The NRA and Free Speech

[vvvvvvv]

What I read in one of those is that the NRA won't support the bill, it just won't actively protest the bill.

The NRA is a 2nd Amendment organization...why would we expect them to expend funds and political capital on a non-2nd issue? Especially in terms of legislation that is not likely to pass anyway.

Twisting it to suggest that the NRA is against free speech is misleading.

Umm... they were actively against it until they got their exemption. After getting their exemption, they are "officially neutral".

 

[Danny]

Also realize that if this issue is being reported by media, regardless of which side they're on, it might not be the whole story. Don't be so gullible.

 

[keeper7011]

Gullible? Tell it to the NRA. The trap was set and they rushed right in. What better way to take out an organization than to divide and conquer? The NRA allowed itself to appear to be "wishy-washy" to it's own members and to the public at large. At a time when all 2nd amendment groups should be pulling together there is now distrust and bickering. As easy as it is to manipulate public opinion these days, the NRA, no matter how noble their intentions allowed themselves to be manipulated by the opposition and their credibility tarnished. Is it fatal? Nope. The attention span of the john doe public is very short spanned. Human nature is to point the finger at someone else and not want to admit a mistake. Man up and keep fighting the good fight!

 

[Danny]

What I mean is, don't believe every thing you read.

 

[keeper7011]

What I mean is, don't believe every thing you read.

Amen to that!!!!!

 

[vvvvvvv]

What I mean is, don't believe every thing you read.

Even when it comes from the NRA itself?

 

[henschman]

It's not too hard to see how this bill would hurt gun rights... the bill is obviously targeted towards newer and smaller political organizations -- read, organizations who do not support establishment candidates, like many of the organizations who helped defeat incumbents and establishment candidates in recent elections. It is basically an establishment protection law. It is no secret that establishment politicians tend to be statists, with not much respect for the right to bear arms, while the grassroots candidates that have been sweeping the elections tend to be more principled supporters of this right.

 

[Danny]

Even when it comes from the NRA itself?

If it's from them, without relying on a translation from the media, then you can believe it.

But what is the big deal? Why do you expect the NRA to care about another organization? Why do you expect the NRA to care about this particular bill?

The NRA exists solely (that means, the only reason for them to exist) is to represent their members when it comes to the 2nd amendment. To fight the fight so you and I can keep and bear arms as prescribed by our forefathers.

To expect them to fight this fight is absurd. They don't exist for that. Would you prefer that they fight this fight, lose, and then even THEY can't lobby for our 2nd amendment rights? If so, then go ahead and weaken them.

 

[ConstitutionCowboy]

Not everyone on the Board of Directors of the NRA agrees with the exemption.

Washington Post Article

By Cleta Mitchell
Thursday, June 17, 2010; A21

The cynical decision this week by House Democrats to exempt the National Rifle Association from the latest campaign finance regulatory scheme is itself a public disclosure. It reveals the true purpose of the perversely named Disclose Act (H.R. 5175): namely, to silence congressional critics in the 2010 elections.


The NRA "carve-out" reaffirms the wisdom of the First Amendment's precise language: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech."


Congress can't help itself. Since 1798, with the Alien and Sedition Acts, incumbent politicians have yearned for legal duct tape for their opponents' mouths. The Disclose Act is a doozy of a muzzle.


For its part, the NRA -- on whose board of directors I serve -- rather than holding steadfastly to its historic principles of defending the Constitution and continuing its noble fight against government regulation of political speech instead opted for a political deal borne of self-interest in exchange for "neutrality" from the legislation's requirements. In doing so, the NRA has, sadly, affirmed the notion held by congressional Democrats (and some Republicans), liberal activists, the media establishment and, at least for now, a minority on the Supreme Court that First Amendment protections are subject to negotiation. The Second Amendment surely cannot be far behind.


Since the court's January decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations cannot be constitutionally prohibited from making independent candidate-related expenditures, Democrats have been hyperventilating at the notion that corporations might spend millions of dollars criticizing them. To foreclose that possibility, the Disclose Act would impose onerous and complicated "disclosure" restrictions on organizations that dare to engage in constitutionally protected political speech and on corporations that dare to contribute to such organizations.


Democrats would effectively neuter the court's decision by requiring the names of multiple donors to be recited in ads (thus shrinking the time spent on actual speech), requiring the CEO of a corporate donor to personally appear in campaign-related ads, expanding the coverage period to virtually the entire election year, and including myriad other rules that the NRA described last month as "byzantine" and an "arbitrary patchwork of reporting and disclosure requirements."


The NRA's wheel-squeaking bought it an exemption from those requirements. Tea Party organizations arising spontaneously since 2009? Out of luck. Online organizations with large e-mail followings but perhaps no formal dues structure? Forget it.


Receiving less attention than the NRA "carve-out" but no less cynical is the bill's sop to organized labor: Aggregate contributions of $600 or more would be disclosed. Why start at $600? Why not $200 or, say, $500? Because most union members' dues aggregate less than $600 in a calendar year and thus members' contributions to labor's campaign-related spending wouldn't need to be disclosed . . . even to the union members whose dues are spent for political purposes.


In Citizens United, the court held that the First Amendment doesn't permit Congress to treat different corporations differently; that the protections afforded political speech arise from the Constitution, not Congress. Otherwise, it would be tantamount to a congressional power to license the speech of some while denying it to others.


The NRA carve-out is a clear example of a congressional speech license.


The ostensible purpose of the legislation is benign "disclosure," upheld in Citizens United as permissible under the First Amendment. Even conservative Justice Antonin Scalia has expressed skepticism about the constitutional infirmity of disclosure requirements in another case argued this term; Scalia intoned in oral argument that "running a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage."


That's true. Indeed, the law upheld in Citizens United requires all donors to candidate-related expenditures to be publicly disclosed to the FEC in a timely manner.


But the Disclose Act isn't really intended to elicit information not currently required by law. The act serves notice on certain speakers that their involvement in the political process will exact a high price of regulation, penalty and notoriety, using disclosure and reporting as a subterfuge to chill their political speech and association.


It is only disclosure, say the authors. And box-cutters are only handy household tools . . . until they are used by terrorists to crash airplanes.


This is not just "disclosure." It is a scheme hatched by political insiders to eradicate disfavored speech. There is no room under the First Amendment for Congress to make deals on political speech, whether with the NRA or anyone else.


The writer is a partner at Foley & Lardner who works in campaign finance law and is a member of the NRA's board of directors.

This is what we should be hearing from ALL the NRA board members. She is to be commended.

As for the rest of the Board:

Our position is based on principle and experience. During consideration of the previous campaign finance legislation passed in 2002, congressional leadership repeatedly refused to exempt the NRA from its provisions, promising that our concerns would be fixed somewhere down the line. That didn't happen; instead, the NRA had to live under those restrictions for seven years and spend millions of dollars on compliance costs and on legal fees to challenge the law. We will not go down that road again when we have an opportunity to protect our ability to speak.

Based on principle and EXPERIENCE? The NRA relates how they (we) were stiffed by Congress in 2007 and Congress "promised" to fix it later and didn't(that's called an "experience") and now the NRA board is going to trust Congress again? Well, Board of Directors, you're headed right back down that same road, you idiots!

There are those who say the NRA should put the Second Amendment at risk over a First Amendment principle. That's easy to say unless you have a sworn duty to protect the Second Amendment above all else, as we do.

Well, Board of Directors, you have that sworn duty and it includes the protection of ANY and ALL of our rights, any one of which degraded opens the door to any one of the rest to decay! Stomping on this attempt to all but gut the First Amendment will not put the Second Amendment in any more jeopardy than it already is! Any deal you make with this Congress today can and most likely will be forgotten and ignored as fast as this Congress agreed to it in the first place. In fact, you can only half rely on anything Congress puts in writing and passes as law! Congresses of late speak more through a bovine sphincter than ever!

The NRA is a bipartisan, single-issue organization made up of millions of individual members dedicated to the protection of the Second Amendment. We do not represent the interests of other organizations. That's their responsibility. Our responsibility is to protect and defend the interests of our members. And that we do without apology.

Go ahead. Stand alone. When we need help, who in all of Christendom would even feign to help us after we've abandoned them? All I see is arrogance in this last paragraph I quoted .

If you on the Board of Directors are looking out for our interests, TAKE OFF THE BLINDERS AND DARK GLASSES. You're not doing a very good job.

It's obvious you didn't learn any lessons from the unfulfilled promises you received from Congress in 2007. Have you seen any changes in HR 5175 that fulfills the promise you just received from Congress? I see no amendments to that bill that reflects the promise. If the amendments are there, please show them to us.

Woody

 

[vvvvvvv]

If it's from them, without relying on a translation from the media, then you can believe it.

But what is the big deal? Why do you expect the NRA to care about another organization? Why do you expect the NRA to care about this particular bill?

The NRA exists solely (that means, the only reason for them to exist) is to represent their members when it comes to the 2nd amendment. To fight the fight so you and I can keep and bear arms as prescribed by our forefathers.

To expect them to fight this fight is absurd. They don't exist for that. Would you prefer that they fight this fight, lose, and then even THEY can't lobby for our 2nd amendment rights? If so, then go ahead and weaken them.

I'm not upset with them for being presently neutral toward this bill. I'm upset because they didn't take a neutral stance until they were effectively exempted from it.