Year: 2009

Shelia Dixon of Baltimore.  Accused of stealing 12 counts of stealing money from the homeless and needly children.

Yesterday we talked about the sources of political capital for gun control organizations. If we understand the sources of the Brady Campaign’s political power, then we would also be remiss if we did not discuss ways it can be undermined.  There are a few ways we have done, and are already doing that.

Heller is perhaps the newest tool that we have won in order to attack one of the core sources of Brady’s political power, and how powerful it will be has not yet played out.  But for the first time, it gives us a tool to attack infringements on Second Amendment rights that exist in parts of the country where our political power has been utterly destroyed, and there is no culture of responsible, legal gun ownership to speak of.   Even though Heller has been embraced by Brady, because it takes the fear of confiscation off the table, as Dave Hardy pointed out to us a few nights ago, if Brady thinks Heller is so great then certainly incorporation of the Second Amendment would be fifty times better.  But they are smart enough to know spin from reality.  They will fight incorporation tooth and nail, because it will give people in the areas affected by these bans or near bans the opportunity to legally procure firearms.  It will mean gun shops and pistol ranges opening up in places like Chicago and New York City.  Exposure to firearms makes their fear mongering and disinformation considerably less effective.

The biggest damage that gun owners have done to the Brady Campaign over the past two decades is enhanced our own political reputation at the expense of theirs.  The Brady Campaign has not made any significant progress on gun control at the federal level since 1994.  It’s made very little at the state level too.  In the period since then, they’ve been losing ground on many fronts.  Their lack of effectiveness, and lack of ability to keep gun control in the political spotlight has hurt donations and media relationships.  Even though this past election offers Brady the opportunity to flip the tables, the Democrats won because the media largely did the Democrats a favor by ignoring gun control entirely.

But Brady’s media relations started very strong, and still are.  Media is one area I think the NRA is sadly deficient.  It is a challenging environment, because it’s ground that The Brady Campaign owns.  It would be difficult for them to make inroads through a direct attack, but that’s not to say there’s no way to make inroads.  There are many things NRA does get right.  NRA-ILA’s new media outreach efforts, so far, have been pretty good, and traditional media sees them as a resource on gun control issues.  Folks in advancement has been doing some pretty impressive work using social networking. But NRA as a whole organization has no unified media strategy, and it needs one.  NRA cannot just think of media as a resource for supporting/opposing the issue or legislation du jour.  There needs to be an overall strategy for helping the story of responsible gun use infiltrate its way into media circles.

Fortunately, the changes in technology offer a prime opportunity, and are reshaping the media landscape to be less favorable to Brady, and more favorable to us.  The Internet is doing the same thing to the media establishment in the early part of the 21st century that the personal computer did to the computing industry in the late 20th century.  Just like personal computing made computing available to the average person, undermining the large computing oligopoly enjoyed by companies like IBM, Honeywell, Unisys, and Siemens, the Internet has made the means of publication and distribution effectively free, undermining large media giants like The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and the LA Times.  Network TV newsrooms have fared little better.  Cable news is doing better, but is seeing some losses, and isn’t growing like it once did.

Democratization of news doesn’t necessarily mean all old forms of media disappear, but it does mean things will change.  In many ways, NRA is in a much better position to capitalize on this moving forward, because it has actual grass roots which can participate in this democratization.  But NRA is not perfectly oriented in this regard.  The next few years will likely see some big media giants fall, and Brady’s political capital along with it.  We ought to be in there picking up the pieces.  You can bet Brady will be.

Since we talked about NRA and political capital here and here.  It’s an interesting exercise to think about what the Brady Campaign’s sources of political capital are.  I think they look a lot different than NRA.

1. Media relationships.  Without a doubt, Brady would be nothing without this.  Their access to media, their ability to shape their public message, and to ultimately shape the public debate is unbelievably strong.  I can think of few other issue advocacy groups that play the media game better than The Brady Campaign.
2. Existing laws. The existing gun laws are actually a significant source of their political power.  Outright bans or severe and heavy restrictions in several of America’s largest major metropolitan areas have so severely depressed gun ownership in these areas that no one has any familiarity with guns, or their responsible use.  Few middle class people own guns themselves, or have even fired one.  This makes them very fertile soil for Brady to plant their seeds of disinformation with help from a friendly media.
3. Political reputation.  The Brady Campaign was responsible for the third major change in federal gun control laws, and had a strong influence on the laws of a few states.  The third major change in those laws even bears the name “The Brady Act.”  Even though they were called Handgun Control Inc. when the Brady Act passed, they were smart enough to change their name.  They have a reputation for passing gun control, which no other gun control organization out there can claim.
4. Donors.  Brady doesn’t have a concept of membership in the same manner than NRA does, in large part because it has its roots in issue advocacy, whereas NRA has its roots in promoting the shooting sports.  The Brady Campaign has a much smaller grass roots presence, but maintaining healthy media relationships isn’t as resource intense as lobbying and political activity, which they also do, but with very powerful help from the media establishment.
5. Issue expertise.  We know they are full of shit on guns, but the media doesn’t.  They are the go-to group when it comes to gun control topics.

It’s pretty clear that the core of the Brady Campaign’s political power is their media relationships, while NRA’s core is their membership.  The great thing about Brady’s sources of political capital is they aren’t easily exhausted.  They can maintain a high degree of media activity without much cost, which can serve to publicly embarrass politicians that oppose gun control, and publicly support those who do.  Because of their ability to shape elite cultural opinion through the media, they can basically make gun ownership a net social liability; where at a polite dinner party you’re about as likely to want to talk about a gun collection as a porn collection.