by Lee Williams aka The Gun Writer has a post up today about a new anti-gun group called “Legislators for Safer Communities.” It is about gun prohibitionist legislators in 43 states coming together to form a coalition to work for gun control. What struck me about this story was not yet another astroturf gun control organization being formed. Rather that it was being supported by all the major gun prohibitionist groups.
From their press release:
Legislators for Safer Communities will serve as a hub for collaboration, partnership, shared resources, strategy, research, and peer networking. The coalition will work in partnership with Brady, Community Justice, Everytown, GIFFORDS, and March For Our Lives.
You have Brady, you have Everytown (and presumably their subgroups), and you have the Cult of Personality known as Giffords. While they take different approaches, they are all on the same page in fighting firearms rights, promoting the monopoly of violence by the state, and seeking more control over our lives.
Unfortunately, too many in the pro-rights community don’t play well together whether through philosophical differences or mere jealousy. One need not look too hard to find examples of that.
Here in North Carolina, a bill to allow permitless concealed carry which came from Grass Roots North Carolina and Gun Owners of America was killed when the NRA objected to it due to a provision that required a class on the use of deadly force. The bill was certainly not perfect and that provision was a requirement from House Speaker Tim Moore to move the bill. The thinking by its backers was that moving the bill was more important than the objectionable provision which might well be removed later.
The actual question was whether the NRA objected to the bill because of the provision or because it had not originated with them. This mindset has driven me up the wall for years. Unlike the Second Amendment Foundation and the Firearms Policy Coalition, I rarely see the NRA join with other groups as co-plaintiffs in cases. This needs to change! Resources are finite and are even more so now that the NRA has spent almost $200 million on Bill Brewer’s legal “services”.
If I am elected to the NRA Board of Directors, I plan to be a voice for working with other groups. It should not matter if the group is NRA affiliated or not. Coalitions need to be formed with groups like GRNC, Virginia Citizens Defense League, AzCDL, Commonwealth 2A, and the list goes on. The NRA should work with these groups on the state and local level just as much as they do with their affiliates so that NRA-ILA can do more within the halls of Congress with the resources they have. Sad to say but the non-NRA state affiliates are often more effective and more resolute in their push for gun rights.
Litigation needs to be coordinated where possible with SAF, FPC, NSSF, and the various foundations like the Mountain States Legal Foundation. You see it somewhat on amicus briefs but it needs to go beyond that. I remember reading about then NRA President Charles Cotton complaining about all the 2A cases brought by other plaintiffs after the NRA’s win in Bruen. The complaint should not have been that these groups were bringing cases based upon the Bruen decision but rather that the NRA had failed to follow up on its own win. Smaller organizations like SAF and FPC are always nimbler and inertia is always a problem with a larger, more bureaucratic, organization like the NRA. The smart thing would have been to give support to the nimbler organizations by either being co-plaintiffs or even funders of their efforts instead of just whining about it.
Everyone and every organization wants to get the credit for a win. That is understandable. However, is it more important to get the credit or get the win for firearm rights and freedom?
I know where I stand.
Organization theory explains most of what happens in the world. It doesn’t apply to the gun prohibitionists because they are all funded by a handful of billionaires rather than the grass roots.
Sadly, the NRA has been all too willing to get a win in the courts brag about it endlessly, then fail to follow through with follow on cases to defend or expand the victory.
Washington state had an opportunity to pass a helmet law repeal bill years ago that would have required health insurance to ride without a helmet. Died because of opposition from some rights groups. “All or nothing”, so we got nothing. Another one was targeted towards riders over 21. Again, we got nothing.
We in the freedom community seem to struggle with the idea of incrementalism. Take what you can get and use the evidence thus created to push for the next step.
Amen! For far too long, NRA’s litigation view’s underpinning has been “2A is OUR field. Anyone else entering it is a trespasser and, by definition, a loose cannon, and never, never, an ally.” Yet NRA’s mindset is inherently bureaucratic; its decisions are made very slowly and cautiously, via layers of consensus, where a decision made in months is a speedy decision. The “newer groups” (OK, never mind that SAF has been around for 40 years or so, you know what I mean) make a decision in days. This naturally leads to jealousy (rather than changing the method of decision making). And all these prevent coordination (i.e., what do we want to challenge next, as a group of allies?). I am relieved to see that SAF and FPC appear to be working well as allies.
And yes, “all or nothing” is too often the approach (in litigation and lobbying as well).
I follow NRA’s legal alerts and they certainly seem to be much more active with the hiring of Joe Greenlee to run their 2A litigation. It’s hard to argue that Joe isn’t one of, if not the top attorney in this field. Having him in house seems to have been a boost there.
Looking here: https://www.nraila.org/legal-legislation/current-litigation/
They seem to be involved in numerous cases. Some even with the other 2A groups. Notably NRA, SAF, FPC sued CA over the excise tax. I didn’t even see CRPA on that lawsuit. Certainly not GOA.
I think Joe Greenlee is a great addition. Don’t forget that he was part of the legal troika of himself, Adam Kraut, and Matthew Larosiere at FPC in the past.