NRA Discourages Board Members From Testifying Against Kagan

[Hotdoger]

On the eve of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan -- and for the second time in two weeks -- the National Rifle Association (NRA) is under fire from conservatives.

According to RedState's Erick Erickson, a prominent conservative blogger, "internal Senate emails confirmed by NRA Board Members show that the National Rifle Association's management team has explicitly and directly told the NRA's board they are prohibited from testifying about second amendment issues" during the Kagan hearings.

NRA Discourages Board Members From Testifying Against Kagan

 

[mrjarrell]

As we will be told soon, this is false and the NRA would never do such a thing. It is a blatant falsehood and is being promulgated by NRA haters.

 

[Expat]

This is considered a poison pill. By their seeming approval of Kagan, it will throw the Dems off and they will vote against here instead.

 

[88GT]

Why is this a problem?

 

[Expat]

Why is this a problem?

One would have expected, given her negative attitude toward the Second Amendment displayed in some of her previous writings, that the leading gun advocacy group in this country might want to step forward and comment upon it during her nomination hearings. Combine this failure to advocate on the part of gun-owners with the other recent debacle (the Disclose Act), it does not give some gun-owners the feeling that the NRA is really acting on their behalf.

 

[Prometheus]

One would have expected, given her negative attitude toward the Second Amendment displayed in some of her previous writings, that the leading gun advocacy group in this country might want to step forward and comment upon it during here nomination hearings. Combine this failure to advocate on the part of gun-owners with the other recent debacle (the Disclose Act), it does not give some gun-owners the feeling that the NRA is really acting on their behalf.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[tuoder]

Strategically, it's a bad idea to oppose something that is likely to pass. It's better to focus on fights that can be won. Kagan is going to sail through, as she's been hidden in the news by the BP oil disaster.

 

[mrjarrell]

She has a negative attitude towards most rights. Of course she's just par for the course as her type goes.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBqdKKKRrrg&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Kagan: its Fine if The Law Bans Books Because Government Won't Really Enforce It[/ame]

 

[printcraft]

OK, she compared the NRA to the KKK!!

Kagan Compared the NRA to the KKK|The American Pundit


Why does she get a free pass from the NRA when she is clearly an anti?

What am I missing?

 

[mrjarrell]

The NRA doesn't want to spend their "political capital", as we are so often reminded. They wish to use all of the "good will" they have on the Hill for meaningful things.

 

[antsi]

The NRA doesn't want to spend their "political capital", as we are so often reminded. They wish to use all of the "good will" they have on the Hill for meaningful things.

OK, just curious, serious question: what is the outcome you are looking for, from NRA board members beating their chests and wailing about Kagan?

She's a Commie moron, sure. She was appointed by a Commie moron to replace another Commie moron. If by some miracle (and it would take a miracle) she wasn't confirmed, the Commie Moron in Chief would nominate another Commie moron, and keep doing that until he got one confirmed.

Before the Kagan nomination, the SCOTUS was four Commie morons, four occasionally reasonable people, and one guy who's random and unpredictable, who has frequent Commie moron episodes. After she's confirmed, that balance will be the same.

The only meaningful fight here is to get the Commie morons out of Congress and the White House. So how exactly does wailing and hollering about Kagan as she's being confirmed help win those fights?

 

[mrjarrell]

David Codrea takes a look at the NRA forbidding the board members from speaking out against Kagan. Guess that whole freedom of speech thing need not apply. If they won't oppose an anti-2A nominee, then what use are they?

via Gun Rights Examiner

"On Monday, June 28, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will begin confirmation hearings on the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court," the NRA-ILA (Institute for Legislative Action) Grassroots Alert begins.

[H]er record...shows a hostility towards our Right to Keep and Bear Arms, such as her role in developing the Clinton Administration's 1998 ban on importation of many models of semi-automatic rifles; her note mentioning the NRA and the Ku Klux Klan as "bad guy" organizations; and her comment to Justice Marshall that she was "not sympathetic" to a challenge to Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban.
​

That being the case, a report by Erick Erickson at RedState.com becomes all the more troubling:

NRA Issues Gag Order to Its Board Members on Elena Kagan...nternal Senate emails confirmed by NRA Board Members show that the National Rifle Association’s management team has explicitly and directly told the NRA’s board they are prohibited from testifying about second amendment issues during the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings...The gag order on board members is not limited to providing testimony, but it prohibits board members from coming out against Kagan in their individual capacity.
​

Matt Lewis at Politics Daily adds background details:

It turns out that during the confirmation hearings for then-Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, the testimony of former NRA President Sandy Froman angered current NRA leadership, because she didn't obtain permission to appear at the hearing...As one prominent board member (who asked not to be named) told me, Chris Cox, the executive director of the association's lobbying arm, NRA-ILA, "was livid because he didn't 'authorize' them to speak directly to Congress."
​

NRA defenders are quick to point out that ILA staff does not have direct authority over Board members, who, according to Association Bylaws elect the Executive Vice President, who in turn appoints the Executive Director for ILA. But there are other ways to apply pressure, via the Nominating Committee, and, in an example of push coming to shove, they featured an ad in their official journal to keep out a faction of reformers led by the late Neal Knox with a dissent-chilling result:

All 13 on the NRA establishment's Do Not Vote For list were defeated.*
​

More at the source. It's a good read.

 

[henktermaat]

Why have a NRA at all if they don't cry foul on Kagan, a blatant anti-2A?

Helloooo GOA. I hope we see NRA members jumping ship in large numbers.

 

[88GT]

Why have a NRA at all if they don't cry foul on Kagan, a blatant anti-2A?

Helloooo GOA. I hope we see NRA members jumping ship in large numbers.

I'll have to remember this when the anti-lobbying comments pop up in other threads.

 

[kingnereli]

Strategically, it's a bad idea to oppose something that is likely to pass. It's better to focus on fights that can be won. Kagan is going to sail through, as she's been hidden in the news by the BP oil disaster.

This.

Kagan will get through. There is nothing the NRA can do about it. We have to choose our battles. It wouldn't be wise for the NRA to sound the war drums for a battle that can't be won.

You NRA haters are shooting yourselves in the foot. The other 2A organizations can hoop and holler all they want but in the end the are to small to do much. They accomplish a whole lot of nothing for protecting 2A rights. You all own a large part of the rights we've been able to retain to the NRA. Like it or not they are the best asset the gun community has. If you're against the NRA you are hurting our cause.

 

[mrjarrell]

OK, just curious, serious question: what is the outcome you are looking for, from NRA board members beating their chests and wailing about Kagan?

She's a Commie moron, sure. She was appointed by a Commie moron to replace another Commie moron. If by some miracle (and it would take a miracle) she wasn't confirmed, the Commie Moron in Chief would nominate another Commie moron, and keep doing that until he got one confirmed.

Before the Kagan nomination, the SCOTUS was four Commie morons, four occasionally reasonable people, and one guy who's random and unpredictable, who has frequent Commie moron episodes. After she's confirmed, that balance will be the same.

The only meaningful fight here is to get the Commie morons out of Congress and the White House. So how exactly does wailing and hollering about Kagan as she's being confirmed help win those fights?

I, for one, don't wish to see them beating their chests and wailing. I want to see them appearing before the committee and speaking out against her to the people who are going to confirm her. I want to see the NRA and other groups ON THE RECORD as standing against anti-2A (and other amendments, as well) candidates and calling them out. If they lack the courage and the will to do this then they are useless. They can just keep hawking their wine and compromising our rights away.

 

[Expat]

That's the thing. Intellectual honesty would dictate that they at least appear and point out all the information they have on her rabidly anti gun views. If they want, they can even state to the committee that she is likely as good as we can expect from the community organizer from Chicago.

 

[chraland51]

I think that my NRA membership extends out to 2015. With all of the bad things that I have been reading about them, if they turn out to be true, I might request a refund, cancel my American Rifleman subscription and cut up my membership card if all or even most of it is true. Kagan will be a terrible supreme court justice as she is just a liberal puppet with an agenda. My opinion of her went right in the toilet when I read that she supported partial birth abortions. I guess since she does not like men and has never had or never will have a child, she has not experienced the joys and pains of parenthood. Why should she care if a child is 95% delivered and then killed by having its skull punctured and its brains suck out through a tube? This country is just one vote away from tyranny!!!

 

[Expat]

I will certainly keep my membership as long as Obama is in office. The NRA does deter a lot of anti-gun legislation just because of their numbers. So as long as the numbers stay up, members of Congress will think long and hard before voting against guns.

 

[SavageEagle]

As we will be told soon, this is false and the NRA would never do such a thing. It is a blatant falsehood and is being promulgated by NRA haters.

Wait for it....

This.

Kagan will get through. There is nothing the NRA can do about it. We have to choose our battles. It wouldn't be wise for the NRA to sound the war drums for a battle that can't be won.

You NRA haters are shooting yourselves in the foot. The other 2A organizations can hoop and holler all they want but in the end the are to small to do much. They accomplish a whole lot of nothing for protecting 2A rights. You all own a large part of the rights we've been able to retain to the NRA. Like it or not they are the best asset the gun community has. If you're against the NRA you are hurting our cause.

BOOM! There it is! So, the NRA endorses (pretty much) Kagan and discourage fighting against her and you're ok with that? Man, I gotta question what side you're on. You're whole post doesn't make sense to me at all. You're supposedly pro-2A, but you have no problem with the NRA encouraging letting Kagan slide? Wow.

BTW, please tell me how much money it takes to make a statement encouraging people to fight against Kagan instead of letting her slide? Especially when the media hangs on your every word.

Why have a NRA at all if they don't cry foul on Kagan, a blatant anti-2A?

Helloooo GOA. I hope we see NRA members jumping ship in large numbers.

EXACTLY. The NRA has gone off the deep end. They've lost what little balls they had left.