For the first time in over 20 years, gun control is at the top of the national political agenda. So a change in leadership at the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) can affect the political dynamic. On Monday, Alabama attorney James “Jim” W. Porter II is set to take over as president of the board from David Keene. The NRA annual meeting in Houston, which starts Thursday, will mark the end of Mr. Keene’s two-year term.
It's become oddly fashionable to bash the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, the giddy juxtaposition of journalists, Hollywood celebrities and strategically-minded operatives that arrives in the nation's capital each spring, just like the circus. Critics claim the annual event has become commercialized, off-message and unbecoming.
It was a cast of thousands on a very crowded set: For the 99th time, the White House Correspondents' Association dinner has come and gone on a tide of tuxedos, talking points and a certain license to be daring, minus the political risk.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is not only shredding the Constitution with new statewide gun-control laws, but he's doing so "on the altar of his own ambition," the NRA chief said at a rally outside the Capitol in Albany.
Democrats on Capitol Hill are sprinting to give President Obama a quick victory in his gun-control crusade. Sloth won't cut it. Energized senators have sped from bad idea to full committee vote in less than two months. That sounds like sloth in the world where the rest of us live, but in the Senate, that's warp speed.
President Obama's State of the Union speech Tuesday was carefully staged to promote his gun-grabbing second-term agenda. Arrangements were made so TV cameras would pan to the faces of victims of gun violence in the House galleries.
Out of the flurry of ambitious gun control proposals in the wake of December's school shooting in Connecticut, expanded background checks on gun sales are fast emerging as the "sweet spot" — as one Senate Democratic leader put it — between what gun control advocates seek and what can actually attract bipartisan support in Congress.
The president of the National Rifle Association argued Thursday that a universal background check system for gun buyers is both impracticable and unnecessary, but an effective instant check system that includes records of the adjudicated mentally ill would prevent potentially dangerous people — such as the gunman at Virginia Tech in 2007 — from getting their hands on firearms.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, NRA President David Keene said gun-control activists threatened to kill his son and daughter.
