GOP lawmakers are sticking with the president and the NRA.President Donald Trump briefly raised eyebrows Monday when he tweeted an endorsement of stronger background checks, tied to immigration reform, after the nightmarish mass shootings over the weekend.
But skeptical Republicans familiar with Trump’s mercurial nature didn’t rush out to embrace the idea.
A former pro football player who serves on the National Rifle Association board was paid $400,000 by the group in recent years for public outreach and firearms training. Another board member, a writer in New Mexico, collected more than $28,000 for articles in NRA publications. Yet another board member sold ammunition from his private company to the NRA for an undisclosed sum.
The NRA, which has been rocked by allegations of exorbitant spending by top executives, also directed money in recent years that went to board members — the very people tasked with overseeing the organization’s finances.
In all, 18 members of the NRA’s 76-member board, who are not paid as directors, collected money from the group during the past three years, according to tax filings, state charitable reports and NRA correspondence reviewed by The Washington Post.
The following article by Callum Borchers was posted on the Washington Post website March 12, 2018:
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on March 12 said President Trump “hasn’t backed away” from previous proposals to help prevent mass shootings. (Reuters)
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did her best on Monday to argue that President Trump is not backing down but rather prioritizing on gun control.
A newly released administration plan calls for improving reporting to the existing background-check system for gun buyers and training some educators to carry firearms in schools, but it does not propose raising the minimum purchasing age for military-style rifles from 18 to 21, an idea Trump previously endorsed. Instead, the plan directs a commission led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to “study and make recommendations” on “age restrictions for certain firearm purchases.” Continue reading “The trouble with the White House’s spin on Trump and guns, in one exchange”
The following article by Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger was posted on the Washington Post website April 30, 2017:
President Trump’s warm rhetoric toward Russia on the campaign trail is just one instance of a softening stance toward Russia among some U.S. conservatives. The Post examined the relationship between gun rights advocates and religious conservatives in the U.S., and their counterparts in Russia. (Bastien Inzaurralde, Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
Growing up in the 1980s, Brian Brown was taught to think of the communist Soviet Union as a dark and evil place.
But Brown, a leading opponent of same-sex marriage, said that in the past few years he has started meeting Russians at conferences on family issues and finding many kindred spirits. Continue reading “Guns and religion: How American conservatives grew closer to Putin’s Russia”
