
Ask HN: It can't be NRA lobbying, right? - danvoell
Per this Washington Post article ( https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;graphics&#x2F;national&#x2F;nra-donations&#x2F;) $3.5M has been donated to current congress members since 1998. I have no idea how much has gone to lobbyists and people who aren&#x27;t in congress. Couldn&#x27;t we just form a super-pac and raise funding with the sole goal of giving politicians a choice of who they take their donation from?<p>If it&#x27;s not lobbying, is it votes? Is someone&#x27;s vote really going to be swayed by their representative restricting assault rifles? Do these things really serve any other purpose then being toys or &quot;safety&quot; against a radical government? Could we come up with some sort of straw polling app to help politicians see that it might actually help their cause?<p>Sorry this post lacks any sort of statistics or depth. I just don&#x27;t understand what the problem is. The NRA donation amount seems so small and media continues to talk about the NRA lobby having such a stronghold.
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krapp
>Is someone's vote really going to be swayed by their representative
restricting assault rifles?

Yes. Because the Second Amendment states that the right to keep and bear arms
is _necessary for a free state,_ any attempt by the government to restrict
access to firearms for any reason is assumed by many gun owners to be part of
an agenda to undermine American freedom - precisely what the 2nd Amendment
says they should have guns on hand to oppose.

This assumption of bad faith on the part of gun control advocates and
legislation prevails in American politics because of the NRA's success in
shaping American gun culture around that premise, and the size and loyalty of
their membership in the voting booth. It's their political power that matters.

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PaulHoule
Sometimes I think the point of 'campaign finance reform' in the 1970s was to
lower the price of buying off politicians. Certainly when there is a scandal
here, people from overseas tend to be shocked about how little money was
involved.

I know many people personally who seem to be obsessed with gun rights. Even
many people who vote Democrat have a "live and let live" attitude. In the
scheme of things, the geographical distribution of votes makes gun control as
a litmus test a certain way for the Democrats to be a minority party for a
long long time.

