Republican pollster Frank Luntz says the NRA isn’t listening to the public. But if the NRA isn’t listening to the public and many Republican conservatives (and some Democrats) are listening to the NRA, then guess who also isn’t listening to the public?
Pollster Frank Luntz, who has studied attitudes about gun control, said on Wednesday that he doesn’t “think the NRA is listening” to the American public in the wake of the massacre of 20 children at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.
“The public wants guns out of the schools, not in the schools,” Luntz said on CBS’s “This Morning.” “And they are not asking for a security official or someone else. I don’t think the NRA is listening. I don’t think they understand most Americans would protect the Second Amendment rights and yet agree with the idea that not every human being should own a gun, not every gun should be available at anytime, anywhere, for anyone. At gun shows, you should not be able to buy something there without any kind of check whatsoever.
He added, “What they are looking for is a common sense approach saying those who law-abiding should continue to have the right to own a weapon, but don’t believe the right should be extended to everyone at every time for every type of weapon.”
The operative phrase here is “common sense.” So far there is little indication that NRA bigwigs are approaching this issue in terms of common sense a)what the reality of recent gun-related bloodshed means and how this is perceived by the vast majority of Americans b)what they can do defuse some of the controversy by doing along with some measures in a move to (here comes the dirtiest word in 21st century America) compromise and, c) allowing those who’ve they contributed to in campaigns do some adjustment in the law.
Rather, they are becoming the most liberal liberal’s caricature of the organization some NRA members say they are not. And they’re going to eventually drag some friendly politicians down with them.
I’m still seriously pessimistic on meaningful reform since he who pays the politician gets the vote. And dead kids, dead firemen, dead theater-goers don’t have much of an opportunity to make campaign contributions.
But I’ll be happy the day I can write a post on this issue that begins:
“Well, I was wrong..”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.