Today, Explained - This is America

Episode Date: May 7, 2018

The NRA announced a new president today: Fox News contributor and Iran-Contra alum Oliver North. The news caps a big weekend for the organization. Tens of thousands of Americans (including President Trump) descended on Dallas for the National Rifle Association’s 147th annual meeting. Vox’s German Lopez explains how our national gunfight has and hasn’t changed since the Parkland shooting, and a longtime gun owner explains why he sawed his AR-15 in half. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, Sean, where are we right now? We are outside. It's sunny. It's beautiful. Connecticut and Rhode Island. Washington, D.C. Walking down the street. Having a great time. Do you know where we're going? I don't. Where are we going? Oh, you know where we're going. We're going to Mattress Firm. Yes! Yes! Mattressfirm.com. Podcast 10. Get to 10% off. Before June 5th now. They keep extending it. That's great!

It's great for someone. The thing about America's gunfight is that it comes and goes in waves. Everything's chill. Everyone's just doing their thing, minding their business. And then all of a sudden... There's a mass shooting, and we're at each other's throats. But this weekend, our national conversation about guns was re-energized in two dramatically different ways. Childish Gambino released a new song and video for This Is America. The video features Childish Gambino acting out some casual mass murder and literally singing

and dancing away from the violence. It's stunning, it's thought-provoking, and it's already been viewed tens upon tens of millions of times online. On the same weekend, over in Texas... Well, hello, NRA! The NRA held its 147th annual convention in Dallas. I'm a card-carrying member of the NRA. Unlike the previous 146 conventions, this one was held in the shadow of a national movement led by Parkland students to increase gun control, to change the relationship between politicians

and the NRA. And you could hear that movement in all the big convention speeches. From NRA leader Wayne LaPierre. Whenever a good guy with a gun runs toward the gunfire, the madness stops quickly. To Vice President Mike Pence. Firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens makes our communities more safe, not less. To President Donald Trump. Your Second Amendment rights are under siege, but they will never, ever be under siege as long as I'm your president.

This is America, where we always seem to be having two very different conversations about guns. And the president seems to be having both of them himself. After Parkland, he was open to expanding universal background checks and raising age restrictions on gun purchases. But this weekend, he doubled down on Second Amendment rights. It seems that if we're going to outlaw guns, like so many people want to do, Democrats,

you better get out and vote. Then we will get out, and you know what I'm going to say. We are going to have to outlaw immediately all vans and all trucks, which are now the new form of death for the maniac terrorists, right? This line is really stupid because if we had the same laws for guns that we have for like using and owning a car, our gun laws would be way stricter. Hermann Lopez reports on Guns for Vox,

and I asked him if anyone speaking at the NRA convention made any sort of post-Parkland concessions. No, not really. Mike Pence had this memorable moment where he like called for the media to cover more good guys with guns but too often many in the national media all but ignore what happens when well trained law abiding gun owners save lives it's the truth and it's like well maybe the media focuses more on the bad guys because there are more bad guys. I mean, if you just look at the statistics, guns are used way more, about 30 times more for criminal homicides than they are for self-defense justified homicides. How was the NRA affected by this whole movement in the past few months?

Was membership up, down? Donations up, down? Is this convention bigger, smaller? The one thing we do know is that donations to the NRA spiked in the aftermath of the shooting, which is typically what happens after mass shootings when there's more discussions about gun control. So we haven't really seen the NRA get weaker in that way. What we have seen is at least some politicians more willing to speak out against the NRA. I mean, one of the things that's really remarkable about the Parkland protests and March for Our Lives and that kind of thing is that they really emphasize that their enemy was the NRA in a way that previous politicians and gun control advocates, I mean, they always called out the NRA, but this was

like making them public enemy number one. We cannot move on. If we move on, the NRA and those against us will win. They want us to forget. They want our voices to be silenced, and they want to retreat into the shadows where they can remain unnoticed. They want to be back on top, unquestioned in their corruption. But we cannot and we will not let that happen.

So maybe in that way their reputation has been hurt, and we have seen their reputation hurt in terms of polling. What have you seen there, Dino? An NBC Wall Street Journal poll found that for the first time, Americans have a negative view overall of the NRA. The first time since 2000, I should say. 40% of Americans have a negative view and 37% have a negative view overall of the NRA. The first time since 2000, I should say. 40% of Americans have a negative view and 37% of a positive view. So it's not a majority of Americans oppose the NRA, but more disapprove than approve of the NRA now.

Has that changed anything at the NRA or are they sort of continuing to follow their so-called playbook after the shooting? It's pretty much the same old NRA. Like their strategy for all these mass shootings has consistently been to just kind of wait it out. And then as time goes on, they ramp up their typical message, like, we need good guys with guns, we support the Second Amendment,

this is necessary to support your other civil liberties, that kind of thing. And that's basically what they've done in the time since. Many in legacy media love mass shootings. You guys love it. Now, I'm not saying that you love the tragedy. But I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold to you and many in the legacy media in the back.

What about the rank and file of the NRA? Any difference there? Were there people who were NRA members who were speaking out in favor of expanding background checks or any of these measures that these Parkland kids were proposing? I mean, this is something that you see in general and the great majority of Americans support expanding background checks. It's like 80 plus percent of Americans do based on polling. And that applies to gun owners as well. And it applies to NRA members as well. The majority of them support expanding background checks.

In the end, the NRA as an organization actually pushes against expanding background checks at basically every opportunity at the local, state, and federal level. The NRA has been pushing against gun control since Parkland, but a bunch of states have pushed back successfully. That's after the break. This is Today Explained. All right, Sean, we're getting there. We're almost to mattress firm. But haven't we already done this? Didn't you and I once go to a mattress firm, Luke Vander Ploeg? We did, yeah, but in that case, you were holding the mic, and I was testing the mattresses. Remember that?

That's true. So are we just going to flip it on them? Why not? I mean, mattresses are for flipping, right? Are you supposed to flip your mattress? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it just goes one side up. Oh man. Well, I mean, I'm open to it. If you think it'll be different in some way,

will it be different? Well, I mean, here's the thing. We discovered through a series of experiments that a medium firmness mattress was my kind of mattress, right? But that's not everybody's mattress. You think I might be a soft or a medium guy? Maybe a firm. I could be a firm. I do have a pinched nerve from too much podcasting, so firm might be good for me. I think the firmer the mattress, the better it is on your orthopedics. Okay, sold. Let's go try this at the mattress firm. Mattressfirm.com slash explained. Slash podcast. You need to start listening to our show. I know that mattressfirm.com slash explained. Slash podcast. You need to start listening to our show. I know that mattressfirm.com.

My name is Scott Pappalardo. I'm from Orange County, New York. I believe I joined the NRA when I was about 20, and I was a member all through my 20s, probably stopped somewhere about 30. At that time, there was no particular reason I didn't disagree with their agenda back then. It was just something I didn't renew. Scott may have left the NRA years ago, but there was no changing the way he felt about guns. I mean, he has the Second Amendment tattooed on his arm.

But then the shooting in Parkland happened, and he didn't just want to get rid of his AR-15. He wanted to destroy it. I mean, think about it. Is the right to own this weapon more important than someone's life? I don't think so. So, I'm going to make sure that will never happen with my weapon. I posted it on my, it was basically my wife's Facebook account. She has 150 friends on it. I didn't expect it to obviously hit 30 million people. When Sandy Hook happened, I said to my wife that I would gladly get rid of it if it would save one child. And I didn't do

anything then. And then after Parkland, I just, I sat there pretty much glued to the television, just watching these kids come out of the school and watching their faces. And, you know, it just, like I said, it got to me. And, you know, when I bought that rifle when I was 18, I liked what it represented. It was cool. It represented the military and, you know, the gun you saw in the movies. And now it just represents hate and destruction and death.

And so to me, the only way to responsibly get rid of it was to destroy it. The outpouring of support that I got was overwhelming. As far as hate goes, you know, I had a lot of people to do. Good, now that he doesn't have any guns, let's go to his house and kill him or rob him. You know, that type of thing. But all the hate, I didn't really pay much mind to. I'd rather focus on the positive part of it. And a lot of people are brave when they're sitting behind a keyboard. People just fear, and it's put, and the NRA is fairly responsible

for this. They put a fear in the people that we're just going to come knock on the door and take all their guns away, and that's not going to happen. My personal feeling is all firearms should come with a title, just like a car does. And you have to transfer it from owner to owner. So there is a trail of where that gun goes. This is in the hands of the young people. They have to get out there and vote because that's the only way to change it. Because the NRA's membership is only 5 million strong, and the majority of the people in the

United States are not gun owners. So if you want changes, they have to get out there and vote. And the young people is where the vote is going to be the strongest. Hermann, President Trump and the NRA were clearly towing the line this weekend, but this movement has seen some gains at the state level, right? Yeah, there have been, I think, a few notable moments that were gun control victories. I mean, there have been a few articles just labeling this as like the NRA is on a losing streak. So one is Florida passed tougher gun laws. One of them is boosting the age of people who are allowed to buy rifles.

18 to 21? 18 to 21, that's right. And they also made it easier for the police to take guns away from somebody who's suspicious. And they've already used this ability, according to some reports, to prevent what they thought might have been some really bad shootings. Another notable example is Vermont, which is, even though it's generally a democratic state, it's also been very, very friendly to guns. And it passed a suite of gun laws signed by the Republican governor there, basically strengthening background checks. I mean, it was like a really typical package of gun laws aimed at restricting access to guns, particularly for anybody who's a criminal purchasing a gun and that kind of thing. And I think the last example that's worth pulling out is Kansas, which is absolutely not the most liberal state in the country.

Very red state. Yeah. Very pro-gun. And it passed a law essentially making it harder for people convicted of domestic abuse from getting a firearm. So, I mean, these are like three examples of notable changes in state laws, at least. And they kind of like set the scene. Like if you talk to gun control activists, they say that there is a lot of energy behind them right now. If you look at the polling, that's now dwindling a bit. It always seems different after a mass shooting, but like you

can't deny that this time is different because you had tens of thousands of people across the country marching back in March in the March for Our Lives and all these walkouts organized throughout the country, which also feels different. Right. But you also can't deny that there are states that are actually loosening their gun laws. Just this past week, the Oklahoma legislature passed a bill that would allow people to carry guns without any sort of license or permit. And there are similar laws in place already in a bunch of other states. But this is like something we've seen time and time again, while blue states generally are moving towards tougher gun laws, red states generally are responding toward laxer gun laws.

I mean, you see this ideological divide that liberals and Democrats generally believe that guns make things more dangerous. More access to guns equals more gun violence. And conservatives and Republicans generally believe that, well, when you relax access to guns and more people can defend themselves, that reduces gun violence. One of the most memorable things that happened in the weeks after Parkland was this town hall in Florida where Marco Rubio was answering questions students had and got called out, basically. Senator Rubio, can you tell me right now that you will not accept a single donation from the NRA in the future? No, the answer to the question is that people buy into my agenda.

And that's why I support the things that I have stood for and fought for during my time there. More NRA money? More NRA money? That is the wrong way to look. First of all, the answer is people buy into my agenda. You could say no. Number second, well,

I, the influence of any group. We're gonna be here all night. The influence of these groups comes not from money. The influence comes from the millions of people that agree with the agenda. The millions of Americans that support the NRA and who support gun rights. Nothing really came of that, of course, as far as legislation is concerned in D.C. How is this not even like a blip on Congress's radar?

The simple fact of the matter is that Republicans own every level of government right now. They own Congress and the White House. Yeah. And they have generally been supportive of gun rights. I mean, one of their biggest backers in terms of a public organization is the NRA. Their base is very, very supportive of gun rights. Basically, if you're a Republican, you have to constantly fear that if you support even the slightest extra restriction on firearms, you will be primaried and you will lose because your very core base is very supportive of the right to bear arms. The other thing about this is that if you imagine the typical supporter of gun rights, you're thinking of

somebody who's really passionate, really supports their right to bear arms, and will make it a single issue for them. If you try to imagine the equivalent of that on the left, it's just not nearly as common. Like people who are liberal do tend to support stricter laws regarding firearms. That's for sure true. But they generally have a bunch of other issues on their radar that take priority. So healthcare, the economy, in some cases, national security, racism, social justice, all these other things take priority. And that's why we see Congress, even when it's controlled by Democrats, this issue just very often does not come to the top of the list for them because the base on the left is much less motivated by guns than the base on

the right is. So if a bill comes to Congress that's going to expand background checks, if you're a Republican, you're going to be flooded with calls by people who support gun rights. If you're a Democrat, you might get some calls, but it's not going to be nearly as passionate. And you see this in public polling that generally people who support stricter gun laws are much less likely to contact their representative in Congress about it. It sounds like watching this NRA convention wasn't very fruitful for you. I wonder, as someone who's been covering this issue for several years now, where do you look to see how this country is sort of progressing or maybe even moving backwards? One is that in the long term, America is moving toward the direction

of supporting stricter gun laws. In the short term, though, after mass shootings, we see this up where people support more restrictions on guns and then this down where people, like that just fades away over time. People start losing interest in the issue or whatever. So I think keeping that in mind, I think what's important to look at is

that there is something sustaining interest in this issue. It's not enough for people to care immediately after a mass shooting. If real change is going to happen, people have to sustain the momentum. Herman Lopez is a senior reporter at Vox. I'm Sean Ramos-Firm. This is Today Explained. All right, Sean, we have arrived. Can you tell us where are we?

We are at the friendly neighborhood mattress firm location in DuPont Circle, Washington, D.C. Nice. Yeah, should we head inside? Why not? And I should point out probably before we enter that there's another option here. You can just visit mattressfirm.com slash podcast and get 10% off using the coupon code podcast10. Sounds good to me.

But why not visit a store sometimes? Why not?