I was raised in the military where guns were all around me and ever since I moved to Alaska 40 years ago I’ve been in a hunting family. As of this writing there are multiple guns in my house. As such, I am not in the least against guns for hunting or self-protection.

I am, however, against weapons of war being so easily available. Like 87 percent of Americans polled after the Parkland, Florida shooting tragedy, I am for laws that prevent convicted felons and those with mental health problems from owning guns. I agree with the 63 percent of those Americans who want to ban the sale and possession of high-capacity or extended ammunition magazines. I am pleased to learn that a majority of those who live in gun-owning households (57 percent) support stricter gun laws. Support for gun control is now at record levels.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/25/politics/cnn-poll-gun-control-support-climbs/index.html

Nonetheless, the question quickly becomes whether this level of popular support will amount to anything since the National Rifle Association has such a dominant influence on Republican leaders? Lest we forget, in the wake of Sandy Hook stood a widely supported effort to impose background checks and restrict high-capacity magazines. The NRA and Senate Republicans sank this civic response to the slaughter of 20 elementary students. Now we have 17 more students needlessly massacred by a sick person with a weapon of war. Once again, the NRA opposes sensible and popular gun control measures.

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/researchand analysis/blogs/stateline#s=Relevance/sortDir=asc/pg=0/count=9/content=59fe81ce-f007-4fa1-a82e-a1579d6643bd

Why would an organization whose mission promotes firearms and hunting safety abandon measures supported by gun-owning households? One way to understand what drives the actions of the NRA is to investigate its sources of funding. This is what the A-Mark Foundation, a nonprofit research foundation, did after Sandy Hook in 2012. They discovered that “since 2004, fundraising revenues from private contributions grew twice as fast as income from membership dues. Starting in 2005, the NRA put more focus on soliciting donations from individuals and corporations, including 22 gun manufactures.” This report concludes, “As a result, the NRA’s finances became more entwined with the success of the gun industry.”

http://www.amarkfoundation.org/nra-who-funds-the-nra-11-13-15.pdf

Follow the money. The NRA no longer primarily represents rifle owners. Instead it represents an industry dependent on the production of assault weapons and rapid-fire guns. If we want the civic response to the Parkland, Florida shooting to make a difference where the response to Sandy Hook failed, then we have to confront the NRA head-on. Thank you Dick’s Sporting Goods for leading by example in refusing to sell assault style weapons. Thank you REI, Delta, Hertz and the dozens of companies cutting ties with an obstinate NRA. We need to answer the plea of all the students walking out and recognize that NRA stands for Not Rifles Anymore.

We also need to recognize that there is no slippery slope between limiting access to weapons of war and our right to bear arms. There are sensible gun measures that do not infringe on our constitutional right to bear arms.

University of Law Professor Sonja West states, “Constitutional rights are not absolute. They never have been and, practically, never can be. In our constitutional democracy, we have always recognized that we can, and must, have our constitutional cake and regulate it too. Take, for example, our freedom of speech. It is one of the most clearly stated and robustly protected rights in the Constitution, yet it is also subject to numerous restrictions. We impose restrictions on all kinds of constitutional rights. The right to bear arms is no different.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/12/second_amendment_allows_for_gun_control.html

In other words we can regulate in a manner that keeps rifles and handguns in our homes. We just have to get past a gun industry that through the NRA propels the myth of a slippery slope around the right to bear arms. We need to challenge every politician who does the bidding of the NRA (think Not Rifles Anymore) in preventing sensible gun control (think seatbelts and air bags) measures from seeing the light of day. Those politicians need to be viewed as putting the profits of the gun industry over the safety of our school children.

Kate Troll is a former Juneau Assembly member with 22 years experience in climate and energy, fisheries and coastal management policy. She is the author of “The Great Unconformity: Reflections on Hope in an Imperiled World.”

Kate Troll