by The Washington Post ran a story today that was intended to be a hit piece on the NRA and its influence on Congress. It is part of their The Hidden Life of Guns series.
In the story they decried the amount of money the NRA spent on Congressional races of which 80% were won by NRA endorsed candidates. However, if you look at the graphic presented for House races, the striking thing is that for the majority of endorsed candidates the NRA spent nothing. As in nada, zilch, zero.
While not true for the Senate, in the House races even when the NRA endorsed candidate lost, their opponent was usually as good on gun rights as the endorsed candidate. I wonder how the Post would like to play that little tidbit.
There are a number of good blog posts on this article in the Post. Instapundit linked to the story with the snarky intro – WHEN IT’S BAD THAT CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS have influence. Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee applies a proper fisking to the story as well.
Finally, in the not connecting the dots category comes this from Don Davis of Don’s Guns and Galleries in Indianapolis who only yesterday they pilloried for being number three on the list of crime guns traced.
Don Davis, 77, has run Don’s Guns and Galleries in Indianapolis for 37 years and says he is one of the highest-volume dealers in the region. A big supporter of the Second Amendment right to bear arms, Davis resigned from the NRA many years ago. “They used to be an organization for the hunter and the fishermen,” he said recently. “Then they got into politics. They’re so political, that’s what they do with their money. Today if you say anything about a gun, they use their money to run against you.”
If it weren’t for the NRA being political, Mr. Davis and his gun shop would have been forced out of business long ago by the gun control forces.
UPDATE: Sebastian at Snow Flakes in Hell does a good job dissecting the Washington Post article. Also both he and Thirdpower over at Days of Our Trailers caught the bit about Ray Schoenke being paid by the Obama campaign to shill for them to gun owners. I missed that part.
