Republicans Bend The Knee And Pledge Their Undying Fealty To The NRA And The Merchants Of Death

The U.S. is off to another horrific year in gun violence. According to the GUN VIOLENCE ARCHIVE:

Yet Republicans are all off to Indianapolis to the NRA convention this weekend to bend the knee and pledge their undying fealty to the NRA lobbyists and the merchants of death. The GQP is a death cult. Top 2024 Republican Hopefuls To Address NRA Convention After Shootings:

Last year it was Uvalde. Now it’s Nashville and Louisville. For the second year in a row, the National Rifle Association is holding its annual convention within days of mass shootings that shook the nation.

The three-day gathering, beginning Friday, will include thousands of the organization’s most active members at Indianapolis’ convention center and is attracting a bevy of top Republican presidential candidates — enough that it could help shape the early part of next year’s GOP primary race.

It illustrates the stark reality that such shootings have become enough of the fabric of American life that the NRA can no longer schedule around them. Nor do they really want to: The convention falls on the second anniversary of the mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis that killed nine people.

The NRA calls the convention “one of the most politically significant and popular events in the country, featuring our nation’s top Second Amendment leaders.” Republican Indiana state Rep. Ben Smaltz said that he appreciated the organization bringing its convention to Indianapolis for the third time in the past decade, and that he thought strong support for gun rights would be a key for any Republican seeking to win the party’s presidential nomination.

“To MAGA Republicans, the Second Amendment is very important,” said Smaltz, who was the lead sponsor last year of repealing Indiana’s requirement for a permit to carry a handgun in public. “To me, personally, it is, to the history of our country, it is important to talk about.”

[Failed coup d’état leader in exile and Defendant] Donald Trump will be speaking at the gathering, his first public appearance since being arrested and arraigned in New York last week on felony charges stemming from hush money payments made to a porn actor during his 2016 campaign.

His Secret Service protection means attendees can’t have guns at the convention.

Note: It has always been the rule that attendees can’t have guns at the convention. It is not because of Defendant Trump.

Trump’s former vice president [and enabler], Mike Pence, is also speaking as he considers his own 2024 White House bid. It will be the first time the pair has addressed the same campaign event on the same day since their estrangement following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Two GOP Trump critics — former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who announced his 2024 campaign after news of the former president’s indictment broke, and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who may launch his own White House bid — will also speak.

Offering video messages are former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who began her 2024 campaign in February; South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who announced a presidential exploratory committee this week, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is seen as a top rival to Trump even though he’s yet to jump into the race.

The convention follows shootings at a Louisville bank that killed five people this week and at a Christian school in Nashville on March 27 that killed three 9-year-old students and three staff members.
Pain over both shooting rampages has crossed party lines. Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear talked about having a friend killed in the Louisville shooting, while Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said he had friends killed during the Nashville school attack.

The NRA convention’s tone is nonetheless likely to be as defiant as last year, when the group held its convention in Houston just three days after the massacre of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school across Texas in the town of Uvalde.

Further overlapping with recent tragedy, Pence and some of the other speakers plan to follow up their NRA speeches by traveling to Nashville to meet with top GOP donors gathered there.

“Every significant national Republican, every Republican that’s thrown their hat in the ring to run for president, is showing up this weekend to pledge their undying loyalty to the NRA and the gun lobby,” said Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who championed bipartisan legislation that passed last year and imposed some new federal gun restrictions after the Uvalde shootings. “Our kids are being hunted and the NRA’s business model is to give aid to the hunters.”

Democratic National Committee Chair Jamie Harrison added, “Republicans are committed to their annual pilgrimage to the NRA convention. It’s shameless.”

Full Statement:

Today, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison and Senator Chris Murphy held a press call holding 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls accountable as they head to the NRA convention.

During the call, Chair Harrison and Senator Murphy highlighted how the GOP appearances tomorrow serve as a reminder to Americans, once again, that MAGA Republicans always put the gun lobby ahead of the safety of our communities, schools, and children.

Read highlights from the press call below:

• • • “Donald Trump has said that there was no bigger fan of the NRA than him and cravenly he caved to the NRA in the wake of the horrific Parkland shooting where 17 children and teachers were gunned down. Trump’s speech at the NRA this year is a vivid reminder to all of us of his appearance just last year, when he shamelessly spoke at the NRA convention just days after the tragic school shooting in Uvalde. And in the aftermath of the shootings in Nashville and Louisville, his appearance this year is equally indefensible,” said DNC Chair Jaime Harrison. “And folks, you can be sure that Republicans’ extreme records on guns will be on full display tomorrow as they attempt to out-MAGA each other to capture the 2024 GOP nomination. Just last week, behind closed doors and surrounded by the NRA, Ron DeSantis signed the dangerous legislation that could make it easier for criminals to carry guns, despite Florida law enforcement saying that this is a big concern.”
    • “The Republican Party continues to put the gun industry and the gunmakers before the safety of our kids and our families. It’s extraordinary, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s infuriating,” said Senator Chris Murphy. “Every significant national Republican – every Republican that’s throwing their hat in the ring to run for president – is showing up this weekend to pledge their undying loyalty to the NRA and the gun lobby literally days after patrons at banks and little kids at elementary schools were gunned down in cold blood because of a set of laws midwifed by the NRA that leaves our kids and families exposed to epidemic rates of gun violence.”

Indeed, support for gun rights among Republican voters remains higher than for voters overall. Some 56% of voters in last fall’s midterm elections said they want to see stricter nationwide gun laws, compared with just 28% of Republicans, according to AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of the electorate.

About half of Republicans said gun laws should be left as they are. [This means that half do not.]

Also on display Friday will be the resurgence of the NRA and the key role it is poised to play in next year’s presidential race — in a stark departure from 2020. Back then, the organization was trying to regroup and saw its membership and political spending decline following serious legal and financial turmoil — including a failed bankruptcy effort, a class-action lawsuit and a fraud investigation.

Trump, meanwhile, has a contradictory history on guns. The NRA was a key backer of his 2016 campaign, spending some $30 million to support a candidate who sometimes mentioned carrying his own gun and vowed to eliminate gun-free zones in schools and on military bases. Trump also pledged to establish a national right to carry.

But, as the country reeled from a series of mass shootings, Trump’s administration banned bump stocks, which were used in a 2017 attack on a Las Vegas country music concert that killed 60 people. After the Parkland school shooting in Florida the following year, Trump urged congressional Republicans to expand background checks and proposed seizing guns from mentally ill people.

He also suggested raising the minimum age to buy assault rifles from 18 to 21, and suggested he was open to a conversation about reviving assault weapons bans [He lied]. After later meeting with the NRA, however, Trump abandoned his push, instead focusing on arming teachers and making schools more secure.

Gun rights advocates continue to celebrate a Supreme Court decision last June that said Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. That opened the door to a wave of challenges to firearm restrictions across the country by changing the test that lower courts had long used for evaluating challenges to firearm restrictions.

Amid upheaval in the wake of the ruling, courts have declared unconstitutional laws including federal measures designed to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and defendants under felony indictment, as well as a ban on possessing guns with the serial number removed. Courts are also considering challenges to state bans on AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles.

Attempting to counter gun rights advocates has been an ascendant gun safety movement that has poured tens of millions of dollars into political campaigns. That includes Moms Demand Action which was among a coalition of groups that derided Friday’s speeches as “a cattle call of far-right” presidential candidates.

These are ads put out by 2 MAJOR Republican donors:

1. Daniel Defense, who manufactured the AR-15 used in the Uvalde school shooting

2. The NRA, whose conference Desantis + Trump will speak at today

Remind me how it's teachers, books & LGBTQ+ folks “indoctrinating” children. pic.twitter.com/k9j0U9FVbv

— Congresswoman Summer Lee (@RepSummerLee) April 14, 2023

The Giffords Organization in a press release reports ICYMI: New Poll Shows Skyrocketing Support for Stronger Gun Laws:

Washington DC  — Today, Navigator released a new poll showing huge public support for commonsense laws to reduce gun violence. The poll of 1,000 registered voters showed nearly one-in-three think that addressing gun violence should be the single top priority for Congress, more than any issue besides inflation and the economy. This comes as the NRA convention begins, where several Republican presidential candidates will be speaking, in direct contrast to what these poll results show.

Peter Ambler, Executive Director and Co-Founder:

“Today’s polling mirrors what elected officials are hearing from constituents back home. Voters are fed up with elected officials who willingly put their constituents’ lives at risk to remain on good terms with the gun lobby. The NRA should read this poll and use today’s convention to do some serious soul searching.

“It’s time for our leaders in Congress and statehouses across the country to have the courage to act to address gun violence. Lives are on the line and this cannot wait.”

• • • Gun violence ranks among the top three issues that Americans feel Congress should focus on.
    • Seventy-four percent of Americans think gun violence is a “major issue” or “crisis,” up from 66% in mid-February.
    • Two in three Americans don’t think enough has been done to address gun violence.
    • The overwhelming majority (87%) support background checks, including the majority of Republicans, Independents, and gun owners.