Biden To Meet With NRA, gun safety organizations, shooting victims groups...sportsmen

[SunsetDreams]

Biden will meet Wednesday with gun safety organizations and shooting victims groups and on Thursday will meet with gun ownership organizations and sportsmen who use guns recreationally, according to the White House.

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said the organization accepted an invitation received from the White House late Friday.

"We are sending a rep to hear what they have to say," Arulanandam said.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/biden-to-meet-with-nra



The White House Just Set Gun Rights Activists Ablaze

Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported the gun violence task force led by Vice President Biden is considering gun legislation “far broader and more comprehensive…than simply reinstating an expired ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition.”

News that the White House is considering significant gun control legislation in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. elementary school shooting is music to the ears of gun control advocates, who have waited decades for a serious conversation about guns. But it’s also being welcomed by gun rights groups, who say leaks from the Biden task force are just the thing to push their flock back into the fight.

...

Biden has “galvanized the gun community,” Workman said. Though no longer on the NRA board, Workman still spends most of his time advocating for expanded gun rights. He’s an official with the Second Amendment Foundation, communications director for Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and a prolific writer on the gun rights. Both groups Workman serves on are sponsors of Gun Appreciation Day, a nationwide effort to highlight gun ownership scheduled for the weekend of President Obama’s second inauguration.

According to the WaPo, the Biden group is considering far-reaching gun control efforts, the mere hint of which has sent a shockwave through the gun rights community. Biden’s task force is mulling “a variety of proposals — from requiring background checks for all gun buyers to creating a new database that would allow the ATF to track all gun sales,” the newspaper reported. (The White House noted to the newspaper that the task force “has made no decisions on its final recommendations.”)

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/white-house-gun-rights-activists.php

[onehandle]

1. He should bring a sock full of pennies.

Watch them wet themselves and run away.

[Laurian]

2. Well, shit. I was hoping he'd ignore them. eom

[SunsetDreams]

3. It's not just the NRA

I have changed my thread title to reflect that.

[bluestate10]

4. I have no love for the NRA, but that organization and other gun advocacy organizations

have to be at the table when control legislation is being crafted by the White House. Mental health advocacy organizations also must have a seat at that table. The current tendency is to have law enforcement over represented during discussions. Law enforcement people that face gun violence or have to deal with the aftermath of gun violence are more in the victim category, they are caught between the failure of gun advocacy groups to behave responsibly and the dearth of mental illness detection and care in this country.

My hope is that the NRA comes to listen and make calm suggestions, and not to politicize or demonetize Biden's efforts.

[Laurian]

5. I don't have any problem with including the other groups, but

I think Wayne LaPierre made the NRA's uncompromising position pretty clear at his "news conference".