What is nra

The threats from many on the Left are turning to violence and intimidation. While we try to fight fair with truth on our side, the Left uses a win-at-all-costs mentality.

It means they no longer play fair. That is the greatest threat to our nation. The group uses both the Second Amendment and the constitutional right to bear arms as justifications for its lobbying and advocacy efforts around gun legislation. The NRA has had astounding success at using its messaging to support advocacy for legislation that expands gun rights while endangering public safety.

By using hyperbolic language and extreme examples that are often disconnected from the realities of gun violence, it maintains that guns are needed for self-defense and that legislation only burdens law-abiding citizens. Last time I checked, both are enemies of the U. Yet even with these tangents into other polarizing political issues, the core message of the NRA continues to be about protecting the freedoms and rights of the law-abiding American—a message that makes it easy for discussions to be spun back into the gun rights debate.

The issue of security along the U. President Trump campaigned on the proposal of installing a wall along the U. The issue of immigration at the border presents an existential crisis for the so-called American patriot—a crisis narrative that is perpetuated by the president and his own staff, who have spread blatant falsehoods about the border and the scale of the problem of migrants seeking asylum in the United States.

NRATV programming also often hosts so-called angel families, whose loved ones were killed by undocumented immigrants, to link the threat presented by the NRA to law-abiding American patriots. This is an invasion. This is a national emergency. The goal of this interview was not to describe the actual problem but rather to depict an imminent threat to the American people.

Yet these efforts neglected the fact that this incident was a tragic outlier and that cities with increased migrant populations do not see changes in crime rates. The narrative spun by NRATV is devoid of facts, focusing instead on sustaining the myth of gun ownership being necessary for self-defense in an increasingly dangerous United States.

Unlike the demographics of asylum seekers entering Europe, the majority of migrants seeking asylum in the United States are women and children fleeing violence. The NRA also projects images of vulnerable women and children under attack in order to propel its message of fear to the American populace. The image of the American patriot is largely linked to the concept of hypermasculinity. The subtext of this narrative is related to imbalanced gender dynamics that frame men as protectors of their vulnerable families, thereby implying that to be a masculine man, one must also be a gun owner; otherwise, one is forsaking his duty as a man to his family.

It implies that the world is full of bad people and the only way to defend yourself is through owning a firearm. Through its narrative, the NRA will also target women in an effort to encourage them to purchase firearms. The gun rights group uses the image of women in two intertwined, problematic ways. First, the NRA portrays women as vulnerable and susceptible to violence, again building on the fearmongering trope that is central to its messaging.

In order to push the specific message that women are uniquely vulnerable, the NRA imagines a world in which women face constant attacks and threats from unknown entities that can only be addressed through gun ownership. To advance the idea that guns are a means for women to feel empowered, the NRA has created programs for women gun owners. Dana Loesch, perhaps the most vocal NRA personality on this subject, has repeatedly pushed the idea of women needing firearms for self-defense and autonomy.

This is what real empowerment looks like. While there is some anecdotal evidence of successful cases of women using guns in self-defense, academic research finds that defensive gun use is relatively rare. Prolific gun ownership is, however, associated with increased harm to women. A critical part of maintaining a narrative based on misinformation is undermining critics who challenge the lies upon which the messaging is based. For example, illiberal leaders, such as Duterte in the Philippines, will often openly mock their opposition, while more established authoritarians such as Putin will silence critical voices through threats of violence and assassinations.

Further compounding the challenges around academic research on gun violence legislation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC is unable to conduct any independent, nonpartisan research on the subject.

As a result, of the top 30 causes of death in the United States, gun violence is the least researched and second least funded, with many critical research questions left unanswered. Recently, NRATV personalities have deployed this technique to argue against common-sense legislation introduced in the th Congress to implement a universal background check system for firearm sales.

The bill would close existing loopholes in the background check process, which currently only requires licensed gun dealers to run a background check on buyers before selling them a firearm. By requiring private sales of firearms—including online sales and sales made at gun shows—to require a background check on all buyers to ensure that they are legally allowed to obtain a firearm before completing the sale, the legislation would prevent prohibited people from exploiting gaps in the existing system to obtain a firearm.

However, instead of engaging in policy discussion, the NRA chose to pivot the debate using lies and tangents. That government overreach to block us from exercising our constitutional right is a clear and present danger. It is a threat to our republic disguised as gun safety, two words which are a tip off to mean unconstitutional. Nothing in the bill would criminalize law-abiding citizens, and the bill contains explicit language barring the creation of a gun registry.

Much like demagogues and autocrats demonize their opposition, the NRA attacks advocates of gun violence prevention in order to justify its political agenda. In this vein, the group and its surrogates have repeatedly painted the opposition as traitors who seek to strip the law-abiding gun owner and American patriot of their fundamental freedoms.

This tactic serves as an umbrella to vilify the media, government officials, and civil society members who advocate for legislation that would reduce gun violence. The focus on painting traditional media as a self-aggrandizing disinformation machine is a common theme across NRA media platforms.

You guys love it. Crying white mothers are ratings gold to many in the legacy media. Members of Congress advancing gun violence prevention legislation face regular attacks from the NRA. The NRA attempts to vilify the speaker by making her appear elitist and out of touch with the struggles of average Americans—willing to abuse her power in order to fulfill her personal agendas, including those that would allegedly limit the rights of gun owners. Feinstein as someone who is morally opposed to the Second Amendment and American freedoms.

The visibility of Sen. In response to a speech delivered by Sen. Senate and the Democratically controlled House of Representatives want to disarm me.

That could cost me and my family our lives. Civil society is actively engaged in the quest to end gun violence and prevent more families from being torn apart by preventable tragedies. Strongman leaders use fearmongering rhetoric as part of an overall agenda to gain power and retain control over a country.

The National Rifle Association uses these tactics to control the debate around gun violence and ensure the gun industry continues to be profitable, regardless of the human toll.

Public opinion research indicates that the majority of people in the United States—across partisan lines—support policies to reduce gun violence, such as universal background checks for all firearm sales and assault weapons bans, yet polling data also indicate that a majority of Americans believe gun ownership increases personal safety.

By perpetuating a culture of fear and divisiveness, the gun rights group is crippling legislators and lawmakers who want to address a public health crisis that kills more than 35, people a year in the United States.

While the strategy of the National Rifle Association has been remarkably effective thus far, the United States has recently experienced a shift around gun culture. In , following the murder of 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, by a shooter armed with an assault rifle, several corporations severed ties with the gun rights organization. The NRA has established a narrative that frames the organization as the protector of freedom while combating the passage of legislation that would make communities safer from gun violence.

Yet the group is not driven by a desire to protect fundamental freedoms. Much like a nondemocratic leader, its goal is centered around a desire to secure and sustain political power. She previously served in the Obama administration in the U. Prior to her political appointment, she served as the inaugural Hillary R. The author wishes to thank Chelsea Parsons for her indispensable counsel. She thanks Steve Bonitatibus for his vital advice and guidance in writing this report.

Arkadi Gerney , Chelsea Parsons. In this article. InProgress Stay updated on our work on the most pressing issues of our time. Glossary of key terms Illiberal nation or regime: A nation or regime whose leaders are democratically elected but who then implement policies that repress the political rights and civil liberties of their nation, standing in opposition to liberal democratic principles.

How the NRA mutated from supporting gun safety to advocating gun rights. Consequences of the playbook Collectively, these tactics are regularly implemented in illiberal nations whose leadership is focused on stifling debate, with the extreme methods resulting in crackdowns on political rights and civil liberties in order to suppress a nation into submission. Those ratings can have a serious effect on poll numbers and even cost pro-gun control candidates a seat.

But since the election of Donald Trump in , NRA spending on campaigns in the states has plummeted. The drop came amid the rise of pro-control groups, who have received millions of dollars from backers who oppose most NRA policies. It was estimated that gun control groups may have outspent the NRA for the first time ever in Estimates of the NRA's membership have varied widely for decades.

The association claimed that membership surged to close to five million in response to the mass shooting at Sandy Hook school in , but some analysts put the figure at closer to three million. The organisation has been accused of inflating the figure. He resigned from the group in after Mr La Pierre referred to federal agents in the wake of a bombing attack on a government building in Oklahoma City as "jack-booted thugs".

Heston famously held a rifle over his head at an NRA convention following the Columbine High School massacre in and told gun control advocates they would have to take it "from my cold, dead hands". The NRA has lobbied heavily against all forms of gun control and argued aggressively that more guns make the country safer.

It relies on, and staunchly defends, a disputed interpretation of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which it argues gives US citizens the rights to bear arms without any government oversight. The association faced criticism from both sides of the political spectrum in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, when Mr La Pierre said that the lack of an armed guard at the school was to blame for the tragedy. It staunchly opposes most local, state and federal legislation that would restrict gun ownership.

For example, the NRA has lobbied for guns confiscated by the police to be resold, arguing that destroying the weapons is, in effect, a waste of perfectly good guns. Likewise, it strongly supports legislation that expand gun rights such as "open-carry" laws, which allow gun owners to carry their weapons, unconcealed, in most public places.

Image source, Getty Images.