Al Gore has clearly tried to mute his anti-gun pronouncements, going so far as to arrange for Tommy Lee Jones to describe the vice-president hunting. Unfortunately for him, gun owners aren’t buying it and membership in the National Rifle Association has grown by leaps and bounds since Gore wrapped up his party’s nomination.
This month the NRA passed the 4 million members mark, and NRA officials were hinting that membership was continuing to increased rapidly enough that they were well on their way to 5 million members. All of those extra members mean extra money that will in part be used to target Gore and other anti-gun politicians — the NRA will spend up to $20 million in the remaining few weeks until the presidential election.
About the only thing that can be said in favor of Gore’s record on guns is that he isn’t quite as extreme as former Sen. Bill Bradley, who challenged Gore for the Democratic presidential nomination and flat out favors a ban on most guns. Gore, though, favors mandatory registration of all guns which is the first step on the way to a ban.
In an article about the increase (Bush’s Silver Bullet?), John Fund noted,
It’s fashionable for national political reporters to demonize the NRA. But it’s also true that few journalists have ever bothered to find out why so many Americans belong to such a controversial organization. Most NRA members look at the recent successful efforts of governments from Canada to Australia to limit gun ownership and are resolved to give no quarter when it comes to public policy in this country.
Of course the NRA could probably get 15 million members and the media would still insist on trying to marginalize it as a bunch of wacko extremists. The media love to tout the importance of the Constitution, except when it comes to organizations that dare defend the Second Amendment.
Gore is probably wise to avoid going on the attack on gun control because exit polls in the past have suggested that when it comes to guns those who oppose gun control are very likely to be single issue voters who will reject a candidate based simply on that issue alone, whereas while many Americans tell pollsters they favor gun control, they are much less likely to vote for or against a candidate based solely on that issue.
From personal experience, I’m amazed at the number of people I know who don’t own guns, but who have nevertheless joined the NRA in the past 4 to 6 months. Like me, they don’t necessarily want a gun in their home at the moment, but at the same time they don’t want Al Gore and the Justice Department telling them they can’t if they feel they need a gun for protection (and let me tell you — the two kids who live next to me each have an armed robbery conviction and for awhile a woman in our neighborhood was dating a man just out of jail on a homicide charge. I and my wife have a fundamental human right to adequate self defense of ourselves and our daughter, which means a gun if we so choose).