Hobby Lobbies

[steepholm]

I'm always hearing how powerful the NRA is in Washington, and I believe it - but I confess I don't understand the economics. Presumably it's money that wins them political influence rather than the compelling nature of their arguments, but I'm surprised they're rich enough to be politically impregnable. No doubt the gun manufacturers contribute a lot to their coffers, but are they really richer than, say, than the tobacco or drinks lobbies - which seem to have a harder time imposing their will on the lawmakers? Or maybe they supplement their fighting fund with whip-rounds at shooting ranges and hunting clubs, the way they used to pass the NORAID hat round Boston bars?

Anyway, from here it's strange seeing a group of hobbyists hold the government to ransom. It's rather as if it were a by-word that "You don't mess with the morris dancers", or "They'll never put VAT on balsa wood - the model aircraft enthusiasts wouldn't stand for it."

The closest comparison I can think of is fox-hunting, which took a lot of outlawing (and then in a half-hearted, tenth-enforced sort of way), and would no doubt have been reinstated long ago had the Tories been governing alone. Although they are different in several obvious ways, there are some points of similarity in the two groups' rhetoric. The fox-hunting lobby didn't become powerful because riding to hounds really is the most efficient way to control foxes, any more than the gun lobby has become powerful because Thomas Jefferson wanted assault weapons for all. But both groups have managed to identify their own narrow interests with sacred and immemorial national freedoms, of which they see themselves as guardians. A neat trick, if you can pull it off.

Comments

[kalypso]

My possibly erroneous impression is that it's connected with suspicion of the Federal government. As I understand it, the supposed constitutional right for citizens to bear arms is qualified by the proviso that this is for the purpose of serving in a local militia if there is no standing army. But there is a standing army, which should mean there's no need for the citizenry to bear arms, except that the standing army represents the Federal government so at some level these people are thinking that they need weapons to defend themselves against the Federal forces.

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

People against gun control tend to be very conservative/individualistic/racist/anti-welfare-state on a lot of issues. Candidates against gun control tend to show the same preferences. So giving money to the NRA to support such candidates means that the NRA will both mobilize those voters, who don't actually care enough otherwise to vote, and contribute to those candidates, who will vote for right wing policies in general. The idea isn't that the NRA buys influence in Washington: it sells its influence to mobilize voters to rich donors who want just those voters.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

That's part of it. The NRA does these things: contribute, and mobilize Rightwingers (especially rednecks) to contribute to them and to vote for and contribute to Rightwing candidates. The gun manufacturers do the same, and the gun sellers (including those who sell secondhand at 'gun shows', which are sort of like conventions or faires). And there are legitimate target ranges and gun clubs, which also mobilize their members to contribute and vote.

All these groups and members form a community of gun supporters, which smokers don't have; and anyway, the government isn't really taking away anyone's tobacco or alcohol, just taxing it.

Rightwing politicians also keep this gun thing going, and would do it regardless of the NRA, just to keep their voters interested.

In the US it's an urban vs rural issue. For farmers and hunters, guns are everyday tools, and when you're far from 911, there's a legitimate self-defense factor. These country people (who are not exposed to urban handgun crime) naturally resent uninformed city people's rhetoric against all guns, and don't trust the gun control side to make reasonable laws.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I would think that one doesn't mess with morris dancers... they have sticks! And bells! And hankies! Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Hankies? Biological warfare!

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

The NRA did not become the organization it is today (i.e. right-wing loons) until the middle 1970s; they actually both endorsed and actively supported the major gun control act of 1968, which passed, and which was way more restrictive than a lot of things they've railed against since. Before that, the NRA was the principal organization in the country not just for hobbyists who shoot at ranges and for hobbyist hunters, but for sustenance hunters and sufficiency farmers. It also used to do adjunct training for the National Guard. When the NRA was taken over by right-wing loons, which coincided with the Reagan campaign, these constituencies had nowhere else to go, and they still don't.

Basically, if you use a gun in the U.S., you will interact with the NRA in some way. If you are a subsistence hunter-- and when you get up into, say, Alaska, you get entire villages which depend on hunting to keep them from starvation-- the NRA are the people who argue to keep your bullets priced at a level you can pay for, who negotiate with the state to help set game permits and determine which areas are poverty-stricken enough that there should be no hunting limit, who teach your kids to shoot without charge, who offer classes in how to maintain your equipment. There are Native villages who voted one hundred percent for Obama and have one hundred percent NRA membership.

And the thing is, the subsistence hunter lobby, which still forms a significant amount of the bulk membership, can afford to pay dues when it gets them, basically, a union, an organization they know will intercede with the state and with gun manufacturers on the things such as ammunition price. They pay those dues and they get those services. But they don't have the time, inclination, or money to influence or even necessarily pay attention to the other things the organization is doing politically. They fund the organization, but they do not control it.

We need a leftist organization which would do something real for the needs of this constituency, because people would join it in droves. But leftists tend to see that idea as ideologically impossible (it's not-- subsistence hunters don't use the kind of guns most gun control advocates would like to ban), and years of propaganda mean this constituency sees leftists as the people trying to take their guns. In addition, the NRA has a very long history and a heck of a lot of built-up credibility from before it went nuts. Plus it has unavoidability on its side. (I repeat: if you use a gun in the U.S., you will interact with them; I have shot a gun on a range, as writing research, twice in my life, and the NRA were the people who ran my required range safety talks before I fired those guns, because that is what they do).

Taking over the NRA was one of the smartest and most damaging things the right-wing loons have ever done, it is one of the lasting casualties of the Reagan years, and it will require one hell of a lot of money, time, and idea-changing on the left to even start trying to fix it. The problem was that nobody on the left thought it was important when it happened-- quite often because of not owning any guns themselves-- and now it is just a tad late.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

tl; dr version: it's not the hobbyists funding the NRA, it's the people who need their guns to live, of whom there are actually thousands in the U.S., mostly in the northern regions. Leftists are bad at talking with these people or, in many cases, admitting they exist. Right-wingers, therefore, co-opted them.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thanks for both versions - very interesting.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

This was very interesting. As Helen says, under our quite strict gun control laws, you can still have guns for hunting game. A lot of people around here have a shotgun, not just for game but for emergencies - the only time I've regretted not owning a gun was when we were confronted with a badly injured deer who needed to be put down. A friend, whose Quaker uncle did not believe in guns, told me the awful story of how he had to club a badger to death with a golf club because it ran amok in his henhouse.

But the BASC, which is the British Assoc for Shooting and Conservation, is in favour of gun control and recently issued a statement congratulating the government on the decline in gun crime in Scotland. They run training sessions for young people.

There are a lot of farmers here in Somerset and I've never heard anyone complain about the gun laws or how they'd prefer to be able to buy semi automatics.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, possibly the single most obnoxious propaganda coup of the last several decades over here, which is saying something, is the way the right-wing loons have managed to associate 'being pro-gun-control' with 'taking away hunters' and farmers' guns'. Because no leftist I know actually wants to take away guns people need, although I know several who aren't convinced people need them, which is a whole other problem. But, due to some truly fiendishly brilliant marketing, when one side here says 'ban semi-automatics' what the other side literally hears is, at this point, 'we want to make it illegal for you to hunt'. If that could somehow get moved back to people hearing 'we want to ban semi-automatics you don't even use for hunting', things would go a lot better, but there is a lot of money and brainpower focused on that not happening.

I don't think Britain has enough open hunting space to have a population who depend on their guns as much as there is in the U.S., so I don't think the BASC is in danger of having the same sort of political takeover. It still amazes me that in the U.S. it only took forty years to make rational conversation between the two sides unheard of in the media and incredibly difficult in both public and private discourse. Terrifying stuff.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I'm not even sure the BASC would be looking for that sort of political takeover - the Countryside Alliance might, but they aren't gun oriented, although they are hunting oriented (I agree with Steepholm that there's an issue with the hunting lobby, although I am somewhat ambivalent as my relatives fox hunt - or did before the ban, I assume they still do, and there are arguments for continuing drag hunting, at least. I don't personally approve of hunting foxes although I do approve of hunting for food.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I really wish that the moderate and sensible gun owners in the US would form some sort of rival organisation. The irony is, here in the UK we probably have some of the toughest gun laws on the planet, but even if laws as strict as ours were adopted in the US, the subsistence hunters would not be affected. In the UK you can still have a shotgun to shoot game or control vermin. (It's perfectly legal to shoot a fox that's after your chickens, it's just no longer legal to chase it for miles with hounds before savaging it to death. You can also shoot a dog to protect your sheep.) You can own a rifle to shoot larger game animals.

The thing that limits hunting in the UK is not the gun laws, it's the lack of truly wild open spaces, but plenty of people shoot pheasants, deer, rabbit and other game. Lots of people take part in sports like clay pigeon shooting.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Click of blackthorn stick...........

You really _don't_ mess with morris dancers you know :op

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

The Morris dance lobby was powerful enough to cause a last-minute exemption for Morris dance and Morris-dance related activities to be added to the 2003 Licencing Act. :-)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I stand corrected!

And yet... you never featured in the Olympic opening ceremony, iirc. Can Danny Boyle expect to wake up with a horse's skull on his pillow?

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

We'll invite him to a bodhran jam session.

If he brings his bodhran, we'll fill it with the jam of his choice! :o)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

:)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Another discussion. (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/06/eric_holder_charged_with_contempt_how_did_the_nra_swing_the_votes_of_so_many_democrats_.html)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that's helpful.