Inside the Power of the N. R. A. Still, a year after the Newtown killings, the question of why nothing new has been done to address Americas gun violence is a vexing one. To begin to answer it requires a close look at why Joe Manchin failed in his effort to pass a fairly minimal change closing loopholes in the existing gun laws. The defeat of the bill not only provides a case study in how the N. Page One: Inside The New York Times Full Movie Part 1' title='Page One: Inside The New York Times Full Movie Part 1' />Its not as if any of us wants to live like this its something we collectively force one another to do. At a swanky party in a Beverly Hills, Calif., mansion last Saturday, I spot Bill Maher in a sea of beautiful young women and make my approach. Are you a. R. A. operates but also reveals its potential frailties. Whether the N. R. A. s new and well financed adversaries can exploit them is another matter. Doing so will most likely involve more than just standing up for the vulnerable young faces on Manchins wall. It will also require taking stock of, and appreciating, the resonance of the armed figure in his lobby. President Obama was at his desk on the afternoon of the Newtown shootings, when two speechwriters, Jon Favreau and Cody Keenan, entered the Oval Office to receive his edits of the statement they wrote about the horrendous episode. After a movie theater shooting that left at least 12 dead and 58 wounded, witnesses described a scene of claustrophobia, panic and blood. Directed by Andrew Rossi. With David Carr, Sarah Ellison, Larry Ingrassia, Dennis Crowley. Unprecedented access to the New York Times newsroom yields a complex view. Credit Nick Veasey for The New York Times. To get to Joe Manchins private office in the Hart Senate Office Building, you first pass through a lobby. This is the first installment in a twopart series. THE QUIZ 1 The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes. New Yorks guide to theater, restaurants, bars, movies, shopping, fashion, events, activities, things to do, music, art, books, clubs, tours, dance nightlife. I cant read that, Obama said quietly, crossing out a couple of lines. I wont be able to get through them. That evening, Obama convened a group of top aides in the Oval Office and informed them that passing gun legislation would now take priority in his already cluttered second term agenda. Five days later, at a news conference, Obama announced that Vice President Joe Biden would be leading a monthlong search for proposals that I then intend to push without delay. When a reporter asked, What about the N. R. A. the president replied Well, the N. R. A. is an organization that has members who are mothers and fathers. And I would expect that theyve been impacted by this as well. And hopefully theyll do some self reflection. The N. News Corp. R. A. was doing precisely that. In the week that followed the shooting, the organizations two top officials its chief executive, Wayne La. Pierre, and Chris Cox, the executive director of the N. R. A. s Institute for Legislative Action spoke by phone numerous times. La. Pierre, who is 6. He spends the majority of his time on the road, raising money and interacting with N. R. A. members, who routinely address him by his first name. Despite his accessibility with gun owners and the homespun manner in which N. R. A. phone solicitors tell members that Wayne would like to offer them discounts on N. R. A. products, La. Pierre is notably guarded with the media. After Newtown, he traveled with security guards who, because of death threats, cased TV studios in advance of his rare interviews. The N. R. A. refused my repeated requests to speak with him. By contrast, Cox, who is 4. Capitol in a small space above Bullfeathers, a popular watering hole for Hill staff members. In their conversations, Cox told La. Pierre that he did not yet have a clear sense of how their congressional allies were reacting to the Newtown shootings. Coxs instinct was that the N. R. A. should stay quiet for the time being, as it had done following past shootings. Instead La. Pierre decided to respond forcefully, without consulting the N. R. A. s lobbyists or its full 7. One week after the shootings, he stood behind a lectern at the Willard Inter. Continental hotel a few blocks from the White House and broke into a blistering attack on the news media, the movie industry and video game manufacturers while defiantly declaring, The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Several N. R. A. friendly legislators found La. Pierres speech to be tone deaf and recommended to his colleagues that someone else serve as the groups spokesman. Photo. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia came to support a gun control bill. Credit. Manuel Balce CenetaAssociated Press La. Pierres combativeness was nonetheless in keeping with the N. R. A. s recent history as an organization that views its cause as an embattled one. It hasnt always been that way. Founded in 1. 87. Union soldiers, the group was originally a nonpolitical and noncontroversial league of sportsmen and remained so for nearly a century. Everything changed, however, during the urban tumult of the 1. Martin Luther King Jr. Robert Kennedy. The 1. Gun Control Act imposed a licensing system for purchases, mandated serial numbers on weapons, banned certain gun imports and barred felons and illicit drug users from obtaining firearms. Gun loving legislators like Representative John Dingell of Michigan worried that even harsher restrictions were imminent and clamored for the N. R. A. to wake up and enter the political arena. The lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, was formed in 1. Two years later at a now famous annual convention in Cincinnati, Dingell and other N. R. A. allies ousted the groups reigning executives, who saw the organization largely as a haven for gentlemen hunters, and replaced them with fire breathing Second Amendment absolutists. The new lobbying director, Harlon Carter, then led an energetic campaign to boost membership. Harlon came up with the idea that theyd need four million members, and everybody thought this was impossible, but by golly, he did it, Dingell told me. Today the N. R. A. Millions more do not pay dues but perhaps because theyve taken the groups firearm safety course say in surveys that they are members. The N. R. A. scored its first major victory when Dingell and other friends on the Hill succeeded in passing the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1. Once the Democrats regained the White House in 1. N. R. A. was again put on the defensive, when President Bill Clinton and Congress passed a ban on assault weapons. The gun group then targeted the bills proponents during the midterm elections. Many of them lost and Republicans became the majority. Watch The Way Of War Full Movie. The N. R. A. is the reason Republicans control the House, Clinton ruefully observed, thereby cementing the groups reputation as a political force to be feared. Following the Columbine shootings in 1. Clinton pushed for universal background checks. Futurama Season 7 Episode 21 Assie Come Home. Initially, the N. R. A. went on record supporting an amendment by Dingell that watered down a bill extending background checks to gun shows. But ultimately the scandal ridden and lame duck president was no match for the N. R. A., whose congressional allies killed the bill entirely. By the time the Virginia Tech murders occurred in 2. Washington Any major legislation that the N. R. A. opposed stood little to no chance of passage. But the uniquely awful nature of the Newtown tragedy, coupled with Obamas recent victory, augured a battle far more difficult than any the N. R. A. recently faced. Aware that the struggle would be fierce and expensive, the group made it as easy as we could for people to join, says David Keene, who recently retired as N. R. A. president. It offered discounts on annual and lifetime memberships. In the six months after Newtown, as gun control advocates pushed for legislation, the N. R. A. was able to recruit more than a million new members, Andrew Arulanandam, an N. R. A. spokesman, said. This meant millions more for the groups coffers. Still, the gun lobby had no clear sense initially of how its efforts would be waged, and to what end. On Jan. 1. 0, 2. 01. Biden hosted a meeting in his Executive Office Building suite with several Second Amendment supporters, including the veteran N. R. A. lobbyist Jim Baker. When Biden asked if the N. R. A. would consider supporting a ban on assault weapons or high capacity magazine clips, Bakers answer was a crisp no. But when asked the same thing about universal background checks, Baker equivocated, saying, Id have to see what youre talking about. Baker knew this was thorny territory for the N. R. A. Extending background checks to firearms purchases at gun shows and over the Internet, with the aim of making it harder for felons and the mentally ill to acquire weapons, remains popular and not just among liberals. According to a CBS NewsNew York Times poll taken in the days after the Biden meeting, 9. Americans favored universal background checks.