Tom Blaich

Prof. Gelbman

05 May 2014

Political Science 111

Interest Groups and the NRA

While seemingly separate from each other at first, when we take a look at the four

different interest groups that we have collected amongst us, the National Rifle Association,

the Nuclear Control Institute, the Business Executives for National Security, and the Center

for Strategic Studies, we find that all of our groups have one thing in common, which is to

attempt to protect civilian interests at home and abroad, from threats, real or perceived, both

at home and abroad. But even within this you can see the way in which these goals have

expanded and grown from the time of the creation of our groups until now.

This is interesting to look at in comparison to our oldest group, the NRA, which was

established in 1871, compared to our newer groups, which all came into being between 1962

and 1982. The first immediately obvious distinction in the time between the two sets of groups

is the scope of their goals. The NRA was first founded in the state of New York in November

of 1871 by William Conant Church and General George Wood Wingate. They founded the

organization over the lament about how poor the performance of soldiers in battle were, with

some statistics putting the accuracy of the soldiers at around one hit for every thousand

rounds fired. These two men realized the need for better training with the weapons that were

now being used and traveled across the world to Europe to get a better idea of how to train

soldiers. These ideas were then used to build rifle ranges funded by the New York legislature,

where they trained men in the use of firearms.

While the NRA was founded simply to help the soldier be more effective on the

battlefield, our other three organizations, the NCI, the BENS, and the CSS, were founded in

the face of the Cold War, one of the more terrifying times for our country. Each of these three

groups sprung up to try and keep the world from spinning out of control in some way,

beginning with the CSS in 1962, a think-tank that prioritizes keeping America as a “force of

good” through cooperation with other countries. In 1981, the NCI sprung up in an attempt to

prevent nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism across the world through the elimination of

plutonium and enriched uranium. The following year, BENS was founded by a group of

businessmen trying to help with national security. It sponsored the Base Realignment and

Closure Act, which was an effort to scale down and close military bases abroad in the wake of

the Cold War.

When you look at all four of these groups in comparison, one very surprising fact

becomes rather immediately, that is that the NRA is a very interesting organization. It started

rather humbly, simply to promote firearms training where there was none, to improve

efficiency. But when you compare it to all of our other organizations, it is the only one which

does not advocate scaling down in some manner, but rather increased availability. Along with

this, the NRA is one of the single most powerful lobbying organizations/interest groups in the

United States, taking in over $200 million dollars each year through membership fees and

products before spending it on lobbying, public awareness, and upkeep.

When you compare this group to our other three, they look more inadequate. None of

the other groups make as much money, have as many members, or carry as much influence

as the NRA does, but that is not to say that they are worthless within the process of our

government. The CSS works with speakers all across the world, bringing them in to

collaborate with their think-tank to try to come up with the best ideas to improve the world.

BENS allows power players within the defense industry to get together and have an impact on

the government, trying to help out and take over responsibilities where they can, in an effort to

share the load. And the NCI is vastly important in this day and age, with the threat of nuclear

terrorism always credible, their efforts to prevent proliferation and eliminate the supplies used

to make these bombs have a great effect on the world.

It is amazing how much influence and power these interest groups have, especially the

NRA. You don't fully realize how much power they have when you look at them from the

outside, but when you start to look deeper and realize that as an interest group, the NRA has

been called in front of Congress to testify, which does not initially sound like the responsibility

of an organization that purports to further gun training and safety. And while the NRA is

certainly an outlier when we are looking at interest groups, this is not to say that the other

interest groups do not have any power. In fact, interest groups are an important and powerful

part of our government, each holding great power and influence aggregated from its members

across the country, which it uses to fulfill their own goals. They are responsible for massive

amounts of money from both public and private interests (citizens and corporations) and they

use these funds to lobby to get what they want. Interest groups are an interesting, but slightly

hidden part of our government, with the activities in a legislative system not being