After more than a century of existence and despite successive crises, the National Rifle Association (NRA) is not content to fund the campaigns of candidates.
Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Parkland … Since the massacre of Columbine High School, there have been a dozen mass killings in American schools, recalled the ABC News television channel, on the occasion of the twenty years of the killing that had died on April 20, 1999. In 2018, an investigation by Washington Post Since then, there have been 130 children killed in their school and more than 187,000 students exposed to school shootings.
What was not the surprise – and anger – of many parents and students when they discovered that the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), the pro-American lobby systematically implicated after each shootout, was raising money up to inside their high school, as reported Sunday, November 4, Washington Post. After more than a century of existence and despite successive crises, nothing seems to stop the NRA in its work of proselytism.
In Greenville, Kentucky, the Friends of NRA ("Friends of the NRA"), which raises funds for the lobby, moved into the gymnasium of this high school in Muhlenberg County to organize a raffle with batches of rifles, semi-automatic handguns, assault rifles and shotguns.
Weapon pictures instead of real ones
While the issue of gun control has become more important than ever in the public debate following the killing of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in February 2018, NRA resistance is being organized. In this part of Kentucky – a state bordering the deep South and the Midwest – the memory of the Marshall County High School shooting near Benton, 130 kilometers from Greenville, is still alive and well.
On January 23, 2018, a student opened fire on his comrades, killing two students and wounding fourteen others. A few months after the shooting, in August 2018, a hundred people had demonstrated at Murray State University, a few dozen kilometers away, against the arrival of Oliver North, the outgoing president of the NRA, participate in a fundraiser for the Republican Party. At Muhlenberg High School in early November, in response to the objections of parents who spoke about the shooting, the organizers of the raffle finally showed only … pictures of weapons.
Provide funding for the NRA
Since its inception in 1992, Friends of NRA has hosted thousands of events like the Greenville Raffle and raised $ 815 million. The raised funds are then transferred to the NRA Foundation, which donates about half to clubs promoting the shooting. The rest goes directly to the NRA coffers.
For years, the NRA has invested heavily in election campaigns, mainly for the benefit of Republicans. It provided $ 31.2 million to Donald Trump in 2016. But contributions from donors dropped by $ 26 million (-21%) between 2016 and 2017, and its deficit widened from , $ 8 million in 2016 to $ 31.8 million the following year, according to an audit obtained by the organization OpenSecrets that investigates money in politics.
Despite the killings, some schools continue to accept money from the NRA … to supplement their budget. "Our support is generally well received"says Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the NRA. According to Washington PostApproximately 123 schools have agreed in 2017 to nearly $ 1.4 million in cash and equipment grants from the NRA Foundation. This represents approximately 5% of the $ 30 million granted by the Foundation in the form of grants in 2017.
