NRA playing with the liberals again?

By Ed Randazzo

The NRA, you know The National Rifle Association, has been caught again playing with the gun-grabbers. This is the same venerated organization that almost endorsed Harry Reid (D-NV) in his recent Senate re-election race and did contribute to his campaign. It is the same NRA that endorsed Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin over Kristi Noem in the House race in South Dakota last November.

Has the NRA begun a policy shift? Do they now believe they can compromise with the progressive gun-grabbers? Have they evolved into an organization that is primarily interested in their own existence and growth rather than the defense and advocation of our 2nd Amendment rights?

The NRA actively criticized Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) amendment to exempt gun purchases from search provisions of the Patriot Act. Instead they joined Senator Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) opposition to the Paul amendment. Further, they apparently delayed the release of information actually showing a need for the Paul amendment. The information published by the NRA on 5/27/2011, the day after the vote, proves that Paul was right in warning that Patriot Act provisions threatened law-abiding gun owners and that surveillance of law-abiding gun owners as terrorists was already occurring.

The NRA sent at least two e-mails to Congress during the Patriot Act debate calling Rand Paul’s amendment to exempt gun purchases from the provisions of the Patriot Act a “poorly drafted amendment” and stating that “the NRA could not support this.”

Senate leadership likely relied upon the NRA’s advice.

But alas, on May 27, the very day after the Paul Amendment vote, the NRA’s own Institute for Legislative Analysis (NRA-ILA) released a press release that proved Senator Paul’s warnings were, in fact, correct. The NRA-ILA stated:

“Since the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) is responsible for enforcing federal gun laws, dealers and other federal firearm licensees typically contact that agency (or state or local police) when they encounter suspicious customers.”  So, it raised eyebrows when the FBI began circulating flyers in gun shops and ranges, encouraging owners of those businesses to report suspicious customers to “your local Joint Terrorism Task Force” instead.

The flyers, which the NRA had received from gun shops and gun ranges contained demands that gun clubs and gun shops submit law-abiding gun owners information to the FBI’s Terrorism Joint Task Force if a gun buyer had an “altered appearance from visit to visit (beard shaved off, hair color changed, etc.)” or “insists upon paying with cash” or had made “racist” or “extreme religious statements.”

In short, if an American buys a gun and gets a haircut, dyes his gray hair, or shaves his beard, his gun records will be sent to the FBI’s Joint Terrorist Task Force for a terrorism investigation. Other “suspicious” activities also raise questions: If a person says homosexuality is a sin, is that an extreme religious statement that would lead to the FBI investigating him as a terrorist? If a person is against affirmative action, is that a racist sentiment that fingers him as a terrorist?

The FBI flyer was clear that the fact that if the gun buyer was an innocent, law-abiding citizen, that was no excuse for a gun shop not to send the gun records to the FBI.

Investigating law-abiding gun owners as terrorists may be just what President Obama reportedly told Jim and Sarah Brady back on March 30. “I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled Obama telling the anti-Second Amendment activist organization. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”

It should be noted that Gun Owners of America (GOA) enthusiastically supported the Paul Amendment.