The Politics of Gun Control by Robert J. Spitzer

Author:Robert J. Spitzer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Institute for Legislative Action

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the NRA focused political efforts for the first time on specific legislative races, claiming credit for defeating two gun control proponents in the Senate, Joseph Clark (D-PA) in 1968 and Joseph Tydings (D-MD) in 1970.28 Buoyed by these victories and persuaded to make politics a higher priority, the NRA reconstituted and concentrated its lobbying activities in 1975 with the creation of its Institute for Legislative Action (ILA). Focusing primarily on legislative efforts in the states and in the nation’s capital, the ILA has become the primary power center in the NRA. Commenting on the ILA’s effectiveness, the Washington Post admitted that “few lobbies have so mastered the marble halls and concrete canyons of Washington.”29 In 1988 the ILA spent $20.2 million on political activities. By 1992 its spending had risen to $28.9 million. In the 2000 election cycle the ILA raised and spent $30 million, and in 2008, $40 million. In recent years the ILA has consumed 25 percent or more of the NRA’s total budget.30

Beyond its lobbying activities, the ILA has become the primary means through which the NRA mobilizes political support among NRA membership and sympathizers. In 1991, for example, the NRA spent about $10 million on “legislative alert,” fund-raising, and other mass mailings. Journalist Osha Gray Davidson has labeled the tone of the politically charged mailings the “Armageddon Appeal.” As a former NRA head said, “You keep any special interest group alive by nurturing the crisis atmosphere. ‘Keep sending those cards and letters in. Keep sending money.’”31 After the 1984 Bernhard Goetz subway shooting incident, the NRA ran afoul of the law when it printed on the outside of one of its mailings, “If you fail to respond to this letter you could face a jail term.” The New York State attorney general’s office charged the NRA with fraud. After resisting New York’s investigative efforts to examine its other mailings for two years, the NRA finally complied. The matter was resolved when the NRA promised to avoid such tactics in the future.32

A study of NRA advertising conducted by the Congressional Research Service found numerous inaccuracies in the way NRA literature described gun bills before Congress.33 Even though the NRA is by no means the largest lobbying group in the country, its belief in membership mobilization for political purposes is most clearly reflected in its spending on internal communications designed not only to buttress support for the NRA agenda but also to rally support for political candidates sympathetic to the NRA perspective. In almost every year since the end of the 1970s, the NRA has spent more money on internal communications than any other comparable group. During the 1991–1992 election cycle, for example, the NRA spent $8.4 million on political mail and other related internal political spending aimed at members and others. This level of spending represented a 90 percent increase over its spending for the same purpose four years earlier. In 2008, NRA internal communications spending was $25 million.

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