Greetings from Nashville! As noted in today’s Morning Jolt, watch the NRO home page for regular updates on all of today’s big speeches at the NRA Annual Meeting , and Charlie Cooke and I will be sharing our observations of the unexpected and surprising at this year’s convention in the Corner. Charlie has already noticed the New York Daily News completely botching its coverage of the convention, suggesting that the standard for all guns displayed at the convention — nonoperational, with the firing pins removed, and any guns purchased during the NRA convention will have to be picked up at a Federal Firearms License dealer – is some sort of hypocritical stance or fear for safety at the event.
As Charlie points out, “a) it’s a trade show, not a bazaar; b) the rules governing interstate purchases are extremely complicated; and c) there is simply no way that there would be enough guns available to satisfy the demand.”
Meanwhile, if you’ve wondered why Rand Paul won’t be speaking from the stage in Nashville, the Wall Street Journal sheds some light:
Sen. Rand Paul wasn’t invited to speak at this weekend’s National Rifle Association annual convention because the Kentucky Republican is caught in the crossfire between competing gun-rights organizations.
Top NRA officials are unhappy that Mr. Paul has for years lent his name to fundraising solicitations for the National Association for Gun Rights, a group that fashions itself a more conservative alternative to NRA. Mr. Paul’s aides have been told by the NRA he will be unwelcome to participate at NRA events as long as he remains affiliated with NAGR, according to people familiar with the conversation.
Actually, it’s not just lending his name to fundraising messages; it’s very official-looking e-mails calling the NAGR “the fastest-growing and most effective gun rights group in America.”
The WSJ continues:
Publicly, the NRA chalked up Mr. Paul’s absence from Nashville to scheduling concerns. The convention has a packed three-day schedule of political speeches – at least nine other would-be 2016 presidential candidates are scheduled to appear, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida). Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was on the schedule but cancelled this week.
Now, look, my friendly connections with the good folks at the NRA are clear. I’ve gone and shot at their range.
The complaint that the NRA isn’t “conservative enough” amounts to asking the group to change its identity and its operating philosophy – one that the NRA is convinced is the secret to its success. As the NRA’s executive director Chris Cox put it to me a few years ago:
We are a non-partisan organization, and we don’t base any grade or any endorsement on a party affiliation. That’s how we have continued to succeed, by solely considering how a candidate stands on the Second Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms. We send out candidate questionnaires to every candidate, and we look at public statements and the things they say in debates. We focus solely on the right to keep and bear arms, because that’s our issue. Now, there are a lot of other issues that voters have to address, particularly in a year like this; they’re looking at fiscal issues, they’re looking at the health-care issue. We encourage our members to put it in the forefront of their decision-making, and that’s proven to be a very effective, a very fair, and credible way for NRA to be positioned to help the rights of our members.
… We do not take non–Second Amendment related issues into account. I may feel very strongly about health care, taxes, but that isn’t what I’m supposed to bring to this decision.
Back in 2009, the NRA didn’t include the vote to confirm Eric Holder as attorney general in their scorecards, while some other gun-rights groups did; these smaller, significantly less powerful groups contended the NRA was selling out by not downgrading any senator who confirmed Holder. From the NRA’s perspective, a lot of senators with otherwise solid records were going to vote for Holder; a new president almost always gets their first choice for key cabinet positions. Scoring the Holder vote wouldn’t have derailed or even slowed down the Holder nomination. The only thing it would have done is downgrade guys like Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee – guys who have solid to sterling records on actual gun control legislative votes.
Finally, David Frum, who is often critical of the NRA, responded to one of my pieces on the convention from last year and offered some insightful points of why the organization has enjoyed great success in the past decade when so many other conservative causes have lost ground:
Whatever else you say about the NRA, its cause does not obviously improve the standing of the richest members of society. Indeed, gun rights can even be presented as a rare and precious means to equalize the standing of the rich and the middle-class, conferring on the middle class the security that the affluent enjoy inside their gated communities and doorman buildings…
Gun advocates depict a government that is increasingly remote and alien from everyday concerns, if not outright hostile and menacing. This is a widespread point of view in post-economic-crisis United States. Most conservative causes promise to bring the government closer to the people by having government do less for the people. For obvious reasons, that’s not an easy sell.
Gun advocates offer a very different message. They promise to put the means of self-emancipation from a dangerous world right into one’s own hands. LaPierre again: “In this uncertain world, surrounded by lies and corruption, there is no greater freedom than the right to survive, to protect our families with all the rifles, shotguns, and handguns we want.”
At a time when so many people—and especially so many white men—feel devalued and undermined by powerful unseen but inimical forces, gun advocates put the power to deal death at the touch of a button right into their supporters’ hands. Nobody feels powerless when he holds a gun.