NRA’s annual meeting starts Friday in Texas

The NRA’s annual meeting starts Friday in Texas, but republicans feel no pressure to act on gun control.

The National Rifle Association is set to hold its 2022 annual meeting in Houston on Friday, bringing together its top brass and several notable conservatives, including former President Donald Trump, for the first time in three years.

The NRA’s two previous annual meetings were cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. But this year the organization is moving ahead with its plans, holding the meeting at a time when both gun rights and the organization itself have come under intense scrutiny.

Especially after a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, left 21 dead.

It’s not that America can’t stop its bloody sequence of mass killings. It’s that it lacks the national cohesion and common will to do so.

Why do these Republicans refuse to act? Beyond the fact that many believe stricter gun control would not prevent such mass shootings, a look at the data reveals that there is simply no political pressure to do so.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) delivered an impassioned speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, following a school shooting in Texas that left at least 14 students dead.#USNews #USAnews #GunControlNow #TexasMassacre #Texaselementary #UvaldeMassacre #SandyHook pic.twitter.com/1hE9j3dApv

— USA NEWS 🇺🇸 (@wtxnewsusa) May 25, 2022

Republicans feel no pressure to act on gun control

Most Republicans feel no pressure to act on gun control because voters are as likely to trust them on the issue of guns as they are to trust Democrats.

They are also so dominant in lobbying that they know they are secure from getting any legislation passed.

Combined with the fact that they have a pact with the other big lobbies to support each other, ensure they do not have to act as they can literally by their way out of trouble.

NRA’s annual meeting starts Friday

A deep political and cultural estrangement on guns — caused principally by the right’s blocking of efforts from Democrats and moderate Republicans to pass even modest safety measures — is boiling up again over Tuesday’s shooting.

It will further scar a generation of students haunted by the perpetual fear of a school shooting — a frightful vision for young minds that was only alleviated by Covid-19 pandemic virtual learning, which traumatized many of them in other ways.

Texas Democratic gubernatorial nominee Beto O’Rourke confronted Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other officials on Wednesday during a press conference about Tuesday’s deadly shooting at an elementary school in the state.

……………………………………..

.@GovAbbott, @SenTedCruz —
 
Are you still planning to join the NRA conference in Texas this weekend?
 
While parents are burying their children?
 
Is your political future really more important than our kids?

Will nothing get you to act?

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) May 26, 2022