Trayvon Martin

ALEC, NRA Pushed 'Stand Your Ground' Legislation At Center Of Trayvon Martin Killing

Ryan J. Reilly | March 22, 2012, 6:00AM

Trayvon Martin (left) and George Zimmerman

Trayvon Martin was just 10 years old when politicians in Florida passed legislation that, seven years later, is being blamed for letting his killer walk free.

Martin's Feb. 26 death in a gated suburban neighborhood at the hands of a 28-year-old man is calling attention to Florida's 2005 "Stand Your Ground" law, which allows the use of deadly force if a person feels threatened. Gunman George Zimmerman was pursuing Martin because he thought the 17-year-old African-American teenager was suspicious and told police he was acting in self defense, though Martin had only a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea on him when he was shot and killed a short distance from the home of his father's girlfriend.

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Michael Bloomberg

NRA's Fundraising Growing Quickly As They Gear Up To Defeat Obama

Ryan J. Reilly | December 30, 2011, 2:00PM

As the National Rifle Association sets its sights on keeping President Barack Obama from a second term in the White House, a new report finds that the group's fundraising grew twice as fast as its income from membership dues from 2004 to 2010. Bloomberg News reported that the group received $71.1 million in donations last year, up 54 percent from the $46.3 million figure they raised in 2004.

If previous numbers are any indication, election years are pretty crucial for the NRA. Their revenue minus expenses went from $29,923,548 in 2008 -- when the man they called "Gun Ban Obama" was running for president -- to $1,183,523 in 2009, when he actually took office (their total revenue decreased by just over $10 million).

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Fast And Furious

Obama DOJ Makes It Easier For Legal 'Aliens' To Get Guns

Ryan J. Reilly | December 22, 2011, 3:09PM

President Barack Obama

In the midst of the Fast and Furious scandal, the Obama administration just made it easier for immigrants in the United States legally to purchase weapons from licensed firearms dealers.

Under the Gun Control Act (GCA), individuals are generally prohibited from transferring firearms to "any unlicensed person who they know or have reasonable cause to believe does not reside in the State in which the transferor resides."

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Fast And Furious

NRA: Obama Let Guns Walk To Mexico To Crackdown On Gun Rights

Ryan J. Reilly | November 7, 2011, 1:56PM

Just how dedicated does the National Rifle Association think the Obama administration is to destroying the Second Amendment? The director of the organization thinks that DOJ gave weapons to Mexican drug cartels during Operation Fast and Furious in an effort to churn up support for changing gun laws.

National Rifle Association Director Wayne LaPierre -- who has also suggested that the fact that Obama has not cracked down on guns is just part of a long term scheme to actually crack down on guns -- has been recently floating the conspiracy theory that Fast and Furious was a way to impose stricter guns laws.

"It's the only thing that makes any sense," LaPierre told Newsmax. "Over a period of two or three years they were running thousands and thousands of guns to the most evil people on earth. At the same time they were yelling '90 per cent... of the guns the Mexican drug cartels are using come from the United States.'"

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DOMA

NRA Drops Law Firm For Backing Out Of DOMA Defense

Ryan J. Reilly | May 2, 2011, 1:45PM

The National Rifle Association is dropping the law firm King & Spalding as an outside counsel due to its decision to withdraw from representing House Republicans in support of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

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High-Capacity Magazines

Fiancée, Father of Giffords Staffer Support Ban On High Capacity Clips

Melissa Jeltsen | April 12, 2011, 11:52AM

Efforts to ban high-capacity gun magazines, like the one allegedly used by accused Tuscon shooter Jared Loughner, are gaining some momentum. On Tuesday morning, Kelly O'Brien - the fiancée of congressional staffer Gabe Zimmerman, who was killed in the Tuscon rampage - joined legislators for a press conference to endorse House and Senate bills banning high-capacity magazines, or assault clips.

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NRA

NRA CEO Says Gun Control Debate Shouldn't Be About Guns (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | March 14, 2011, 5:10PM

President Barack Obama's editorial calling for a fresh dialogue on the issue of guns in the wake of the shootings in Arizona went out of its way to avoid offending gun owners. He said "almost all gun owners in America are highly responsible," called them "our friends and neighbors," and said they "buy their guns legally and use them safely, whether for hunting or target shooting, collection or protection."

He pointed out that gun rights have been expanded during his administration, and didn't call for any new restrictions on guns -- instead advocating for "enforcing laws that are already on the books."

But the National Rifle Association appears determined to be offended by Obama's call for a new tone in the discussion over gun policy. Appearing on Fox News on Monday, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre told Megyn Kelly that Obama has an "administration embedded with people who spent their lifetime trying to destroy" the freedom of the Second Amendment.

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Guns

Iowa GOPer Dubs NRA-Backed Legislation 'Give-A-Handgun-To-A-Schizophrenic Bill'

Ryan J. Reilly | March 11, 2011, 3:30PM

Republican Iowa State Rep. Jeff Kaufmann, speaker pro tem of the Iowa State House, was caught joking on a hot mic that a proposal which would allow state residents to carry weapons in public without permission from a sheriff and without any training or a background check might better be called the "give-a-handgun-to-a-schizophrenic-bill."

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NRA

James O'Keefe Releases Second Secret NPR Recording

Benjy Sarlin | March 10, 2011, 6:57PM

James O'Keefe

Update: NPR has released emails corroborating its claims in this story.

James O'Keefe has posted to his Project Veritas website a second recording of conversations between his group of pranksters posing as Muslim potential NPR donors and NPR executive Betsy Lilely, NPR's director of institutional giving.

In a recorded phone call uploaded as a YouTube video, Liley, already on administrative leave over her comments in the first O'Keefe video, discusses with a member of O'Keefe's gang how he might proceed in making a donation of $5 million. The video -- dubbed with audio of the phone call -- repeats for emphasis the portions of the call in which Liley seems to suggest that NPR can keep the group's donations anonymous from the government.

"It sounded like you're saying that NPR would be able to shield us from a government audit, is that correct?" the actor, posing as "Ibrahim Kasaam" of the fictitious Muslim Education Action Center, says at one point.

"I think that is the case, especially if you were anonymous and I can inquire about that."

The two discuss the process behind anonymous donations in detail over the course of the phone call, with Liley assuring that such donations are only known by a handful of top NPR executives.

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Gun Control

Gun Rights Battle Heads To Bars, Churches, Doctors' Offices And Day Care

Ryan J. Reilly and Melissa Jeltsen | January 28, 2011, 9:40AM

After ignoring the issue of gun control for his entire presidency to date, aides to President Barack Obama said Wednesday he'd take up the issue within the next few weeks. Even former Vice President Dick Cheney has said he'd be okay with banning high-capacity clips in the wake of the mass shooting that nearly killed Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and left six others dead.

But there's a whole other lot of Second Amendment supporters who, instead of discussing middle-of-the-road measures to curb gun violence, are advocating to rescind or roll back even current restrictions.

In state legislatures around the country, conservatives lawmakers are introducing some of the most enthusiastic right-to-bear-arms bills to date. Here's TPM's round up.

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Gun Control

Obama Doesn't Mention Gun Control In State Of The Union

Ryan J. Reilly | January 26, 2011, 9:55AM

To the dismay of groups hoping the White House would take the lead on proposed legislation to ban high-capacity extended magazines in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), President Barack Obama did not mention gun control in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

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Dick Cheney

Cheney Okay With Limiting High-Capacity Magazines In Wake Of Giffords Shooting (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | January 19, 2011, 1:45PM

Former Vice President Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney is no gun control advocate. In fact, as Rachel Maddow pointed out in a recent segment, he was one of only a couple members of the House of Representatives who voted against a ban on plastic guns back in the 1980s and is a regular at meetings of the National Rifle Association.

But in the wake of the mass shooting in Arizona that gravely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and killed six others, even Cheney indicated he's support restrictions on high-capacity magazines such as the clip allegedly used by Jared Lee Loughner.

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NRA

NRA: Anti-High-Capacity Clip Bill Just A Scheme To Impose 'Gun Ban'

Ryan J. Reilly | January 15, 2011, 9:53AM

Sarah Palin speaks before the National Rifle Association

Six days after a gunman attempted to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and killed six others in a mass shooting, the National Rifle Association (NRA) broke its silence, pledging to fight off any and all attempts to impose harsher regulations on guns and high-capacity magazines.

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Gabby Giffords

No Signs Obama Will Shift On Gun Control After Giffords Shooting

Ryan J. Reilly and Melissa Jeltsen | January 11, 2011, 8:37AM

Virtually since the Obama administration took office, the White House has avoided touching the third-rail issue of gun control with a 10-foot pole. So will the mass shooting in Arizona that gravely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and killed six others (including a federal judge) change their approach?

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ATF

ATF To Require Dealers To Report Bulk Semiautomatic Rifle Sales

Ryan J. Reilly | December 20, 2010, 12:00PM

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on Friday requested emergency permission to require that gun dealers report to them bulk sales of the high-powered semiautomatic rifles favored by drug cartels -- all part of the Administration's effort to combat the flow of guns to Mexico.

It is a plan that had languished for months at the Justice Department because of concerns over what the National Rifle Association (NRA) might think. The Washington Post reports now that it was held up by the White House in the spring -- around the same time that President Barack Obama promised Mexican President Felipe Calderon he'd work to prevent gunrunning south of the border.

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ATF

Gov't Too Scared Of NRA To Stop Border Gun Trafficking

Ryan J. Reilly | December 15, 2010, 1:53PM

Just how much power does the National Rifle Association wield in Washington? Enough that a plan quietly proposed by federal agents to combat illegal gun trafficking along the Mexico border has languished at the Justice Department for months -- all because officials are worried about what the NRA might think.

The Washington Post published an account of the internal debate today, outlining the enormity of the influence the gun lobby -- led by the NRA -- holds over federal gun policy and its enforcement.

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ATF

NRA Opposes Obama's ATF Nominee Because They Googled Him (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | November 23, 2010, 8:34AM

The NRA has come out against Barack Obama's nominee to head ATF

President Barack Obama's nominee to take over the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) faces a pretty big hurdle to securing his confirmation by the Senate: opposition from the National Riffle Association.

It didn't take long for the NRA to come out against Andrew Traver once his nomination was announced by the White House last Monday night. Less than two business days later, the NRA was out with a release not only opposing Traver's nomination, but calling for Obama to withdraw the nomination altogether. ATF, the agency charged with enforcing the nation's gun laws, has been without a permanent director since 2006.

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Guns

'Gun Ban Obama?' Not So Much, Say Gun Control Advocates

Ryan J. Reilly | October 12, 2010, 9:18AM

President Barack Obama and ATF agents

To hear some gun rights activists tell it, President Barack Obama wants to take away your guns and, any minute now, jack-booted federal agents could knock on your front door to collect them.

Such predictions started during the 2008 campaign. "Obama would be the most anti-gun President in American history," screamed a banner at the National Rifle Association's GunBanObama.com. It got so bad that Obama even had to reassure voters he wouldn't take away their guns. Even after the election, gun sales boomed.

You'd expect a President so opposed by many gun rights groups to get high praise from gun control advocates since he took office. But advocates like those from the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence are far from satisfied with the progress on gun control being made in this administration.

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