Hispanic demographics and voting aspirations remain strong for November

President Obama is winning the Latino vote by 70 percent to 22 percent for Mitt Romney going into the final months of the 2012 election.  When you break this down, Spanish dominant Hispanics come in 76 percent to 15 percent, foreign born 72 percent to 19 percent, Spanish dominant 76 percent to 15 percent and 66 percent to 28 percent of those English dominant.  In other words, if you are Latino and for Mitt Romney, you are simply out of the loop.

To begin with, I cannot understand how any Hispanic could think the Republicans have anything to offer them.  Look at the record.  The GOP is against anything Latino and has been for years with absolutely no evidence of changing.  And this is due to a constituency that borders on racism as confirmed by the Tea Party faction, emphasized by the emails of ousted state Senator Russell Pearce of Arizona.  He is also the author of the state’s anti-immigration bill, SB-1070.

In a study done at Arizona State University, the long contemplated impact of the Hispanic vote is expected to be felt this Nov. in the state, and there is reason to believe this could evolve nationwide.  Arizona is important for several reasons.  One, it will be necessary to convince even some legal Latinos that they are not in danger of being arrested when registering to vote, convincing others nationwide.  Two, the numbers are awesome, possibly changing Arizona from red to blue.

President Obama talks about Mitt Romney and Hispanics:

In an earlier post, I reported that Arizona’s Hispanic voting-age population has jumped from 455,000 nine years ago to 845,000 today, 19 percent of the state’s population eligible to vote. Taking Arizona in 2012 is not really that far-fetched considering Obama won 45 percent of the state running against McCain in 2008, coupled with the increased strategy of Latino activists to get out the vote. 

Democrats are hoping to register approximately 300,000 new Hispanics to vote prior to November 2012.

The Latino Decisions Poll says considering, “…voters with a validated vote history in 2008 Obama leads Romney 72% to 20%, and Latinos who reside in one of 13 critical battleground states (AZ, CO, FL, IA, IN, MI, MO, NC, NV, OH, PA, VA, WI) lean very heavily towards Obama, 71% to 21% for Romney.  The question is no longer just whether the general voters of swing states will come out for Obama, but also how many Hispanics those states can register.

As an example, the four swing states with the highest percent of Latino population are Arizona, 29.6 percent, Colorado, 20.7 percent, Florida 22.5 percent and Nevada 26.5 percent.  When you add up the five and ten percent states across the country, you begin to realize the potential of the Hispanic vote.  16.3 percent of the nation’s population is Latino and growing daily.  It is beyond me how the GOP can argue with these demographics.

I have a friend here in Arizona that I talked with just a week ago who is Hispanic and I asked her if she was going to vote.  Unfortunately she hasn’t achieved citizenship yet which means she can’t.  She indicated her husband would definitely vote and her daughters are out knocking on doors to help bring out the vote.  My friend is also actively advocating for Latinos to vote as well as her husband when he has the time.  My point here is…it is beginning to happen.

Is gun control impossible based on the number of weapons on the street?

Florida will soon pass the one-million-mark in gun worshippers carrying concealed weapons.  They are the first state in the country to reach that firepower.  If Florida’s population wasn’t three times that of Arizona, I’d bet the latter would have been first.  But then, Florida is where the NRA’s own graying granny Marion Hammer hails from, a little old lady we can thank for the Stand Your Ground law plus others like it designed to kill off the American population.



Guns on the street

Gun sales in Florida have likewise soared 96 percent from 2002 through 2011.  But comparable sales remained only stable after the Aurora, Colorado movie massacre.  Considering gun nuts never think they have enough guns, go figure.  In Colorado they jumped 43 percent.  There is a graphic showing mass shootings since 1999 that is significant since in many of these incidents, either assault weapons or high capacity magazines were used.  Readily available.

There are at least 270 million guns out there in the U.S., 2.84 per 100,000 population.  Firearms account for 67.52 percent of all murders nationwide but Illinois, even back in 2010 (the latest figures) it was 80.35 percent.  It has only gotten worse with the recent gang wars that have caused hundreds of deaths in Chicago.  Loose guns everywhere, compliments of the national Rifle Assn. (NRA). 

It is hard for other developed countries to understand why the U.S. has so many murders due to guns.  We have almost 13,000 a year, 8,775 of them caused by firearms.  As an example, Great Britain has around 600 murders a year which makes this fact startling even considering the smaller population.  The difference in the proliferation of guns in the two countries is equally amazing; GB has only 3.4 million firearms out in the population.

Another gun proliferator is the Tea Party, known for demonstrations in Washington, D.C., blatantly with guns in the hands of members as a show of arrogant force.  If TPers hadn’t lost most of their effectiveness in recent months, you could almost rank them up there with the NRA in their fanaticism.  They are the cheerleaders for virtually unrestricted gun rights using ringed targets of President Obama to prove their point.  Double-digit IQs at best.

What is frightening is the fact that some are touting the fact that gun control is not to be considered, at least in the near future, even after Virginia Tech, Tucson and Aurora, Colorado.  Jonathan Mann writing on CNN wants to know, “What is it about Americans and guns?”  An obvious reference to worship by gun nuts of their weapons, plainly over valuing human life, which is so often taken by firearms.  He quotes the same numbers I use above but continues in analysis.

He says, “The laws are being driven by politics, and the politics are being driven by groups such as the National Rifle Assn.  The Washington Post estimates that the NRA succeeded in helping elect four out of every five candidates it endorsed in the most recent congressional election.”  He quotes NRA head, wacky Wayne LaPierre saying, "When they tell you that a government ban on certain firearms will somehow make you safer, don't you believe it, not for a second, because it's a lie just like the lies they've told you before."

Mayors Against Illegal Guns
Where the guns are

Mann also quotes New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg when he commented on both Obama’s and Romney’s reactions to the Aurora shooting, “You know, soothing words are nice, but maybe it's time that the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country."  As a matter of fact, soft rhetoric is all we have been hearing on gun control for years.

The problem of this post persists, ‘Is gun control impossible based on the number of weapons on the street?’  With over 270 million guns out there in the hands of who knows who, you’d never gather up even a small portion of them because the NRA has made sure the government doesn’t know where they are.  And maybe that is where we start.  Demand the registration of all firearms so we can at least know who the good guys are, making it easier to locate illegal guns.

So maybe it is a doable situation, huh?  Oh no, I forgot about wacky Wayne LaPierre.  Maybe Obama can deal with him in his second term.

Did Mitt Romney change the way corporations are run?

If you are running for president, especially as a Republican, you get to change the laws, or at least the interpretation of them, to fit your particular situation.  Like running for president.  And you can even make this retroactive to whenever you want.  John Adams said years ago, “facts are stubborn things” and he should know as our second president, a founding father, and a leader of American independence from Great Britain.



ummmm...What did I do?

 But as stubborn as some facts are, Mitt Romney insists that he didn’t run Bain Capital after 1999, although he was still president, CEO and its only shareholder.  The AP reports, however, that Romney stayed in “regular contact” and was personally involved with the signing or approval of legal documents well into 2001.  He claimed to have left Bain in 1999.  He also argues that he didn’t even visit Bain during the period in question.

Following 1999 Bain was investing in companies that shipped jobs overseas; actually, pioneering the practice.  Putting Americans out of work is not something that goes over well with middle class Americans, but fits perfectly in with Romney’s philosophy of putting corporations ahead of the general public.  Obviously the campaign reacted fiercely to defend the candidate.

But in mid-July the Boston Globe said Romney had signed official documents claiming to be president and CEO of Bain Capital as late as 2002, in the middle of the period it was developing firms that were outsourcing jobs.  This was sworn to on Securities and Exchange Commission filings.  Not only did Romney deny everything again, he demanded a retraction from the Boston Globe which he didn’t get.

Good video on Romney flip-flops:

Donna Brazile, a contributor to CNN and a Democratic strategist says, despite what the candidate’s campaign claims, this whole issue is about getting to the bottom of their complete diversion of the facts.  To support all the accusations of burying facts and potential lies, there is the tax returns issue.  The general policy of most presidential candidates is to release 12 years of tax returns…unless you have something to hide. 

Mitt Romney’s father, George Romney, did just that in his run for president in 1968.  The elder’s effective tax rate at the time was 37 percent.  The son’s similar tax rate was under 15 percent in 2010, the only year he has released.  He promises 2011 when completed.  John McCain released only 2 years of tax returns when he ran against Barack Obama in 2008 and look what happened to him.

Brazile sums it up eloquently: “If Romney won't stand by his record at Bain, just like he won't stand by his record as governor of Massachusetts, how exactly is the American public supposed to evaluate the candidate?”  Romney did a flip-flop on both his health care plan and gun control laws as governor.  The answer to Brazile: if you mix Bain Capital with no additional tax returns, plus reversals in policies on major issues, the real question is can we trust Romney?

Who’s for? Who’s against? Gun control

It looks like gun violence has finally gotten the attention of the two presidential candidates.  Barack Obama told an African-American group in New Orleans on July 26, that we’re lax in the control of weapons and wants to work with lawmakers to rectify this.  Mitt Romney, in the perfect National Rifle Assn. (NRA) profile, said changing laws on the issue wouldn’t prevent future incidents like the Aurora, Colo. movie shooting where 12 died and 58 were injured.

Obama and Romney on gun control

First of all, the President should be infuriated over gun violence; along with the Aurora massacre, his hometown of Chicago is currently going through the worst episodes in decades, almost exclusively within the black community.  He wasn’t.  Romney’s lame answer comes from cow-towing to the gun lobby for the votes of gun nuts.  He even mistakenly said many of the weapons used by James Holmes were obtained illegally.  They were all legal, including the ammunition.

The New Trajectory blog does an excellent job of covering the “semi-switch” in President Obama’s views on gun control with quotes from his speech.  Baldr Odinson ends by challenging the President now to turn those words into action, echoing a question many of us have about what the next steps of The White House will be.

So who’s for and who is against gun control?  You will be surprised at some that are in favor and others who aren’t.

• Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), has already prepared a bill to limit the sale of high-capacity magazines like the one used by James Holmes when he killed 12 and injured 58 in the Aurora, Colo. movie theatre.

• Arch conservative Bill Kristol said that people do have a right to handguns and hunting rifles but doesn’t think they have the right to assault rifles.

• House Rep. Kevin McCarthy, number three Republican from California, sounds open to discussions on gun control but wants to have more facts first.

• Another House Rep., an Oregon Democrat, feels the U.S. has given up on gun control.

• Sen. Barbara Boxer from California says that Congress must pass sensible gun legislation.

• Former Democratic Sen. from Connecticut, Christopher Dodd, called for more restrictions on guns and questions why Americans should be able to buy assault weapons.

• Mitt Romney, of course, has put his support firmly behind the 2^nd Amendment, a move no doubt orchestrated by wacky Wayne LaPierre of the NRA, and thinks new gun laws would not have made any difference in the Aurora tragedy.

• New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has challenged and chastised both presidential contenders on not coming out stronger for gun control.  He comments: “I can tell you I don’t think there’s any other developed country in the world that has remotely the problem we have.

• California Sen. Dianne Feinstein wants to have a “sane” discussion on gun control and ban assault weapons.

• Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) is in favor of a ban against large capacity ammunition clips.

• Fox TV’s ultra-conservative Bill O’Reilly called for Congress to pass a law requiring the registration of all "heavy" weapons to be reported to the FBI because it "makes sense.”

• Lauren Fox in US News said, there is no evidence to indicate that any existing gun law would have prevented James Holmes from doing what he did in Aurora, Colo.

• House Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) wants President Obama to go around Congress using his executive authority to enact better gun laws.  Her husband was killed in the
  1993 Long Island Rail Road
  shooting massacre.

• Michael Moore, Academy Award winning filmmaker’s statement says it all: "We have to see that we're a part of each other, and we have to take care of each other. The reason why they have universal health care in Canada and Britain, these other places? Because they believe if one suffers, everybody suffers," he tells the "Piers Morgan Tonight" host. "That is not our mentality, our mentality is 'I got mine, you get yours, and the hell with everybody else.'" 

Great statements on gun control by Michael Moore:

 



Jason Alexander


• Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame tweeted that he believes there should be some kind of gun control in the U.S. so that not just any “Joe Schmoe” could walk into a Walmart and purchase a weapon.

• And it should be noted with interest that just days following the Aurora massacre, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) gathered in Salt Lake City behind closed doors to formally continue their support for the ownership and sale of assault weapons.  Read more here about the participating companies you should boycott.

• And last, but certainly not least, there is Barack Obama’s views on gun control which have mellowed significantly since he was a Senator from Illinois.  The President must get reelected; another GOP administration in the White House and control of Congress would lead to a disaster for the U.S. in my mind.  If Obama is cooling it until his reelection in November, after which he plans to lower the boom on the NRA and pass gun control, that’s fine with me.  Only if.

It would appear that we have accumulated more than a modicum of support for gun control following the bloodbath in Aurora, Colo., which in itself is a tragedy that this issue continues to be forced into the forefront by the killing and injuring of innocent individuals.  All because of NRA head Wayne LaPierre and his leadership of lackeys and a fear-mongering reign over the organization’s membership.  But maybe this is the year and we should all be ready.

The real American terrorist and the war over guns

There are two distinct issues here.  The new American terrorists are the James Holmes, the Jared Loughners, the Seung-Hui Chos and the other gun massacre artists that came before them and those who will follow.  Yes, many will continue the trend because they are given the means so readily to accomplish their goals.  Any kind of mass killing device their heart desires, compliments of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) and its leader, Wayne LaPierre.

And the war over guns will continue, not just on the street, but also at the White House, the U.S. Congress, and in the minds and hearts of the American people.  It is a battle that has been going on since the late 1970s when wacky Wayne took over the NRA and made a fight for the 2^nd Amendment his platform to power and riches for himself and his organization.  He has amassed a claimed 4.3 million membership that has in the past literally licked the man’s boots.

In this war the American public is losing, as is the case in Aurora, Colorado most recently.



James Holmes the terrorist that no one knew



Bill Schneider writing for Politico says in his glaring headline, “NRA is real winner on gun laws,” continuing, “Nothing will happen. That seems to be the consensus among policy experts after the senseless tragedy in Aurora, Colo., last week.”  That line of thought pretty much follows the overall atmosphere of two presidential contenders and the chicken-hearted Congress we have been left with.  But I do see an inkling of hope, which I will cover in a later post.

The author says Americans have lost confidence in gun control measures. In 1959, a Gallup poll said 60 percent wanted it; in 2011 26 percent were in favor.  And in the fight to re-ban assault weapons, just last year a majority in the U.S. said no.  What we don’t hear from these polls is “why” these respondents reply as they do.  I am no expert in polling but my gut tells me all the NRA propaganda has thoroughly confused the American public, in their favor.

Schneider believes the opposition to gun control is due to the fact that people see no evidence that it works.  And why is that?  Because there are no valid statistics available to prove that regulations on firearms do work.  And why is that?  Because the NRA and its leadership have made sure that a minimum of records are kept on guns in this country simply to cover up their lies and brazen and flawed doctrine on gun rights.  All thanks to a cowardly Congress.

John Horgan in Scientific American wonders "How many massacres will it take for politicians to stand up to gun nuts?"  He uses the term “gun nut,” which I also use frequently, to describe the kind of person that loves his or her guns more than they do life.  He describes Obama, the Illinois Senator in favor of some gun control, to the presidential candidate who came out strong for defending the 2^nd Amendment.  A fact that has soured many progressives.

 

Easily available weapon of choice 



The Brady Center reports a total of 100,000 Americans are wounded by firearms each year in the U.S.  Of those, 31,347 are deaths according to the CDC, and Brady adds that more than a million Americans have been shot to death since 1968.  The gun nuts cry that self defense makes a gun necessary; the fact is that “a gun is 22 times more likely to be used in a suicide attempt; criminal assault or homicide; or unintentional shooting death or injury than for self-defense.”

Come on America.  What makes you people believe such garbage that spews from wacky Wayne LaPierre and his minions?  Don’t you have a mind of your own?  Anyone who cannot sit down and quickly analyze a situation like the Aurora move theatre killing which took 12 lives and injured another 58, and not come up with the conclusion that assault weapons should be banned, has a real problem with logic.  This isn’t rocket science, folks, it’s common sense.

NRA members defy organization’s leader wacky Wayne LaPierre

MAIG's Mayor Bloomberg

The National Rifle Assn. (NRA) membership told Mayors Against Illegal Guns, via pollster Frank Luntz, that they support sensible gun control.  This must have sent CEO Wayne LaPierre into the atmosphere; this fanatic is and has had a no-negotiations position for years.  Even on assault weapons and high capacity magazines.  Even after Virginia Tech, Tucson and now Aurora, Colorado.  The CrooksandLiars blog calls it a “real split” with “rabid” NRA leadership.

I have regularly put down NRA members because it seemed to me that they were as rabid as old Wayne and his minions but, hopefully, I am wrong.  Most of my conclusions were based on comments I have received when writing about gun control; many are absolutely unprintable, and that does say something for at least a portion of the members.  Also, I was crucified by NRAers when I posted on Daily Kos, eventually being thrown off the site for my views on gun control.

MUST SEE Young Turks video on Frank Luntz poll:

Here’s what New York Mayor Richard Bloomberg’s MAIG group found out:

87 percent of NRA members agree that support for 2nd Amendment rights goes hand-in-hand with keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.

There is very strong support for criminal background checks:

• 74 percent support requiring criminal background checks of anyone purchasing a gun.
• 79 percent support requiring gun retailers to perform background checks on all employees – a measure recently endorsed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms industry.
• NRA members strongly support allowing states to set basic eligibility requirements for people who want to carry concealed, loaded guns in public places. By contrast, the NRA leadership’s top federal legislative priority – national reciprocity for concealed carry permits – would effectively eliminate these requirements by forcing every state to allow non-residents to carry concealed guns even if they would not qualify for a local permit.

NRA members support many common state eligibility rules for concealed carrying:

• 75 percent believe concealed carry permits should only be granted to applicants who have not committed any violent misdemeanors, including assault.
• 74 percent believe permits should only be granted to applicants who have completed gun safety training.
• 68 percent believe permits should only be granted to applicants who do not have prior arrests for domestic violence.



NRA's idea of gun control

• 63 percent believe permits should only be granted to applicants 21 years of age or older.

If you have been reading this blog, you know that a great majority of what I have been advocating is included here.  It is also written about in other blogs like New Trajectory and Common Gunsense.  The Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, States United to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Campaign all support similar types of regulation.  The only issue not addressed is the banning of assault weapons and high capacity gun magazines.  See the Luntz poll here.

Wacky Wayne will no doubt find countless things wrong with the poll, probably even attacking pollster Frank Luntz, most assuredly Mayor Bloomberg and the mayors Against Illegal Guns.  But maybe the time has come to challenge

Wayne LaPierre and his NRA leadership on the grounds that most all of the absurdity he has spouted in the past is just plain garbage and we are finally fed up with it. 

Read my two-part series on the fact that the NRA’s influence on political elections is virtually nil here and here.

It’s all fiction: NRA has no effectual control over elections - Part 2

In Part 1, Paul Waldman’s first and second studies on the effects of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) on political elections in relation to money contributed to candidates and the organization’s influence on the outcome of the elections, covered the NRA’s (1)“Ineffective Spending,” and its (2)“Overrated Endorsements.”  The conclusive evidence of Waldman’s study confirms that, “The NRA has virtually no impact on congressional elections.”

Today in the third and fourth studies the author covers the sources of the myth that the NRA wields unlimited power in getting congressional leaders and presidents elected and then the contemporary status of guns in America.  Waldman seeks to literally knock out the foundations that provide “…the mistaken reading of history that allows the NRA to continue to make legislators live in fear of taking on the gun lobby.  In other words expose the NRA lies.

As NRA mythology goes, it all started in the early 1900s, during Bill Clinton’s first administration where the omnibus crime bill was passed in 1993 banning the sale of assault weapons.  Clinton even commented that the fight for the assault weapons ban cost 20 members their seats in Congress.  He added that the NRA was the reason that Republicans controlled the house.  Actually this wasn’t true as the study found a minimum impact on the 1994 election from NRA support.

“Republicans won the House in 1994,” Congressional scholar Gary Jacobson  wrote, “because an unusually large number of districts voted locally as they had been voting nationally,” or, they voted for Congress as they had for president.  It was highly partisan politics where some Democrats suddenly found themselves in trouble in GOP-leaning districts.  It probably had nothing to do with gun legislation, more likely to have been affected by Clinton’s health care reform.

NRA head, wacky Wayne LaPierre even said in speaking to the group’s annual convention in 2002, “You are why Al Gore isn’t in the White House.”  Many experts say, if Ralph Nader hadn’t run, Al Gore would no doubt have won.  And when Waldman looked for evidence that Gore’s stance on gun control cost him decisive votes, he found none.  He even carried states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa on the issue.

Waldman reiterates: “the National Rifle Association didn’t win Congress for the GOP in 1994, and it didn’t deliver the White House to George W. Bush in 2000.”  He also comments on a common theme that seems to surface during the analysis, “what the NRA claims credit for usually turns out upon closer examination to be nothing more than elections in which Republicans do well.”  Two glaring examples, Pres. Obama’s and Pres. Clinton’s election wins.

The NRA was in their blustering, bumbling profile while waving the flags over 1994 and 2000 victories, but were completely silent when the Democrats won in 2006 and 2008.

NRA caught with their pants down

 In Paul Waldman’s fourth study, he addresses the current status of “guns in America,” which has been experiencing a long, steady decline over the years.  We’re down to around 32 percent of U.S. households (37,349,213) owning guns, so this raises even more red flags in my mind.  If you do the math, the actual number of guns per households is 8, based on approximately 300,000,000 firearms in the country.  Now here’s the question:

Based on recent reports that gun sales have surged due to the Aurora, Colo. movie carnage, similar to past incidents of gun massacres, are these new guns going into the same households or are they new purchasers?  Either way we are putting more guns on the street thanks to the National Rifle Assn. (NRA).  But, if they are going into the same gun nut households, it is yet another example of an out-of-control nation that loves its guns more than it does its citizens’ lives. 

And that is how we are viewed worldwide.   

 The actual decline in gun sales dates back to 1977 when 54 percent of American adult households owned weapons, but by 2010 the number had fallen 22 percentage points to 32 percent.  Young adult, African American, Hispanic and Asian households have low percentages of gun ownership.  The right to own firearms has become more popular recently in the U.S., along with a majority of Americans that believe in reasonable gun controls.

Watch a not-too-accurate video on NRA lobbying:

Assault weapons, what James Holmes used in the Aurora movie theatre shooting, is another thing.  A CBS/New York Times poll in January 2011 found 63 percent of respondents favoring a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons, almost unchanged from the 67 percent that favored such a ban in March 2000 (and even a majority of gun owners favored an assault weapons ban), as reported by Waldman.

Two-thirds of Americans believe in the rights of the 2nd Amendment, but 86 percent want waiting periods to buy a gun.  79 percent support registration while 51 percent think we should limit the number of guns a person can own.  70 percent want gun permits and 85 percent of all gun owners, 69 percent of NRA members support mandatory background checks at gun shows. 

What is it about these numbers that President Obama and the Congress don’t understand?    

Paul Waldman closes by saying, “…the NRA’s vaunted power to determine which politicians win and lose at the ballot box is a myth, one that the group and its allies work hard to sustain. If more legislators understood that fact, it would become more likely that future debates about guns reflect Americans actual habits and beliefs.”

I’m hoping, that seeing this study, gun control advocates like The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, The Brady Campaign and States United to Prevent Gun Violence, would make certain copies of all four studies from Paul Waldman get in the hands of President Obama and every Senator and House Representative.  The Aurora, Colo. massacre was a tragedy, but if we use this and other gun violence to initiate stronger gun controls, we will pay honor to the victims.

It’s all fiction: NRA has no effectual control over elections

ThinkProgress has done a very comprehensive study on the effects of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) on political elections in relation to money contributed to candidates and the organization’s influence on the outcome of the elections.  It reads like a political novel (only true) that exposes the bad guys for just what they are.  Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor at The American Prospect, and author of the study said: “The NRA has virtually no impact on congressional elections.”

In Part 1 of the study, he continues, “The NRA endorsement, so coveted by so many politicians, is almost meaningless. Nor does the money the organization spends have any demonstrable impact on the outcome of races. In short, when it comes to elections, the NRA is a paper tiger.”  The NRA didn’t deliver Congress to the GOP in 1994 or the White House to George W. Bush in 2000.  As a matter of fact, gun ownership has been steadily declining In the U.S. for decades.

In the above, the NRA took full credit for both election issues and has repeatedly denied the deteriorating interest in guns.

Yet Republicans and Democrats alike back off in horror when asked to confront the NRA on gun control.  This lack of gun lobby influence includes independent expenditure (IE) campaigns where they could spend much more than averages for House and Senate races, which are $2,500 and $5,000 respectively.  The IEs amount to less than $10,000 in the House and around $30,000 for the Senate.  IEs are for/against campaigns with no direct connection to the candidate.

As an example, “In the last four elections, the NRA spent over $100,000 on an IE in 22 separate Senate races. The group’s favored candidate won 10 times, and lost 12 times.”  But it’s probably the “wins” that the knuckleheads in Congress concentrate on.

My take is that, regardless of the complete ineffectiveness of its support, the NRA spreads around its money across the board to those in Congress just so they can engage in bullying tactics to keep Senators and Representatives in line.  This gang of gun thugs, from the NRA’s head wacko Wayne LaPierre right down to its dwindling membership, could not function, even exist, these days without their fear-mongering tactics.

Watch a not-too-accurate video on NRA lobbying:

In the second part of this series, Paul Waldman endeavors to illustrate just how overrated the coveted NRA endorsement is.  He achieves stunning success.  Most think that with this affirmation, candidates have clear sailing through what they perceive as the NRA’s grassroots organizational scheming.  Waldman proves that the NRA’s stamp of approval is “largely a myth.”  What you have to understand is that NRA endorsements are given as reward for cooperation.

90 percent of GOP House incumbents got the endorsement in 2004, 91 percent in 2006, 96 percent in 2008, and 97 percent in 2010.  In many cases they are incumbents likely to win without the NRA, some who ran in their races unopposed.  86 percent of NRA House endorsements went to incumbents in the last four elections.  In other words, here is the payoff for doing what we told you to do, take a perpetual stand against gun control legislation. 

Waldman did a regression analysis using data from all House races where there was a margin of victory of 20 points or above, that measured the “what ifs” and holding constant the factors influencing the outcome.  The latter applied to an NRA endorsement associated with more positive results for the endorsee.  Here are the results:

• Republican incumbents in contested races get no statistically significant advantage from getting the NRA’s endorsement; they do no better than those who are not endorsed.

• Democratic incumbents who are endorsed by the NRA get no statistically significant advantage from being endorsed.

• Republican candidates in open seat races get no statistically significant advantage from an NRA endorsement (the group endorsed only a few Democrats in open seat races, too few for meaningful statistical analysis).


 

NRA caught with their pants down





In fairness, there is one group that will receive a small boost: “Republican challengers who get endorsed when they run against Democratic incumbents do about 2 percentage points better than similar candidates who don’t get the endorsement.”  But only 5 percent of the NRA’s endorsements go to Republican challengers.  Waldman makes another conclusion that, “…in all but a tiny number of races, the NRA endorsement is essentially meaningless.

To back that up, the author offers; in 2004, all of the 4 NRA-endorsed challengers lost to their Democratic opponents, as did all 4 NRA-endorsed challengers in 2006. In 2008, 11 out of the 12 NRA-endorsed challengers lost.  In 2010, only 18 of 36 challengers won.  According to Waldman:

“That means that based on this analysis, in the last four federal elections, in which the NRA made a total of 1038 endorsements in House races, the group could claim credit for a grand total of 4 wins.”

Still, both Republicans and Democrats fight fiercely for the NRA’s support, convinced that they could not win without the gun lobby.  And wacko Wayne goes right along with the whole charade gloating over the fact that he has most of Congress in his back pocket.  If the Aurora, Colo. movies massacre doesn’t help to remedy some of this out-of-control lobbying, we might as well just wipe the books clean of all gun laws and allow guns everywhere, anytime, anybody.

I think not!

Part 2, including the 3^rd and 4^th studies next.

It is apathy by the American people over gun control that caused the Aurora, Colo. movie massacre

The U.S. public doesn’t seem to give a damn about the lives of those who die and are injured, some critically, in incidents like the shootings by James Holmes in an Aurora, Colo. movie theatre killing 12, wounding another 59.  There are 11 still in critical condition.  If Americans were really concerned, they would pressure Congress and the White House to strengthen gun laws.  One firearms expert commented that this wouldn’t have happened if assault weapons were banned.

I wonder just how many of the survivors of the 12 killed or family and friends of the 59 injured are against gun control?  If any were, I wonder if they still are?  Similarly, I wonder about those connected to the 569 shootings resulting in 311 deaths since March of this year that I have documented in my Monthly Shootings Report?  I cannot believe there isn’t some consternation among this group over just how easy these maniacs are able to obtain guns to kill.

Richard M. Aborn is president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City and a former president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.  In a recent opinion piece he did in the Washington Post, he said that “indifference to gun violence is a national crime.”  Further, “The debate about guns in the United States has always been between David and Goliath. Last year, the gun lobby outspent advocates of gun control by 11 to 1, or $2.9 million vs. $260,000. Interpreted, gun nuts are much more passionate about their cause.

NRA members and American public join Alice

And that’s because the head wacko of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA), Wayne LaPierre, instills the fear of God in his members that Barack Obama is conniving to take away their guns.  Of course this is bullshit since Bill Clinton didn’t do it and neither has President Obama.  So what will it take to change these “apathetics” as I call them, to support reasonable gun control? 

To start with, we are probably talking banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines, stronger background checks and closing the gun show loophole.

Aborn says supporters of gun control are most likely “…broad-based progressives who also support education reform, reproductive choice, marriage equality and other issues.”  He adds that with U.S. low voter turnout, it is hard to organize around single-issue voting blocs like this, but the NRA is the master using their fear-mongering mentioned earlier.  However, you would think after an incident like in Aurora, Colo. new believers would emerge for gun control.

But have they or will they?  There are three things critical to taking control back, according to Aborn:

1. Americans must understand that violent crime is still with us, evidenced by incidents like the massacres at Virginia Tech, Tucson, Arizona, and now Aurora, Colorado.
2. We have to talk to and understand gun owners with the idea of negotiation always open.  90 percent of gun owners support reasonable gun control and don’t want to see more carnage like the above.
3. We have to establish a national system for tracking the effects of gun control to counter NRA arguments that it does not work.  I suggested in a post yesterday that we identify NRA members involved in any shootings resulting in death or injury.

Over and over, most gun control advocates have indicated they don’t want to take away the basic rights of the 2^nd Amendment.  But it should be clear to most of you by now that the NRA’s conception of guns for anyone to take anywhere they want to has not worked.  It is time to change that.