OK, I am politically green. In other words, if I go for a single
issue: it's the environment. I have been active in environmentalism
since I was a kid. I love the outdoors, but does the NRA really love
the outdoors as much as they claim?
The National Rifle
Association has long claimed to represent America’s
hunters and shooters in the fight to protect one of America’s oldest
traditions as the self-proclaimed "largest pro-hunting organization in
the world" The NRA’s bylaws even include an article setting a core goal
"to promote and
defend hunting…as a viable and necessary method of fostering the
propagation, growth and conservation…of our renewable wildlife
resources". But it turns out that its by-laws are just empty rhetoric.
A
report by the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA) showed
that the NRA gave much more money to and gave much higher ratings to
politicians who:
- In 2001, opposed the Roadless Area Conservation Act, which was
defeated even though it would have protected millions of acres of our
best hunting land.
- In 2005, tried to sell off hundreds of thousands of acres of
public land to “corporate interests at prices far below market value,”
as stated in the report. “While conservation groups across America came
out against the (sale of public land), the NRA stayed silent.”
- In 2007, opposed the so-called “Katrina Amendment” proposed to
prevent future catastrophic flooding and protect wetlands and wildlife
habitat threatened by climate change.
An annual survey conducted by the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is
the best source we have to judge the NRA's political leanings It was the primarily source used by ASHA to come to its
conclusions. On the front page of the report, in fact, AHSA states that
the NRA gave campaign contributions to 52 of the 53 members of Congress
who received a zero rating from LCV for their conservation voting
records.
Two new reports published from the
Center for American Progress (CAP) and the
Gun Truth Project and Corporate Accountability International,
show that the NRA following contributions from oil and gas companies,
the NRA lent its support to legislation that would open up more federal
public lands to fossil-fuel extraction, compromising the wilderness that
many hunters value.
In 2012, six oil and gas companies
contributed a total of
between
$1.3 million and $5.6 million to the NRA, according to CAP. (The
companies are Clayton Williams Energy, J.L. Davis Gas Consulting, Kamps
Propane, Barrett Brothers Oil and Gas, Saulsbury Energy Services, and KS
Industries.)
The NRA's heftiest energy contributor by far is Clayton Williams
Energy. CWE is the NRA's largest corporate donor outside of the firearm
industry, and one of its
six largest overall donors.
The publicly owned Texas energy company has donated no less than $2
million to the NRA in the past four years: at least $1 million in 2010,
according to an
SEC filing, and at least $1 million in 2012, according to the NRA. In 2010, CEO, president, director, and board chairman
Clayton Williams Jr. told a meeting of oil drillers that he'd given
more than $3 million to the NRA. In 2013, Williams and his wife Modesta were inducted into the NRA's
Golden Ring of Freedom, a small circle of major donors. The couple was celebrated in
a 10-page feature story in a 2011 issue of the NRA's
Ring of Freedom magazine.
The reality is that the NRA is out of line with America’s dedicated conservation
organizations. The nation’s biggest gun lobby
gave $4,085,277 to support the 193 members of Congress who received
poor conservation ratings from the LCV and only $390,897, 10 times less,
to the 245 members of Congress who have received high conservation
ratings.
Additionally, the NRA's lobbying on bills
detrimental to the environment contradicts the express commitment of of
its lobbying arm to "be involved in any issue that directly or
indirectly affects firearms ownership and use. These involve such topics
as hunting and access to hunting lands [and] wilderness and wildlife
conservation." CAP's report also cites several polls showing that
preservation of wildlife is important to most sportsmen: A 2012 poll
found that two-thirds of sportsmen want to maintain current conservation
levels and oppose "allowing private companies to develop public lands
when it would limit the public's enjoyment of—or access to—these lands."
Additionally,
a 2013 survey of hunters and anglers, nearly 75 percent of respondents
opposed selling public lands to help reduce the deficit. On the other
hand, there is a big push to sell public lands from the Libertarian
segment of the republican party.
It would seem that the
NRA is working against the interest of hunters and sportsmens despite
its by-laws to the contrary. In fact, I would say that the NRA works
against the interests of responsible gun owners--if there are still very
many left.
Actually, I haven't seen the NRA point to any actual legislation
they have supported which would give any credence to their claim of
being "pro-conservation". In fact, I have seen more destruction of the
US countryside in the past 40 odd years. It seems to me that if the
NRA were as "pro-environment" as it is "pro-gun" that there wouldn't be a
problem with development and the US would not have decaying cities in
the same way that guns have become an epidemic health crisis.
Sources:
