All you really need to know about Second Amendment groups are that they still believe that the government has been enacting the slowest and least effective totalitarian takeover of private gun ownership for the past 40 years. The Gun Owners of America (GOA) are somehow considered more conservative than the NRA and Wayne “Fuck the children killed at Newtown” LaPierre. The GOA, whose only qualifications for a leadership positions seem to be an insane paranoia and vindictiveness concerning guns and the surname Pratt, is taking their attacks on gun safety advocates further. A few weeks ago they sent a letter to their membership attacking Senator Elizabeth Warren … for trying to reduce the cost of hearing aids.
On behalf of over 1.5 million law-abiding gun owners, I am writing to express our concern over Elizabeth Warren's "Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act" --and, in particular, its inclusion as a "non-controversial amendment" on the prescription drug bill.
A survey of hunting-related merchandise offered by stores like Bass Pro Shops reveals a variety of hearing-aid-type devices marketed as hunting aids. These go by names like "hearing enhancer," "game ear," and "hearing enhancement aid." These devices operate similar to other hearing aids, and they are intended to help hunters (including, but not limited to hearing-impaired hunters) detect the presence of game.
There's a pretty good chance that these hunting devices would fall within Warren's definition of "over-the-counter hearing aid." Which would mean that a new federal bureaucracy would be in charge of regulating hunting.
Goddamn her!!!! The Intercept’s Alex Emmons points out that the bill and the language does no such thing. The bill in fact has more Republican senator co-sponsorship than bleeding-heart liberals and this is clearly the gun lobby doing what it does best—trying to ruin legislation that everybody agrees would help people.
A bipartisan group in in the Senate introduced a bill in March to make hearing aids more affordable by allowing them to be sold-over-the counter. Only a handful of manufacturers make hearing aids, and most state laws restrict the selling of hearing aids to licensed audiologists, giving them an effective monopoly.
[...]
The devices — they’re called personal sound amplification products (PSAPs) — can’t legally be advertised as treating hearing loss without FDA approval, but marketers of them push as close to the line as they can. They are popular with hunters, who use them to hear animals in the woods and also to compensate for rifle-related hearing loss.
The bill wouldn’t stop PSAPs from being sold the way they are now. But it would give sound companies like Massachusetts-based Bose access to a brand new market, and drive down the cost of hearing aids for millions of hearing-impaired people.
GOA wants people to believe that the government will take away their gun accoutrements first. Then their guns! And then your religion! The chances of this legislation getting through is facing millions of dollars in lobbying from the hearing aide industry with the monopoly, as you might imagine. So what is at stake?
Why is this important? Nearly 48 million Americans suffer from some form of hearing loss, and yet hearing aids are not covered by Medicare or most private insurance plans. As a result, only around 14 pecent of the hearing impaired have the means to shell out the thousands of dollars necessary to afford a proper hearing aid. Instead, they resort to so-called “personal sound amplification products,” cheaper OTC alternatives intended for non-hearing impaired consumers.
The Republican Party can’t even get the biggest no-brainer things done because of how much poison they have polluted our national discourse with.