The National Rifle Association starts its annual convention today, and there will be plenty of time spent bashing both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, not least because the speakers include Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham, Rick Santorum, and even Donald Trump. The only major Republican presidential candidates who won't be there are Chris Christie and Rand Paul, but according to Politico, Paul was snubbed because of his association with the National Association for Gun Rights, a smaller organization that apparently thinks the NRA is a bunch of wimps and compromisers when it comes to the Second Amendment.
Jeb Bush is one of the only candidates who doesn't himself own a gun, but as The Wall Street Journal reminds us today, he's got a trump card: Bush is the man who gave America George Zimmerman. In 2005, he happily signed Florida's "stand your ground" law, which has proven such a smashing success. As an investigation by The Tampa Bay Times found in 2013, "In nearly a third of the cases the Times analyzed, defendants initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their victim-and still went free." And sure, stand your ground laws are associated with higher rates of homicide, but that's the price you sometimes have to pay for freedom.
I'm not sure if Jeb will bring that up in his speech-unlike most of his opponents, he seems to have an awareness that when there are TV cameras pointed at you, doing what you can to win over the room isn't always the best idea in the long run. But one thing none of the candidates is likely to say is that when it comes to guns, it really doesn't matter who the president is.
Even if you agree with the NRA that Barack Obama is an obsessive gun-grabber who would rip the .22 from a toddler's outstretched arms if he could, he's been spectacularly unsuccessful at actually grabbing anybody's guns. Even in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, we couldn't get the most reasonable expansion of background checks passed. The ATF just pulled a proposal to ban a certain kind of armor-piercing ammunition because of the concerns of "sportsmen" (because what are you going to do when you come across a beautiful ten-point buck and it turns out he's wearing Kevlar?).
The NRA is telling people that if Hillary Clinton is elected, then watch out-she's coming for your guns. Which of course means you should really start stocking up now, in addition to donating to the NRA. But if the last few years have taught us anything, it's that the bully pulpit is no match for a lock on Congress. I don't get the sense that Clinton has much of a stomach for a fight on guns, whatever her personal views are, but it wouldn't matter even if she did. If there isn't going to be any gun control legislation passed after 20 elementary school kids get slaughtered, when is it going to happen?
Of course, the NRA can't say that. Without the threat of future gun-grabbing, you can't keep your constituents in a state of fear. It's a parallel to the way they imagine the world in general-Wayne LaPierre is always talking about the "killers, robbers, rapists, gang members who have spread like cancer in every community across our nation," as though Americans were living in a post-apocalyptic hellscape that makes Mad Max look like some sort of whimsical Noel Coward play.
What I wonder is whether the NRA members who hear that really believe it anymore. Do they still think that America is just one election away from the jackbooted government thugs kicking down your door to confiscate the rifle your grandfather gave you (and the 20 others in your collection)? Maybe they do.
