglehold that the NRA has held over Washington for so long has finally been broken, and we can finally start acting like a civilized nation again. Don’t touch that dial.