“The Kremlin has long denied that it had anything to do with the infiltration of the NRA and the broader American conservative movement. A U.S. intelligence report reviewed by the Daily Beast tells a different story.”
“Alexander Torshin, the Russian central bank official who spent years aggressively courting NRA leaders, briefed the Kremlin on his efforts and recommended they participate, according to the report. Its existence and contents have not previously been reported.”
“House Democrats are planning to move several high-profile bills to combat gun violence soon after they take power in January, underscoring their belief that the political landscape has shifted dramatically on an issue that’s plagued American society for decades,” Politico reports.
“With backing from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and key chairmen, Democrats will move to require federal background checks on all gun sales, part of a broader effort by the party to advance long-stalled gun control measures. While the proposal won’t get through the Republican-run Senate, much less become law, getting through the House will be a win for the gun-control movement, which has little to cheer about since President Donald Trump was sworn into office.”
“Gun deaths in America have reached a record high,” CNN reports.
“Nearly 40,000 people in the United States died by guns last year, marking the highest number of gun deaths in decades, according to a new analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control.”
“The National Rifle Association of America reported $98 million in contributions in 2017, down from nearly $125 million in 2016,” according to new tax records obtained by the Daily Beast.
“Nearly a fifth of its contributions last year came from a single anonymous donor, who chipped in nearly $19 million to the group.”
“More noteworthy than its drop in contributions, though, was its decline in membership dues. The NRA took in more than $128 million in dues last year—a significant sum, but down considerably from the $163 million it took in the year prior.”
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) said that new laws aren’t the solution to gun violence, but addressing a “culture of death” in media is the place to start, USA Today reports.
Said Bevin: “It starts with everything from the type of entertainment that we focus on. What’s the most popular topic that seems to be in every cable television network. Television shows are all about, what? Zombies! I don’t get it … that’s what we are.”
“The Senate intelligence committee has asked the National Rifle Association to provide documents on its connections to Russia—including documents related to a 2015 trip some of its top leaders made to Moscow,” the Daily Beast reports.
“The NRA’s Russia connections have drawn growing public scrutiny after a key figure in Russian outreach to the powerful gun lobby, Maria Butina, was indicted in July on charges of being an undeclared Russian operative connected to the country’s intelligence apparatus. Butina sought to use guns as a lever to tilt the Republican Party in a pro-Kremlin direction, creating a political firestorm for the NRA in the wake of her arrest. The intelligence committee’s document request is just one part of the aftermath.”
A new Hart Research poll finds that suburban women prefer the Democratic Party to handle gun violence by 26 percentage points.
Axios: “Suburban women are a crucial voting bloc on virtually every issue in the 2018 midterm elections, and this poll suggests gun control is yet another topic that could sway voters in certain races around the country.”
President Trump lamented the “hate in our country” after the killing of at least eight people in a shooting rampage at a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday and asserted that better security at the temple could have prevented the massacre, NBC News reports.
Said Trump: “They had a maniac walk in and they didn’t have any protection and that is so sad to see. If you take a look at it, if they had protection inside the results would have been far better.”
He added: “It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country, frankly, and all over the world. It’s a violent world. You think when you’re over it, it just goes away but then it comes back in the form of a madman, a wacko.”
A new Gallup poll finds that 61% of Americans favor stricter laws on the sale of firearms, down modestly from March, when 67% said this shortly after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting on February 14.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) writing in the Washington Post:
In the years since the Senate last had a meaningful debate about gun-violence legislation, we’ve seen assault rifles and high-capacity magazines repeatedly used in mass shootings, with ever-higher body counts: Forty-nine murdered at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Fifty-eight killed and 422 wounded by gunfire in Las Vegas, one year ago Monday.
We’ve seen the gun lobby close its eyes to the fact that assault rifles were the weapon of choice for the mass shooters at Parkland, Fla., and at Sandy Hook Elementary School — and to the reality that these weapons can kill with an efficiency that shotguns and handguns, like the ones I own, simply cannot match.
Though I remain convinced that strengthening our background-check system is critical, I also believe we must do more to end mass shootings. So today I am signing on as a sponsor of the assault weapons ban.
“The National Rifle Association’s political spending is sharply down heading into the 2018 midterm elections, a shift that could reflect declining fundraising in the wake of a string of mass shootings and an FBI investigation into the group’s Russia ties,” McClatchy reports.
“The politically potent gun advocacy group has this year spent one-tenth of what it had spent politically at this point in 2014.”
“Everytown for Gun Safety, the group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is rolling out a $5 million digital ad campaign targeting 15 House races, as the group continues heavy investment in the midterm elections,” Politico reports.
“The full list of targeted Republican incumbents include: Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA); Mike Coffman (R-CO), Karen Handel (R-GA), Kevin Yoder (R-KS), Erik Philip Paulsen (R-MN), Mike Bishop (R-MI), Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) and Barbara Comstock (R-VA). The group is also going after seven open, Republican-controlled seats that include suburbs in metro areas from Seattle to New York City.”
Giffords PAC is going to spend nearly $1.5 million on a TV and digital ad targeting vulnerable Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO).
Playbook: “Democratic operatives tell us that they believe the midterms are going to be a turning point on gun control. Their reasoning: Students from the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida have ramped up their activism across the country in an effort to register young voters. And, the WSJ recently put out an analysis with Kantar Media/CMAG data that found there has been a 22% increase in ads promoting stricter gun regulations since four years ago.”
Since many more voters believe their Second Amendment rights are protected while President Trump is in office, gun buyers are no longer stocking up on AR-15 assault rifles, the Wall Street Journal reports.
This “Trump slump” in the gun market has led to a 50% drop in long gun revenue for Smith & Wesson’s parent company since 2016.
“The mother of a student murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High on Feb. 14 has been elected to the Broward County School Board in a landslide,” the Miami Herald reports.
Said Lori Alhadeff: “I am so excited. I am elated. I can’t wait to start making change and start making an impact on the school board.”
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos “is considering whether to allow states to use federal funding to purchase guns for educators,” the New York Times reports.
“Such a move appears to be unprecedented, reversing a longstanding position taken by the federal government that it should not pay to outfit schools with weapons. And it would also undermine efforts by Congress to restrict the use of federal funding on guns. As recently as March, Congress passed a school safety bill that allocated $50 million a year to local school districts, but expressly prohibited the use of the money for firearms.”
Wall Street Journal: “Democrats running for Congress in 2018 are pushing a muscular gun-control agenda that represents a wholesale repositioning on the hot-button issue. In this year’s midterm election, gun control has become a party litmus test from which few dissent, alongside abortion rights and support for same-sex marriage.”
“Six years ago, when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee advised candidates in rural districts to show themselves with guns in their TV ads, the National Rifle Association made campaign contributions to 30 Democratic House candidates. This year, the NRA is financially backing just three.”
“The National Rifle Association warns that it is in grave financial jeopardy, according to a recent court filing obtained by Rolling Stone, and that it could soon ‘be unable to exist… or pursue its advocacy mission.'”
“The reason, according to the NRA filing, is not its deep entanglement with alleged Russian agents like Maria Butina. Instead, the gun group has been suing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state’s financial regulators since May, claiming the NRA has been subject to a state-led ‘blacklisting campaign’ that has inflicted ‘tens of millions of dollars in damages.'”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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