Poll Shows NRA Members Are More Moderate Than Their Leaders, Support Some Restrictions On Firearms

Poll Shows NRA Members Are More Moderate Than Their Leaders, Support Some Restrictions On Firearms

NRA Since the 2008 presidential campaign season, gun associations have been fear-mongering about President Obama to boost their membership, increase their relevancy, and fuel gun sales. The National Rifle Association (NRA) claimed that Obama has a “a deep-rooted hatred of firearm freedoms” and spent tens of millions of dollars during the campaign lobbying against Obama trying to portray him as a threat to the Second Amendment. Even during the transition, the NRA claimed that Obama was discriminating against gun owners in his hiring for government positions.

The NRA’s campaign has been based almost entirely on falsehoods. As FactCheck.org noted, the NRA largely dismissed “Obama’s stated position [on gun rights] as ‘rhetoric‘ and substitute[d] its own interpretation of his record as a secret ‘plan.’” More recently, the Gun Owners of America has been mobilizing against health care by claiming that “wellness and prevention” provisions would lead the Obama administration to issue a “no guns” decree.

Part of the NRA’s strategy of instilling fear is a “never-pass-any-new-gun-laws imperative,” which lawmakers often abide by out of concern that they will be punished at the polls by gun owners. But in his Washington Post column today, E.J. Dionne highlights a new survey of 832 gun owners (including 401 NRA members) by conservative pollster Frank Luntz. The poll finds that NRA members are “more reasonable than the organization’s leaders and supporters in Congress in understanding the urgency of keeping guns out of the wrong hands:

Full Story Think Progress » Poll Shows NRA Members Are More Moderate Than Their Leaders, Support Some Restrictions On Firearms.