WASHINGTON – The National Rifle Association said on Tuesday it wanted to contribute meaningfully to prevent another massacre like the Connecticut shooting, suggesting a sharp change in tone for the largest U.S. gun rights group.
"The National Rifle Association of America is made up of four million moms and dads, sons and daughters - and we were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown," the organization said in a statement.
It said it plans a news conference on Friday after staying silent as a matter of common decency and out of respect for families in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at a school last Friday.
"The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again," the statement said. An NRA spokesman did not immediately respond when asked to elaborate on what the contributions might entail.
The NRA is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States, partly because of its large and active membership. It uses political pressure against individual lawmakers in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures to press for loosening restrictions on gun sales and ownership across the United States while promoting hunting and gun sports.
For decades, the NRA has opposed almost all new gun control laws and regulations at national and state level.
Its leadership considers the right to own firearms an essential American freedom, spelled out in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and reinforced in a 2008 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
After the killing spree in Connecticut, the NRA has come under enormous pressure, some of it from pro-gun lawmakers allied with the association, including West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat and lifetime NRA member.
The NRA's statement was met with immediate skepticism from some advocates for gun control.
"We'll see," said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group of 750 U.S. mayors co-led by New York City's Michael Bloomberg.
Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, said that "unless this is a dramatic sea change in the way the NRA has done business, I have very little faith anything they will offer will help us take steps forward."
The percentage of Americans favoring tough gun regulations rose significantly after the massacre, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Monday.
The poll found that 50 percent of those surveyed after Friday's shootings agreed that "gun ownership should have strong regulations or restrictions." Among those surveyed before the killings the number was 42 percent.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Monday that gun rights groups did not have to be an obstacle to reducing gun violence.
"What the president hopes, as you heard him say last night, is that everyone steps back and looks at a situation that has to be addressed, and thinks broadly and thoughtfully about how we can move forward," Carney said.
The White House had no comment on the NRA's statement.
NRA LAYING LOW
There had been speculation on when the NRA was going to respond to the tragedy. The organization, which is known for its outspoken presence about its positions even after shooting deaths, has been fairly quiet until now.
Its Facebook page had disappeared. It has posted no tweets. It had made no mention of the shooting on its website. None of its leaders hit the media circuit Sunday to promote its support of the Second Amendment right to bear arms as the nation mourns the latest shooting victims and opens a new debate over gun restrictions.
After previous mass shootings — such as in Oregon and Wisconsin — the group was quick to both send its condolences and defend gun owners' constitutional rights, popular among millions of Americans.
The NRA's deep-pocketed efforts to oppose gun control laws have proven resilient. Firearms are in a third or more of U.S. households and suspicion runs deep of an overbearing government whenever it proposes expanding federal authority. The argument of gun-rights advocates that firearm ownership is a bedrock freedom as well as a necessary option for self-defense has proved persuasive enough to dampen political enthusiasm for substantial change.
Seldom has the NRA gone so long after a fatal shooting without a public presence. It resumed tweeting just one day after a gunman killed two people and then himself at an Oregon shopping mall last Tuesday, and one day after six people were fatally shot at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in August.
The Connecticut shooting occurred three days after the incident in Oregon.
"The NRA's probably doing a good thing by laying low," said Hogan Gidley, a Republican strategist and gun owner who was a top aide to Rick Santorum's presidential bid. "Often after these tragedies, so many look to lay blame on someone, and the NRA is an easy whipping boy for this."
Indeed, since the Connecticut shootings, the NRA has been taunted and criticized at length, vitriol that may have prompted the shuttering of its Facebook page just a day after the association boasted about reaching 1.7 million supporters on the social media network.
Twitter users have been relentless, protesting the organization with hashtags like #NoWayNRA.
The NRA has not responded to them. Its last tweets, sent Friday, offered a chance to win an auto flashlight.
Offline, some 300 protesters gathered outside the NRA's lobbying headquarters on Capitol Hill on Monday chanting, "Shame on the NRA" and waving signs declaring "Kill the 2nd Amendment, Not Children" and "Protect Children, Not Guns."
"I had to be here," said Gayle Fleming, 65, a real estate agent from Arlington, Va., who said she was attending her first anti-gun rally. "These were 20 babies. I will be at every rally, will sign every letter, call every congressman going forward."
Retired attorney Kathleen Buffon of Chevy Chase, Md., reflected on earlier mass shootings, saying, "All of the other ones, they've been terrible. This is the last straw. These were children."
"The NRA has had a stranglehold on Congress," she added as she marched toward the NRA's unmarked office. "It's time to call them out."
The group's reach on Capitol Hill is wide, as it wields its deep pockets to defeat lawmakers, many of them Democrats, who push for restrictions on gun ownership.
The NRA outspent its chief opponent by a 73-1 margin to lobby the outgoing Congress, according to the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, which tracks such spending. It spent more than 4,000 times its biggest opponents during the 2012 election.
In all, the group spent at least $24 million this election cycle — $16.8 million through its political action committee and nearly $7.5 million through its affiliated Institute for Legislative Action. Its chief foil, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, spent just $5,816.
On direct lobbying, the NRA also was mismatched. Through July 1, the NRA spent $4.4 million to lobby Congress to the Brady Campaign's $60,000.
http://news.msn.com/us/update-nra-breaks-silence-pledges-help-to-prevent-future-massacres?ocid=ansnews11
"The National Rifle Association of America is made up of four million moms and dads, sons and daughters - and we were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown," the organization said in a statement.
It said it plans a news conference on Friday after staying silent as a matter of common decency and out of respect for families in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at a school last Friday.
"The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again," the statement said. An NRA spokesman did not immediately respond when asked to elaborate on what the contributions might entail.
The NRA is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States, partly because of its large and active membership. It uses political pressure against individual lawmakers in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures to press for loosening restrictions on gun sales and ownership across the United States while promoting hunting and gun sports.
For decades, the NRA has opposed almost all new gun control laws and regulations at national and state level.
Its leadership considers the right to own firearms an essential American freedom, spelled out in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and reinforced in a 2008 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
After the killing spree in Connecticut, the NRA has come under enormous pressure, some of it from pro-gun lawmakers allied with the association, including West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat and lifetime NRA member.
The NRA's statement was met with immediate skepticism from some advocates for gun control.
"We'll see," said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group of 750 U.S. mayors co-led by New York City's Michael Bloomberg.
Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, said that "unless this is a dramatic sea change in the way the NRA has done business, I have very little faith anything they will offer will help us take steps forward."
The percentage of Americans favoring tough gun regulations rose significantly after the massacre, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Monday.
The poll found that 50 percent of those surveyed after Friday's shootings agreed that "gun ownership should have strong regulations or restrictions." Among those surveyed before the killings the number was 42 percent.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Monday that gun rights groups did not have to be an obstacle to reducing gun violence.
"What the president hopes, as you heard him say last night, is that everyone steps back and looks at a situation that has to be addressed, and thinks broadly and thoughtfully about how we can move forward," Carney said.
The White House had no comment on the NRA's statement.
NRA LAYING LOW
There had been speculation on when the NRA was going to respond to the tragedy. The organization, which is known for its outspoken presence about its positions even after shooting deaths, has been fairly quiet until now.
Its Facebook page had disappeared. It has posted no tweets. It had made no mention of the shooting on its website. None of its leaders hit the media circuit Sunday to promote its support of the Second Amendment right to bear arms as the nation mourns the latest shooting victims and opens a new debate over gun restrictions.
After previous mass shootings — such as in Oregon and Wisconsin — the group was quick to both send its condolences and defend gun owners' constitutional rights, popular among millions of Americans.
The NRA's deep-pocketed efforts to oppose gun control laws have proven resilient. Firearms are in a third or more of U.S. households and suspicion runs deep of an overbearing government whenever it proposes expanding federal authority. The argument of gun-rights advocates that firearm ownership is a bedrock freedom as well as a necessary option for self-defense has proved persuasive enough to dampen political enthusiasm for substantial change.
Seldom has the NRA gone so long after a fatal shooting without a public presence. It resumed tweeting just one day after a gunman killed two people and then himself at an Oregon shopping mall last Tuesday, and one day after six people were fatally shot at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in August.
The Connecticut shooting occurred three days after the incident in Oregon.
"The NRA's probably doing a good thing by laying low," said Hogan Gidley, a Republican strategist and gun owner who was a top aide to Rick Santorum's presidential bid. "Often after these tragedies, so many look to lay blame on someone, and the NRA is an easy whipping boy for this."
Indeed, since the Connecticut shootings, the NRA has been taunted and criticized at length, vitriol that may have prompted the shuttering of its Facebook page just a day after the association boasted about reaching 1.7 million supporters on the social media network.
Twitter users have been relentless, protesting the organization with hashtags like #NoWayNRA.
The NRA has not responded to them. Its last tweets, sent Friday, offered a chance to win an auto flashlight.
Offline, some 300 protesters gathered outside the NRA's lobbying headquarters on Capitol Hill on Monday chanting, "Shame on the NRA" and waving signs declaring "Kill the 2nd Amendment, Not Children" and "Protect Children, Not Guns."
"I had to be here," said Gayle Fleming, 65, a real estate agent from Arlington, Va., who said she was attending her first anti-gun rally. "These were 20 babies. I will be at every rally, will sign every letter, call every congressman going forward."
Retired attorney Kathleen Buffon of Chevy Chase, Md., reflected on earlier mass shootings, saying, "All of the other ones, they've been terrible. This is the last straw. These were children."
"The NRA has had a stranglehold on Congress," she added as she marched toward the NRA's unmarked office. "It's time to call them out."
The group's reach on Capitol Hill is wide, as it wields its deep pockets to defeat lawmakers, many of them Democrats, who push for restrictions on gun ownership.
The NRA outspent its chief opponent by a 73-1 margin to lobby the outgoing Congress, according to the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, which tracks such spending. It spent more than 4,000 times its biggest opponents during the 2012 election.
In all, the group spent at least $24 million this election cycle — $16.8 million through its political action committee and nearly $7.5 million through its affiliated Institute for Legislative Action. Its chief foil, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, spent just $5,816.
On direct lobbying, the NRA also was mismatched. Through July 1, the NRA spent $4.4 million to lobby Congress to the Brady Campaign's $60,000.
http://news.msn.com/us/update-nra-breaks-silence-pledges-help-to-prevent-future-massacres?ocid=ansnews11