It's from a CNN town hall on gun violence
held just days after a mass shooting
at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
On one side, you've got the parents,
teachers, and students who survived the shooting,
and on the other,
you’ve got Dana Loesch,
a spokeswoman for the NRA
who's famous for saying things like:
They will perish in the political flames of their own fires.
This is what the modern gun debate looks like in America.
We're so used to hearing from the NRA
that we don't really question it
when we see them on TV anymore.
But talking to the NRA has turned the
gun control debate into a confusing, frustrating mess.
We don't say that no one has a right to free speech...
I mean, are we talking about prevention or not?
Wait a second, wait a second!
And that's exactly what gun companies were hoping for.
Anything can be qualified as an assault weapon.
If you stab someone with a spoon,
it can be qualified as an assault weapon.
If you go to the NRA’s website right now,
you'll see the group describing itself as
“America's longest-standing civil rights organization.”
We're the largest and oldest civil rights organization in America.
The NRA really wants you to think of it that way
because it frames the organization as essentially
a public interest group,
alongside groups like the ACLU and NAACP.
That framing is the reason the NRA pops up
in every debate about gun control.
If you think of the NRA as a group that represents
gun owners, you can't really debate gun policy
without them.
The problem is...
The way they go about this is a charade.
It's a fraud.
This is Democratic Congressman Ted Deutch.
He represents Florida's 22nd Congressional District,
which is where the Parkland shooting took place.
And he is tired of arguing with the NRA.
This is an organization that receives millions of dollars
every year from gun companies directly,
millions more through advertisements.
Yeah, you’ve probably heard about the NRA
giving money to politicians,
but we should talk about how much money the
NRA gets from gun companies.
Every year, gun manufacturers donate millions of dollars
to the NRA through its corporate partners program.
Some of them sponsor specific NRA projects
like “Empower the People,” sponsored by Sig Sauer.
Or “Love at First Shot,” sponsored by Smith & Wesson.
What is “Love at First Shot”?
I don't want to know.
Other gun companies give money directly to the NRA,
and ones that donate over a million dollars
get to be part of something called
the NRA’s “Golden Ring of Freedom.”
An honor given to those who make significant contributions
to the NRA’s defense of the Second Amendment.
That “Golden Ring of Freedom” includes companies
like Beretta, Remington, Bushmaster,
and Smith & Wesson, the manufacturer that produced
the gun that was used in the Parkland massacre.
In exchange for their donations,
the NRA gives gun companies these tacky golden jackets.
That’s more of a dirty yellow.
Yeah, that is not gold.
The NRA doesn't disclose how much money it gets
from these donations.
But a report by the Violence Policy Center estimates
the number was anywhere between $20 and $60 million
from 2005 to 2013.
The NRA makes millions more by selling ad space
to gun companies in publications like American Rifleman.
But maybe weirdest of all,
some companies donate a portion of every gun sale
directly to the NRA.
Taurus buys an NRA membership for every customer
who buys one of their guns.
In 2015, Sturm Ruger launched a campaign donating
$2 to the NRA for every gun they sold,
which explains why so much NRA programming
looks like a gun ad.
The AR-15 is one of the most effective tools available
to protect yourself and your family.
What the…
All of this makes the NRA less of a public interest group
and more of an industry lobbying group.
And that's a big distinction.
We're arguing about gun control with a group
that makes money when people buy guns.
They're a lobbying group.
I don't know, frankly, that there's
another lobbying organization that drives the debate
on an issue the way that they do,
So any time the NRA debates gun control,
their priority is protecting the product.
To deflect attention away from gun sales,
they blame violence on things like video games
...vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm…
while blocking the CDC from actually studying gun violence.
Or they say we need to enforce existing gun laws -
We have all kinds of gun laws on the books right now, John.
We don't enforce any of ’em.
while lobbying to gut the agencies
that would actually enforce those laws.
They blame states for not using
the background check system.
Do you know that it is not federally required
for states to actually report people
who are prohibited possessors?
And then aggressively oppose background checks
because background checks
“don't stop criminals from getting firearms.”
You know perfectly well the reason states
aren't mandated to go through that system
is because of a lawsuit the NRA filed.
Or, most obvious of all,
they argue the solution to gun violence is
buying more guns.
To stop a bad guy with a gun,
it takes a good guy with a gun.
Yeah, that's a twofer.
They get to talk about something other than
all of the things that have broad bipartisan support,
and they get to talk about something that
is ultimately going to benefit the gun companies
that fund their entire operation.
The annoying thing is these distractions work.
A Vox study of cable news coverage
after the Parkland shooting found that CNN and MSNBC
both devoted serious airtime to debating arming teachers.
How do you feel when you hear these proposals
to arm the teachers, given what was going on?
That allegiance to gun companies creates a warped view
of the gun control debate.
The truth is huge majorities of Americans
agree on things like background checks and restrictions on assault weapons.
And most gun owners, including NRA members,
support things like universal background checks.
The NRA knows this too.
Which is why they work so hard to convince their members
that the government is coming to take away their guns.
Their goal is to eliminate the Second Amendment
so they can eradicate all individual freedoms.
It is always this attempt to whip people into a frenzy.
This is just the first step.
We're the only thing that stands between you and tyranny.
It’s nonsense.
It's a distraction.
It's also a smart marketing strategy.
If you convince people the government is
coming for your guns, they'll buy more.
Gun sales usually spike after mass shootings.
Thankfully, not everyone is falling for it.
This is Ryan Deitsch, a survivor of the Parkland shooting.
He was visibly frustrated at the CNN town hall.
And he says he’s started turning down invitations
to debate NRA spokespeople like Dana Loesch.
We know what happened at the town hall,
and we just did not want to give her that platform.
Deistch isn't afraid of debating gun control.
I love to face the opposition.
I've been told I'm too nice.
But he says talking to the NRA is different.
They're never going to agree
because the money flows one way.
Please, God, no, not a new Dana.
We've seen this exact thing happen before:
with tobacco.
In the ’50s, tobacco companies formed the Tobacco Institute,
a group that spent 40 years fighting against tobacco regulation.
Most of the Tobacco Institute's work
is with people who represent the public's interest.
The group became one of Washington's most powerful,
well-heeled, and effective political lobbies.
And like the NRA, they did everything they could
to protect the product.
They blamed lung cancer on air pollution and food additives,
tried to block government research on smoking,
It’s inappropriate for any agency of government
to take steps to try to eliminate a legal product.
and peddled junk science.
Most smokers don't develop lung cancer.
We think it's an open question.
And believe it or not, lots of news outlets took the bait.
The Tobacco Institute charged that its findings
were based on evidence that is not scientifically conclusive.
Looking back, it's bananas that anyone
included the Tobacco Institute in public health debates.
But that's exactly what's happening now with the NRA.
There's no question that having the representative
for the biggest gun companies raises
all of those same concerns.
That doesn't mean we should ignore the NRA.
It's still an incredibly powerful industry lobbying group.
And we should take that political influence seriously.
But that doesn't mean we need to take their arguments seriously.
Debates about gun control only work if both sides
are genuinely interested in finding a solution to gun violence.
But in this case, they're not.
If the way that you’re approaching this is about
either having guns or not having guns,
then having the gun manufacturers there
probably makes sense.
But that's not what the debate should be.
That's not what the debate is.
It's about taking action to keep our communities safe.
That's a conversation most Americans agree on.
But it's a conversation that falls apart
every time the NRA gets a seat at the table.
I want to thank Dana Loesch of the NRA for being here
to listen to your questions.