FOR IT BEFORE THEY WERE AGAINST IT: In 1999, the NRA said there were Gun-Show Loopholes & they should be Closed.
n a May 27, 1999 congressional hearing, NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre listed the many things his organization found “reasonable.” The NRA no longer finds some of them reasonable. Among the things LaPierre said:
1999: “We think it ‘s reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone…”
2013: “My problem with background checks is you’re never going to get criminals to go through universal background checks.” He added that universal background checks — meaning not just at gun dealers, but at gun shows and private sales — would be too much of a burden for the average citizen. “None of it makes any sense in the real world!”
1999: “We think it ‘s reasonable to make gun show instant checks just like gun store instant checks…”
2013: “I do not believe the way the law is working now, unfortunately, that it does any good to extend the law to private sales between hobbyists and collectors.”
1999: “We think it’s reasonable to support the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act.”
2012: “Politicians pass laws for Gun-Free School Zones. They issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them. And in so doing, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk,” LaPierre said in his press conference last December, arguing that prohibiting guns from schools causes massacres and proposing a nationwide program to put an armed guard in each of the 99,000 public schools in the U.S.