Written by Andrew Naughtie | May 30, 2022 |
|
|
The NRA is being pilloried both for going ahead with its annual meeting in Texas on Friday and for its decades of steadfast opposition to gun safety legislation, even proposals popular with the public. But the organization has problems of its own – and they have come close to engulfing its longtime leader, Wayne LaPierre. He and several other top NRA figures have for two years been the targets of a New York lawsuit claiming they essentially raided the association's coffers for their own personal spending. The group's response to the suit was to try and dissolve itself in New York state and reconstitute in Texas, but its attempt to use bankruptcy law was thwarted in the courts, and the case is set to proceed. Today, Mr LaPierre faces a vote by the NRA board on whether or not to renew him as executive vice-president. He managed to survive a vote of confidence by members this weekend, and it is thought less than likely he'll be defenestrated today, but that he's even having to go through this process is a reminder that he and the other leaders are currently on much thinner ice than they've been in decades. | |
|
The Senate is typically the place where gun legislation goes to die. But in the wake of last week's massacre in Uvalde, Texas, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave his blessing to Senator John Cornyn to negotiate with Democrats on gun legislation, and that made some people think this time might be different. We at Inside Washington have already told readers all the reasons to be optimistic and pessimistic, as well as which GOP Senators might just get to "yes". The winds are still blowing against those who want to see comprehensive gun legislation pass, but an opportunity was there. But then, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made a move that if these latest negotiations fall through will be seen as a fatal error: He let Senators go home for a pre-planned recess. Recess is typically an enemy of any legislation – Tea Party protesters famously confronted legislators at town halls in their states and districts as Congress deliberated on Obamacare in 2009 – but with gun legislation, the passing of time often proves deadly. The flurry of mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde still feel fresh; the horror of a white supremacist killing Black patrons in the former and another murdering children in the latter rattles the conscience. But eventually time will pass, the urgency will fade, and too many people will forget. The conservative response to last week's atrocity has already gathered steam. For all the angry protests at the National Rifle Association holding its annual meeting in Houston so close to the shooting, the gun rights organization ultimately further entrenched itself. As my colleague Andrew Feinberg wrote, chief executive Wayne LaPierre used his speech to essentially recycle the same lines that he used after the Sandy Hook massacre almost a decade ago. And when former president Donald Trump took to the stage, he laid into Republicans who backed out of the event, such as Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Mr Cornyn. He also slammed efforts to pass gun legislation and, without a hint of irony, criticized President Joe Biden for politicizing the event – ignoring the fact that he himself received millions in campaign donations from the NRA. "Every time a disturbed or demented person commits such a hideous crime, there's always a grotesque effort by some in our society to use the suffering of others to advance their own extreme political agenda," he said, also carrying out the NRA's favorite pivot and shifting the discussion to talk about mental health. Mr McConnell might be the Republican with the most power in Washington, but while he might be responsible for getting as much of Mr Trump's agenda as he could through Congress, he lacks Mr Trump's sway over GOP voter opinion. Now any Republican who jumps on board this legislation risks angering conservative base voters who side with Mr Trump and the NRA, which despite the fact it has significantly weakened is still popular. Wherever overall public opinion might lie, any legislator seen as negotiating with Democrats is now in the conservative voters' sights. |
|
|
What else you need to know today |
|
|
- The Department of Justice is set to investigate the police response during the Uvalde shooting, which has become a target of anger for all sides in the row over what happened. After a series of contradictory explanations at press conferences and in statements, it has now been confirmed that there were several law enforcement officers at the scene, and that "there was time to retrieve the keys, and wait for a tactical team with the equipment to go ahead and breach the door and take on the subject". The state senator who represents Uvalde, Roland Gutierrez, acknowledged the shocking extent of the policing failure, but cautioned not to forget how much broader the issues at play really are. "At the end of the day, everybody failed here," he told CNN. "We failed these children. We even failed them in the Texas legislature."
- Joe and Jill Biden made a quiet visit to Uvalde yesterday to lay flowers at a memorial for the massacred children and teachers at Robb Elementary. After visiting the memorial, the Bidens attended Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where family members of the shooting victims were already assembled. But as they departed the church, waving at the crowd of some 100 people, chants of "do something" rang in the air. Mr Biden replied "we will" as he got into his car. On that front, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy apparently remains hopeful that something can be achieved to improve gun safety laws, telling CBS yesterday that "Republicans are not willing to support everything that I support, like banning assault weapons, but I really think that we could pass something that saves lives and breaks this logjam that we've had for 30 years".
- Elected Republicans who have decided to engage with the gun safety debate in the mainstream media are not having an easy time of it. Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a hardline conservative who has nonetheless clashed with far-right members of his party, appeared on CNN yesterday and roundly rejected a number of suggestions that have popped up in response to the Uvalde shooting, such as raising the age requirement for ownership of an AR-15 or the imposition of so-called "red flag laws", claiming that "what you're essentially trying to do with the red flag law is enforce the law before the law has been broken". Meanwhile, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson appeared on Face the Nation to claim that limiting access to AR-15s would "cause more harm than good".
- Coming off his appearance at Friday's NRA rally in Texas, which saw him dancing for the crowd after delivering a self-aggrandizing speech, Donald Trump swung through Wyoming to helm a rally against Liz Cheney, the incumbent congresswoman who's become his number one Republican critic. The evening was a strange one, with the president delivering a relatively short speech and the crowd booing Kevin McCarthy as he appeared on video. The ex-president also boasted about the size of the crowd he gathered at the White House on 6 January 2021.
|
|
|
Marjorie Taylor Greene, scourge of "Nancy Pelosi's Gazpacho Police", has added a new entry to her list of malapropisms, telling supporters in a live stream that the government is surveilling Americans' dietary habits: "They want to know if you're eating a cheeseburger," she warned her viewers, "which is very bad, because Bill Gates wants you to eat his fake meat that grows in a peach tree dish". Apparently, people will soon start receiving "a little zap inside your body" from some kind of government device when they take a bite of a quarter pounder. |
|
|
Articles available exclusively to subscribers |
|
|
The Independent has a 100% NewsGuard trust rating |
|
|
Join the conversation or follow us |
|
|
Please do not reply directly to this email. You are currently registered to receive The Independent's Inside Washington email.
Add us to your safe list of senders
. If you do not want to receive The Independent's Inside Washington email, please unsubscribe.
If you no longer wish to receive any newsletters or promotional emails from
The Independent, you can unsubscribe here.
This email was sent by Independent Digital News and Media Ltd,
2 Derry Street, London W8 5HF.
Registered in England and Wales with company number 07320345.
Read our privacy notice and cookie policy.
|
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep a civil tongue.