Coalition to Stop Gun Violence petition for NRA investigation, gun control support falling among blacks
Gun control advocates are calling on the Federal Election, accusng the group of failing to report millions of dollars in political expenditures over the last several election cycles. New data from Yahoo shows that support for gun control in the black community is waning.
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence on Thursday delivered a petition signed by more than 11,000 people demanding the FEC and IRS investigate the gun lobby’s fundraising activities.
This follows a formal complaint lodged against the NRA last month by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
“The NRA should be transparent about the millions of dollars it is spending on political activities,” the petition reads.
The complaints stem from a Yahoo News report that alleged the NRA illegally solicited donations and failed to report $33 million in political expenditures between 2008 and 2013. That led to $600,000 is missed taxes, the media outlet concluded.
The report alleges the NRA solicited donations for nonpolitical purposes but then used that money to pay for electioneering.
Anthony Cumia’s twitter photo
“The NRA is going to have to do better than, ‘The dog ate my homework,’ ” said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “No one is above the rule of law, including Wayne LaPierre and the NRA leadership. We have election and tax laws in place to ensure the integrity of our electoral process, and we urge the FEC to take a closer look into the NRA’s activities.”
Meanwhile, gun control opinions in America contiunes to reshape and evolve.
“…the level of African American support for gun control has fallen by 14 percentage points since 1993, when it stood at 74%,” according to new Pew data.
“If anyone should have the right or need to carry a gun, it should be the African-American community,” said Philip Smith, who earlier this year founded the National African American Gun Association, which he says now has a couple of hundred members.
He cited slavery and the Jim Crow-era South as reasons that blacks should arm themselves, noting that “all those things happened to us because we weren’t able to defend ourselves.”
Smith says he expects that the massacre in Charleston last month will draw more African Americans to the idea that guns are necessary for protection. “Just think if one of those folks had a gun, or two or three,” he said.
