Pre-University Paper from the year 2020 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 13 Punkte, sehr gut minus, , language: English, abstract: This student essay critically examines the historical development of the NRA, its influence on US politics and lobbying in the US, focusing on current events and political controversies. The essay begins with an introductory reflection on recent political events in the US, particularly with regard to the 2020 presidential election and the role of money in politics. It looks at how Democratic candidates, including Elizabeth Warren, are dealing with the challenge of Super PACs and their influence. The focus then shifts to the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its deep-rooted influence in American politics. The essay examines the history of settlement in the US, the Second Amendment, the evolution of guns, the economic driver of the gun industry, and finally the intertwining of politics and lobbying. A critical discussion and conclusion reflects on the current political and social challenges posed by such powerful organisations as the NRA.

How the NRA became a political juggernaut by influencing the behaviors and beliefs of everyday Americans The National Rifle Association is one of the most powerful interest groups in America, and has consistently managed to defeat or weaken proposed gun regulations—even despite widespread public support for stricter laws and the prevalence of mass shootings and gun-related deaths. Firepower provides an unprecedented look at how this controversial organization built its political power and deploys it on behalf of its pro-gun agenda. Taking readers from the 1930s to the age of Donald Trump, Matthew Lacombe traces how the NRA's immense influence on national politics arises from its ability to shape the political outlooks and actions of its followers. He draws on nearly a century of archival records and surveys to show how the organization has fashioned a distinct worldview around gun ownership and used it to mobilize its supporters. Lacombe reveals how the NRA's cultivation of a large, unified, and active base has enabled it to build a resilient alliance with the Republican Party, and examines why the NRA and its members formed an important constituency that helped fuel Trump's unlikely political rise. Firepower sheds vital new light on how the NRA has grown powerful by mobilizing average Americans, and how it uses its GOP alliance to advance its objectives and shape the national agenda.

The National Rifle Association enjoys a reputation for invincibility unequaled by any other private lobby. For more than three decades the NRA has handily defeated almost every significant legislative attempt to regulate firearms, thanks in large part to the political clout provided by their activist members, who once numbered close to 3 million. But though its reputation remains, the influence and power of the NRA has begun to fade. Membership is down to 2.6 million and - as gun violence claims nearly 30,000 American lives each year - the group has lost several important gun-control cases in the past two years. Under Fire is the first in-depth, nonpartisan look at this important organization. Using a fast-paced reportorial style, Osha Davidson investigates the current troubles of this feisty, often fanatical, but quintessentially American, institution. Davidson examines such issues as the link between drugs and guns, the NRA's. Connection with gun manufacturers, its increasingly unsteady relationship with the police, and the growing schism within the organization itself. Effectively separating the NRA from the myths that so often define it, Under Fire portrays a gun lobby that is neither the Evil Empire its foes claim nor the super-patriotic defender of cherished American values that it holds itself to be. As he explores these conflicting identities, Davidson shows that charges made by each side are not merely harmless banter in an isolated political battle. In place of reasoned debate, both camps resort to insults and bumper-sticker slogans that tighten the deadlock on an issue with important ramifications for all Americans. At a time when a resolution to the crisis of unrestricted firearms seems to be of paramount concern, Under Fire offers true insight into one of our nation's most pressing concerns.

"Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea recasts the gun debate by showing its importance to the future of democracy and the modern regulatory state. Until now, gun rights advocates had effectively co-opted the language of liberty and democracy and made it their own. This book is an important first step in demonstrating how reasonable gun control is essential to the survival of democracy and ordered liberty." ---Saul Cornell, Ohio State University When gun enthusiasts talk about constitutional liberties guaranteed by the Second Amendment, they are referring to freedom in a general sense, but they also have something more specific in mind---freedom from government oppression. They argue that the only way to keep federal authority in check is to arm individual citizens who can, if necessary, defend themselves from an aggressive government. In the past decade, this view of the proper relationship between government and individual rights and the insistence on a role for private violence in a democracy has been co-opted by the conservative movement. As a result, it has spread beyond extreme militia groups to influence state and national policy. In Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea, Joshua Horwitz and Casey Anderson set the record straight. They challenge the proposition that more guns equal more freedom and expose Insurrectionism as a true threat to freedom in the United States today. Joshua Horwitz received a law degree from George Washington University and is currently a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Casey Anderson holds a law degree from Georgetown University and is currently a lawyer in private practice in Washington, D.C.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,0, Martin Luther University, language: English, abstract: Interest- or Lobby groups are coalitions of people, who have the same basic attitude in one or more issues. Grounded on these preferences they try to make demands on other groups of the society to install, to enforce or to preserve their own interests.1 Their main objective is to get access to one or more key positions within the governmental system.2 The Lobby groups possess a decisive part within the political system of the United States of America since they exert strong influence by means of different measures on the Executive, Legislative, Judicative and the political parties to direct the policies and the legislation in the course of their preferences.3 In the American region the Interest groups are segmented into seven types. There are the so called business groups (e. g. National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)), the unions (e. g. American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)), the lobbying groups of the agricultural sector (e. g. National Farmers Union (NFU)), and professional associations (e. g. American Medical Association (AMA)). Furthermore there are the advocacy groups from single states and cities (e. g. National League of Cities (NLC)), ethnic interest groups (e. g. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)) and single-issue lobbying groups (e. g. Mothers against drunk driving (MADD)).4 The characterization of the American system of interest groups is its very strong decentralized structure, its regional rootedness and its highly specialization founding on the extremely different interests.5 Due to this there is nowadays a very pluralistic system of advocacy groups with more than 20.000 registered associations in America.6 The National Rifle Association (NRA) represents an example of an American interest group. [...]

A provocative history that reveals how guns—not abortion, race, or religion—are at the heart of America's cultural divide. Gunfight is a timely work examining America’s four-centuries-long political battle over gun control and the right to bear arms. In this definitive and provocative history, Adam Winkler reveals how guns—not abortion, race, or religion—are at the heart of America’s cultural divide. Using the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller—which invalidated a law banning handguns in the nation’s capital—as a springboard, Winkler brilliantly weaves together the dramatic stories of gun-rights advocates and gun-control lobbyists, providing often unexpected insights into the venomous debate that now cleaves our nation.

Were it not for the negative coverage that it receives from elite American news organizations, the National Rifle Association and American gun culture as a whole would not be in the position of strength they enjoy today. The more negative coverage the elite media have dished out, the more people have been attracted to NRA and gun culture. Brian Anse Patrick presents the evidence for this startling case. As an analysis of the data unmistakably shows, not only are the elite media systematically biased against NRA, they have indeed inadvertently helped to mobilize American gun culture, making it one of the most successful social movements of modern times. In the new edition of this groundbreaking study, with a new Foreword by the author, Prof. Patrick makes his case. The evidence is incontrovertible and based on scientific content analysis of ten years of actual NRA coverage in many elite news publications, compared and contrasted with similar coverage of other major American social movements. Additionally, Prof. Patrick presents an innovative model for how information is disseminated from top-to-bottom in the mainstream media which he terms "administrative democracy," and suggests how groups like the NRA flourish in part because of the increasing availability of non-centralized social media which allow dissenters from the prevailing media paradigm to construct their own narratives with which to understand society and their place within it. Written in a lucid and penetrating style, this book should be of interest to readers on either side of the gun rights debate, as well as to those wishing to study the workings of a successful citizens' advocacy network.

A blistering exposé of the National Rifle Association, revealing its people, power, corruption, and ongoing downfall, from acclaimed NPR investigative reporter Tim Mak “Tenacious, careful and incisive.”—Jonathan Swan • “Deeply and meticulously reported, colorfully and precisely written.”—Olivia Nuzzi • “Nonstop revelations are told with gripping detail and intimate insider knowledge.”—David Frum • “Fantastic.”—Chris Hayes The NRA once compelled respect—even fear—from Republicans and Democrats alike. Once a grassroots club dedicated to gun safety, the NRA ballooned into a powerful lobbyist organization that maintained an iron hold on gun legislation in America. This influential nonprofit raised millions in small fees from members across the country, which funded hidden, lavish lifestyles of designer suits, private jets and yachts, martini lunches and Champagne dinners—while the group manipulated legislators and flirted with a Russian spy. Yet in 2012, the NRA’s grip on Washington began to loosen in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. Facing nationwide outrage, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre gave a speech claiming the solution was not fewer guns, but more guns, in schools. The group’s rhetoric only escalated from there, a misstep that sparked a backlash and invited the scrutiny of the government. Unveiled here for the first time ever are surprising, revelatory details spotlighting decades of poor leadership and mismanagement by LaPierre; the NRA’s long association with marketing firm Ackerman-McQueen; NRA executives’ 2015 trip to Moscow, a by-invitation affair packed with meetings with Russian government officials, diplomats, and oligarchs seeking influence in American politics; as well as the power struggle between LaPierre and former NRA president Oliver North that fractured the organization. Misfire is the result of a four-year investigation by journalist Tim Mak, who scoured thousands of pages of never-before-publicized documents and cultivated dozens of confidential sources inside the NRA's orbit to paint a vivid picture of the gun group's rampant corruption and slow decline, marking a sea change in the battle over gun rights and control in America.

Uses National Rifle Association materials, meetings, leader speeches, and interviews with NRA members to examine how the organization perceives threats to gun rights as an attack in a broad culture war that will ultimately lead to gun confiscation and socialism.

For the first time, the definitive account of America’s most powerful, most secretive, and most controversial nonprofit, and how far it has strayed from its origins. The National Rifle Association is unique in American life. Few other civic organizations are as old or as large. None is as controversial. It is largely due to the NRA that the U.S. gun policy differs so extremely — some would say so tragically — from that of every other developed nation. But, as Frank Smyth shows, the NRA has evolved from an organization concerned above all with marksmanship — and which supported most government efforts around gun control for a hundred years — to one that resists all attempts to restrict guns in any way. At the same time, the organization has also buried its own remarkable history. Here is that story, from the NRA’s surprising roots in post-Civil War New York City to the defining event that changed its culture forever — the so called “Cincinnati Revolt” of 1977 — to the present day, where President Donald Trump is the most ardent champion in the White House the NRA has ever had. For anyone who has looked at access to guns in our society and asked “Why?”, this is an unmatched account of how we got here, and who got us here.