Manchin speaks against the ‘big business’ NRA
It’s not often that one of our “leaders” in Congress is bold enough to publicly confront the National Rifle Association, so when it happens, it’s worth noting.
West Virginia U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat with Republican tendencies, took a shot at the NRA in an interview this week with the Associated Press, saying the organization has gone from promoting gun safety toward being a mouthpiece for “big business,” that business being the gun industry.
In a bit of schizophrenia, Manchin said he is still a “proud NRA member,” but at least he had the guts to point out the obvious: that the NRA is now a shill for the gun industry and will do or say anything to prevent an action that might cut even a fraction of a cent from that industry’s revenues.
Since before President Obama’s election, the NRA has tried to gin up fear that the man in the White House would be coming to take the guns of law-abiding Americans. That’s pure bunkum, of course, but the NRA has never minded abandoning the truth, especially when that allows it to create a climate of hysteria that keeps those donations rolling in.
To Manchin’s credit, this is not the first time he has broken ranks with the NRA. He also criticized the organization for its opposition to legislation – defeated, of course – that would have expanded background checks in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
And what did the NRA have to say about Manchin’s latest criticism? Arrogant as always, the group, through Chris Cox, executive director of its lobbying organization, said, “The NRA is more popular than Joe Manchin in West Virginia.”
The NRA also has a death grip on enough members of Congress that common-sense controls like a tightening of the “gun show loophole” and restrictions on magazine capacities seem to have zero chance of winning approval, no matter how many schoolchildren are mowed down.