Brady Center Report Profiles How The NRA Has Handcuffed Federal Gun Law Enforcement
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The National Rifle Association has claimed for years that we just need to "fully enforce existing federal gun laws" rather than "passing new gun laws." Yet, the NRA's actions reveal this claim to be utter hypocrisy.
In its new report The NRA: A Criminal's Best Friend, the Brady Center's Gun Industry Watch program exposes how the NRA has tirelessly worked to handcuff the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to prevent the enforcement of federal gun laws.
Continuing decades of hostility to federal law enforcement, the NRA is now supporting the most sweeping rollback of gun laws in more than two decades. Pending federal legislation, H.R. 5092, would protect rogue dealers like NRA Board Member Sandy Abrams, whose Baltimore gun store was cited for more than 900 violations of federal gun laws before ATF was able to revoke his shop's firearms license earlier this year. If H.R. 5092 were enacted into law, it would virtually eliminate ATF's ability to revoke the licenses of lawbreaking gun shops.
![Commissioner Johnson interviewed at press conference [photo]](2006/december/images/commjohnson.jpg)
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson being interviewed by a reporter following the press briefing with prominent law enforcement officials announcing the publication of The NRA: The Criminal's Best Friend.
This new report examines decades of concerted NRA action to undermine and hamstring enforcement of federal gun laws. It illustrates how the NRA's actions have made it far too easy for gun traffickers and criminals to obtain firearms by handcuffing ATF's ability to crack down on rogue gun dealers or prevent illegal sales at gun shows. It shows how the NRA has repeatedly attacked ATF agents for doing their jobs, branding them as "a jack-booted group of fascists" and comparing them to Nazis and murderers. It reveals the NRA's true colors, as a criminal's best friend.
Gun Industry Watch, a program of the Brady Center, is a new systematic research effort to expose the complicity of the gun industry in supplying the illegal market and to investigate particular companies and practices that pose special threats to public safety. See a list of all reports in the Gun Industry Watch series.
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