“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” – 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution
America has never been a nation of rights; that’s never been the US’ greatest distinction on the global stage. In truth, America remains a country of liberties—protections from government, instead of abilities granted by it. That’s the real coup de grat of the US political system—the government’s willingness in supplying the people with a means to protect themselves from the government itself, a dispersal of power seemingly inhuman in its nobility. At the mountaintop of American liberty lies what many consider the pinnacle of self-security: the second amendment. The fallback plan. The guarantee that if our civil systems fail, the individual still has a defense. That if the police don’t show up in time, you have a defense. That if the government violates your being, you have a defense. A manufactured order and a conditioned security, the second amendment makes the individual safer, but the collective more paranoid. Conspiring a warped worldview, our right to arms deifies the strength firearms supply while demonizing those we think intend harm, a dangerously survivalist dogma. Arbitrarily, America has raised the value of guns over that of people.
Over the past thirty years, “Guns Rights Lobbying” has exploded spending wise, pumping millions of dollars into lobbying congressional officials against gun regulation. The past decade in particular has seen a doubling down of firearms lobbying. Described in OpenSecrets, a watchdog organization cataloging special interest spending and political activity, total firearm lobbying jumped from $6.13 million in 2012 to $15.29 million in 2013, consistently remaining above $10 million in lobbying through today.
Typically, when people hear firearms lobbying, their first thought is the National Rifle Association (NRA), a longstanding arms advocacy group. But, gun lobbying encompasses far more than just the NRA. In reality, the NRA is only the third top contributor; the National Shooting Sports Foundation and Gun Owners of America are first and second respectively, as stated in Open Secrets. For reference, in 2023 the NRA lobbied about $2.3 million dollars; Guns Owners of America, $2.6 million; NSSF, $5.45 million.
Looking at the other end of the spectrum, let’s compare the lobbying of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), two bastions of civil rights advocacy, to that of guns rights lobbying. Running for 104 years, the American Civil Liberties Union fights national inequality with a broad stroke, tackling “Abortion care, trans people’s right to live freely, people’s right to vote” and scores of associated issues, including gun regulation deemed “reasonably related to a legitimate governmental interest,” (ACLU). According to Open Secrets, the NAACP lobbied $1.05 million in 2023. As for the NAACP, a 117 year old organization dedicated to combating “racism and discrimination in communities across the country,” their 2023 lobbying sum was $420,000. Together, that’s a little over half of what the NRA, an organization about as old as the ACLU and NAACP and only the third top contributor to annual firearms lobbying, brought in alone. To reiterate, these two civil rights goliaths, historical titans of political advocacy, can barely muster a modicum of the lobbying funds just one of the eight guns rights lobbying groups listed in Open Secrets accomplishes with ease.
But what does lobbying expenditure mean? As explained by James Chen of Investopedia, lobbying is an organization’s ability to, “influence politicians and other individuals in public office” to serve private interests. Influence is often exerted through quid pro quo type agreements; a politician commits to supporting a lobbyist’s interest in exchange for campaign funding. As stated by Chen, lobbying groups source funding via membership payments and subsidiary donations. Moreover, lobbyists can push their interests through supporting certain policy in DC or through marketing across the country. On paper, lobbying is a ubiquitous tool for both industries and citizens to voice their opinions in congress, carving another layer of representation in the US political system. However, the monetary dependent nature of lobbying has cultivated a political apparatus that, bottom line, allows those with a greater cash flow to exert more influence on politicians. That’s why the nation’s top lobbying groups are dominated by private industries and corporations, not organizations promoting public interests.
When I say America has inflated the value of guns over people, I mean that our politicians are actively incentivized to side with the high value sphere of gun’s rights advocacy over that of human rights advocacy groups. Arguably, most people have heard of the NRA and the NAACP, maybe the ACLU, but what about any poverty reduction or homelessness advocacy organizations? The vast majority of Americans haven’t, because the few that do exist raise such minuscule amounts of money compared to those in higher value sectors that they couldn’t possibly steal the socio-political limelight long enough to make themselves known. In congress, guns receive more representation than anyone reading this.
Even on a social level, America continues to raise guns over people. News Gallups’ annual poll of the top issues facing America revealed that, in terms of the prevalence of non-economic issues, most Americans rank “Guns/Gun control” above international issues, the Coronavirus, cancer, welfare, drugs, terrorism, police brutality, children’s needs, LGBTQ+ issues, care for the elderly, and a horde of other vastly important issues. Issues involving the safety, security, and health of fellow Americans are rated lower than inanimate weapons on the hierarchy of prevalence.
In a bargain to make Faust weep, America has exchanged security for humanity, consistently prioritizing the safety of the individual over the welfare of the general populace. In the halls of congress, political machines with vast fiscal infrastructure fight for unfettered access to firearms, with a voice far louder than that of those heralding fundamental civil rights issues; in the American conflict between guns and people, guns are winning.