Meet NRA Board member Pete Brownell: Doing well by pushing NRA doctrine — and extended magazines

by David Safier

A new website, Who is on the NRA Board?, created by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, sheds light on the the people who lend their names and influence to the NRA. The website features 40 NRA Board members along with their bios: people like Ted Nugent, Grover Norquist, Ollie North, Ken Blackwell and Larry Craig. But today I want to focus on a lesser known name: Pete Brownell, president of Brownells, which bills itself as the "World's Largest Supplier of Firearms, Accessories and Gunsmithing Tools."

The NRA's party line is very good for Pete Brownell's bottom line, since he sells all manner of weapons and accessories. Among the items available from Brownells is a Glock 33-round magazine, like the one Jared Lee Loughner used during his rampage at Giffords' Congress on Your Corner event January 8. You can buy it for the easy-on-your-wallet price of $49.99.

After the January 8 shooting, the NRA defended extended magazines on its NRA-ILA (Institute for Legislative Action) website:

The most widely publicized [legislation following the shooting] is the proposal by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) to re-impose the 1994 ban on new manufacture of ammunition magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition, and to criminalize the transfer of existing magazines between law-abiding gun owners.  These magazines are standard equipment for self-defense handguns and other firearms owned by tens of millions of Americans.  Law-abiding private citizens choose them for many reasons, including the same reason police officers do: to improve their odds in defensive situations.

Brownells agrees completely. In its blurb on the Magazines for Glock, it proclaims:

Be confident your Glock pistol will perform to factory standards each and every time with genuine Glock factory magazines. Manufactured to Glock specifications in Austria by Glock. Available in all factory round counts, including high-capacity, and listed below by factory model designation and caliber.

Brownells is part of the NRA's "Ring of Freedom" because of its generous corporate donations to the organization: about half a million to a million dollars between 2005 and 2010. Pete Brownell makes no apologies about the close linkages between the gun industry and the NRA. He says it helps keep the NRA "honed on the overall mission of the organization."

Having directors who intimately understand and work in leadership positions within the firearms industry ensures the NRA's focus is honed on the overall mission of the organization. These individuals bring a keen sense of the industry and of the bigger fight to the table.

(This post is written as part of the Media Matters Gun Facts fellowship. The purpose of the fellowship is to further Media Matters' mission to comprehensively monitor, analyze, and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Some of the worst misinformation occurs around the issue of guns, gun violence, and extremism, the fellowship program is designed to fight this misinformation with facts.)