Henry Blodget explains how the extreme rhetoric of the NRA leadership mischaracterizes the views of many NRA members and gun owners' views on common-sense gun laws. Following is a transcript of the video.
Henry Blodget: In the wake of another horrific gun massacre, Americans are finally talking about solutions. Most experts agree that the most effective change would be common sense gun regulations. The kind adopted by Australia after its own wave of shootings. The kind America already uses to regulate other popular and potentially dangerous tools like cars.
Recent polls show that a strong majority of Americans now support such rules. But the National Rifle Association refuses to consider them. Even common sense regulations, the NRA argues, would be a violation of Americans' constitutional rights. They would impinge on our liberty. They would be a step toward socialism and iron fisted government control.
Wayne LaPierre: For them, it's not a safety issue. It's a political issue. They care more about control and more of it. Their goal is to eliminate the Second Amendment and our firearms freedoms so they can eradicate all individual freedoms.
Henry Blodget: The NRA's extreme position and apocalyptic framing serve a purpose. They scare the bejeesus out of many reasonable Americans who may believe that a hostile government wants to quote, come for their guns. Unfortunately, the NRA's extreme rhetoric also inflames the divisions within our country and it hurts the same Americans it supposedly represents. Specifically, the NRA's extremism makes many reasonable Americans, including, importantly, NRA members, seem like gun nuts who don't give a damn about the mass slaughter of children, teachers, and parents.
This is far from the truth. A 2012 survey, for example, found that 84% of NRA members believed that support for the Second Amendment goes hand in hand with keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. 74% of NRA members support universal background checks for anybody who wants to buy a gun. 74% believe that concealed-carry permits should only be given to those who have completed gun safety training. These are exactly the kind of rules that would constitute common sense gun regulation, and the vast majority of NRA members support them. But you wouldn't know that listening to the NRA leadership. You would think, in fact, that this country is divided into two groups of rabid extremists who are headed for a civil war.
Wayne LaPierre: To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun.
Henry Blodget: The answer to our plague of gun massacres is not civil war. It is not more guns, it is not more extremism. Instead, it is common sense gun regulation. The same kind of common sense rules and standards that we already apply to driving and cars.