Geoff: At this weekend's
national rifle association
annual convention, former
president Donald Trump and other
Republican leaders rejected
efforts to change the nation's
gun laws while they mocked
activists calling for reform.
The NRA's gathering in Houston
took place some four hours east
of uvalde, where 19 children and
2 adults were killed this past
week.
NPR's Washington investigative
correspondent Tim mak reported
on the convention.
He's back now from Houston and
joins us now.
Tim, it's good to have you with
us.
And this year's NRA convention,
I think in many ways is symbolic
of the nation's divide, and that
you had gun rights advocates
inside the convention hall, and
protesters calling for greater
reform, they were lining the
streets outside.
Give us a sense of what you saw
and what your takeaways are.
Tim: You know, this is the first
NRA convention in three years
because the last couple have
Een canceled due to due to the
pandemic.
And you know, I've never seen
such a large protest outside an
NRA event before, and not only
that, the tone was just so much
more vitriolic and so much more
angry and so much more emotional
than I've seen in the past.
I mean, you had hundreds of
protesters outside the
convention hall in Houston, and
they were confronting NRA
members as they were
approaching, trying to get into
the convention hall.
They were booing.
They were yelling at each other,
mocking each other, exchanging
middle fingers.
And in a lot of ways, it was
kind of this pent-up emotion
that's been waiting three years,
perhaps, to be expressed.
But it's something that really
shows just how divided people
are on this issue and just how
angry people are on this issue.
Geoff: Meantime, as you well
know, the NRA is facing among
the most serious threats to its
influence with the number of
investigations revealing
corruption at its highest
levels.
How has that affected the
organization's standing and its
pull, especially when you've got
the rise of all of these
advocacy groups?
These gun control groups, like
every town for gun safety, moms
demand action.
You have the parkland student
survivors, some of whom were at
the NRA convention protesting
outside.
Tim: It is remarkable.
The NRA has been accused of, and
there's been plenty of public
evidence to back it up -- tens
of millions of dollars worth of
mismanagement and misconduct,
financial misconduct by
executives and top leadership,
and many of those people in the
organization still remain in
their jobs.
I'm thinking, for example, of
Wayne Lapierre, who is the CEO
and and executive vice president
of the national rifle
association.
And he was speaking over the
weekend at the convention.
He still remains the head of the
national rifle association.
And so the question is, what's
their influence?
And one of the bi things that
that I've always tried to stress
is that, you know, some folks
think that the NRA is powerful
because of money.
And, of course, money does help.
But what really makes the NRA
influential is its ability to
mobilize millions of members on
short notice.
When they need to work on a
legislative issue like now, you
know, it wouldn't be surprising,
for example, if the NRA got a
lot more members over the last
week because of this new talk
about gun legislation.
Geoff: Let me ask you about
that.
Because senator Chris Murphy,
the Democrat from from
Connecticut, who actually came
to congress representing sandy
hook, he's leading this latest
gun safety push on capitol hill.
I want to play for you what he
said on one of the Sunday shows
this morning.
Sen. Murphy: Every single time
after one of these mass
shootings, there's talks in
Washington, and they never
succeed.
But there are more Republicans
interested in talking about
finding a path forward this time
than I have ever seen since
sandy hook.
Geoff: So let's talk about that,
because these negotiations, as I
understand it, that they are in
their infancy, and they're
focused on red flag laws that
would allow law enforcement to
remove guns from people who are
deemed to pose a threat to
themselves or to others, and
they're also focusing on
expanding the background check
system to screen gun sales.
Those two very specific things.
Is there enough support on the
left and the right to sort of
move forward on that, or do you
think based on your years of
reporting on this issue that the
NRA, that other gun lobbies will
be able to wield their influence
and stop this, stop progress on
this?
Tim: I'd be curious to know what
senator Toomey and senator
Manchin had to say about this
because they have proposed
background checks, expanding
background checks in the past,
and that's stalled in the senate
in times past.
Now, the red flag law issue is a
different one, which has had
Republican support in the past.
So I'd be curious to know if on
capitol hill they can find a way
to get it done.
But what I will say is that
that, you know, if the
convention, the protest
demonstrations and the tone of
the NRA and the protesters
outside against the NRA are any
indication, we're more divided
on this issue than ever before.
It's hard to see where there can
be middle ground up.
Geoff: NPR Washington
investigative correspondent Tim
mak, I appreciate you sharing
your reporting and your years of