Under NRA Pressure, Dems Propose Unraveling Gun Regulation

To put it bluntly, one of the only things Americans need less than gun deregulation is another hole in the head. Thanks to House Democrats, we may receive more of both.

Under pressure from the gun-rights lobby, House Democrats might exempt the National Rifle Association from pending campaign finance legislation. As you might recall, earlier this year, the Supreme Court upended 100 years of campaign finance restrictions, determining for the first time in the 223-year history of our Constitution that corporations are equivalent to human beings under the First Amendment. It was a startling chapter in the Roberts Court's embrace of conservative judicial activism — one that disgusted the American public and earned a central role in coverage of President Obama's second State of the Union address.

Since that remarkable demonstration of judicial prerogative, Democrats have included campaign finance reform among the planks in a populist platform that they hope will mitigate losses in the mid-term elections. That political calculus, however, is giving way to pressures from the NRA.

While conservative politics undergoes an identity crisis, with moderates losing out to the looniest elements of the hardcore right, Democrats on Capitol Hill seem bent on sacrificing their principles to maintain the broad tent that brought them electoral landslides in 2006 and 2008. The latest lamb sent to the slaughter? Common-sense gun regulation.

Despite myths about gun regulation propagated by the NRA, America's history of protecting citizens by limiting access to firearms is long and proud. Democrats on Capitol Hill, however, seem on the precipice of forgetting such history amid pressure from short-term political demands.

Right now, in exchange for a promise that the NRA will not actively oppose current campaign finance regulations under consideration, House Dems have formulated a compromise that would exempt the NRA from the proposed law. You read that correctly: Dems on the Hill are sacrificing American lives, all to avoid an active challenge from a powerful interest group. It's a move that speaks not only to the NRA's extraordinary reach — but to the desperation of the Democrats, in what's shaping up to be a disastrous year for them at the polls.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons