I’m not asking for an instant match of the scope and sheer power of the NRA. But can we start with a central advocacy and lobbying group that goes beyond the vanilla appeal to “commonsense solutions” advocated by, for example, Americans for Responsible Solutions?
The NRA, owns “commonsense” because they’ve kept on their single, unambiguous and unapologetic agenda message: zero regulation of weapons. The NRA’s genius has been to become the national default for a broad range of diverse and equivocal pro-gun advocates—only some of whom claim full adherence to the NRA’s message. For the sake of sounding reasonable, pro-gun advocates may pay lip service to a number of patently weak, loophole-ridden controls (ex., don’t let gun stores sell to verified terrorists,) but when it comes to meaningful policy, gun advocates defer to the NRA’s very simple and easily-digested position because if they don’t, they are exposed and punished.
Many fine groups (perhaps too many) advocate some degree of gun control. They do good (if mostly ineffective) work. I’m partial to the mission of The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSV): “The CSV is an umbrella organization of 48 national groups that seek to free the nation from gun violence through policy advocacy, research and strategic engagement.” Sounds good to me, but doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, and the acronym is easily mistaken for a drugstore chain.
I’d like to see a single national organization to which all gun-control advocates defer. I’d like the agenda to promulgate a new “commonsense” to vie against the NRA. I won’t here define this new commonsense, but try universal gun registration for openers. All gun-control advocates should be held to the new commonsense context from which their compromised or so-called pragmatic advocacy proceeds.