By Don Valentine
Review in your mind the cornucopia of positive preventive gun initiatives the N.R.A. has done? Oh, you did not find any. That is because the next time they do will be the first time they do!
I am not a very smart man. It is clear even to my obtuse brain that it would behoove the N.R.A. to lobby for legislation to curtail teen access to guns. In this century, Wikipedia lists 119 high school shooting deaths. That is a 119 potential great possible contributors to society.
The N.R.A. goes beyond being reticent to being more strident on background checks. They are vehemently opposed to the prudent application of mandatory liability for adults that allow access to minors for guns. Further, the N.R.A. is not an advocate of a waiting period [standard is 72 hours] before purchase of a firearm. In legal parlance this is known as a “Cooling Off Period.”
It is not rational for an organization that was founded on proper gun safety and maintaining the 2nd amendment to be that callous. Think of the lives they could have saved if they used their behemoth of a lobby for the good of the public!
A 1999 Fortune magazine survey said that lawmakers and their staffers considered the NRA the most powerful lobbying organization three years in a row.
Furthermore, investigations by the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller resulted in indictments of Russian agents on charges of developing and exploiting ties with the NRA to influence US politics. The deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia, Aleksandr Torshin, is suspected of illegally funneling money through the NRA to benefit Trump’s 2016 campaign. The N.R.A. efforts would have better served getting legislation that might have saved those 119 children!
