Nra Case

The NRA got started by Union veterans Colonel William C. Church and General George Wingate. These two men started the National Rifle Association in 1871 with a goal, as Church claimed, to "promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis." What instigated this need was the lack of marksmanship these two esteemed men seen in their own troops. And so, the NRA was granted charter to set up base in New York. However this great news was short lived when political opposition forced the NRA to move from Creed Farm, New York to Sea Girt, New Jersey. This set back did not discourage the NRA. The way this interest group started to grow and gain power was when the NRA Secretary Albert S. Jones started targeting the youth in 1903. With his motivation, NRA created rifle clubs at all big league colleges, universities, and military academies. In fact this became the touchstone of the NRA- attracting the youth to participate in shooting sports events with programs like the 4-H, the Boy Scouts of America, the American Legion, U.S. Jaycees, and more. Moreover, with the organization's own magazine, the American Rifleman, members could all be informed of important military/gun advancement at their leisure.

The NRA-PVF, known as the NRA political Victory Fund, is the NRA's political action committee. The NRA-PVF chooses its running candidates by their party affiliations, voting records, public statements, and most importantly the NRA-PVF questionnaire. To realize the magnitude the NRA has on campaigns one just needs to look at the 2008 election. The NRA-PVF endorsed 271 of those campaigns running for the US House of Representatives and Senate, and of those campaigns, 230 of those seats were won. Looking at the percentage, the NRA endorsed candidates have an 85% success rate at getting that political seat. The NRA's main criteria for supporting a candidate is making sure that the nation's elected official will see that "gun control" schemes are violations of the Second Amendment right of the Constitution. Furthermore, the candidate has to agree that this "gun control" is useless in terms of fighting crime. Examples of current Congressman who have the support of the NRA include J. Randy Forbes. This government official from the 4th district of Virginia proposed a bill in 2009 that would allow retired law enforcement officers to carry a concealed firearm. Without a doubt this bill was supported by the NRA, thus Congressman J. Randy Forbes managed to earn its trust and monetary support. Moreover this bill has been endorsed by the National Fraternal Order of Police and the International Union of Police Association. The bill has been sent to the House Judiciary Committee. (The information about Congressman Forbes and his bill was taken from an article by Jessica Mancari) Other Congressman that the NRA currently favors includes Brownback, Jenkins, Huelskamp, Yoder and Schmidt. The