NRA has long gun law history

The NRA has long supported reasonable gun laws. In the 1920s, NRA-affiliated National Revolver Association proposed laws, adopted by nine states, involving stiff penalties for crimes committed with guns, waiting periods to buy handguns, and maintaining sales records. During the 1930s they helped write the 1934 National Firearms and 1938 Gun Control Acts. Those laws ban or severely restrict ownership of machine guns (full auto), sawed-off shotguns, silencers and short-barreled rifles. The laws required retail sellers to be registered and prohibited felons owning firearms.

They worked with the state of New York to develop the first hunter safety program (1949). They supported laws prompted by the assassinations of JFK, MLK Jr. and RFK, and the attempted assassination of Reagan. These laws prohibited mail order sales, established minimum purchasing ages, restricted shipping across state lines, added serial number requirements, expanded the ownership prohibition to include the mentally ill, required background checks for all retail sales of guns, and established the system for background checks.

The NRA supports reasonable, common-sense gun laws and the aggressive enforcement of them. What they don’t support, and shouldn’t, are laws aimed at the further, and unnecessary, limiting of our Second Amendment right.

Chan Bailey

Colbert