The National Rifle Association has publicly claimed for years that we just need to “fully
enforce existing federal gun laws,”2 rather than “[p]assing new gun laws.”3 Yet the NRA’s
actions reveal this claim to be utter hypocrisy. For more than three decades, the NRA
has consistently and systematically worked to undermine and hamstring the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and to weaken enforcement of federal gun laws.
The NRA has also ridiculed and chastised the law enforcement officers who enforce our
gun laws. It has branded law enforcement officers as dangerous “agents wearing nazi bucket
helmets and black storm trooper uniforms” who “harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding
citizens.”4 While blasting law enforcement, it has sought to protect gun law violators, even
granting one rogue gun dealer – Sanford Abrams, whose Baltimore gun shop was caught
committing 900 violations of federal gun laws – a seat on its Board of Directors.5