This week, we unfortunately have to talk about a story that comes with a content warning.
News of NRA CEO Doug Hamlin’s involvement in the torture and killing of a cat during college resurfaced on Monday. Hamlin has denied “direct” involvement, but contemporaneous reporting indicates his role was more than ancillary. Cam Edwards of Bearing Arms joins the show to work out what this all means for the already-battered NRA.
Cam said the story is gruesome and will make it difficult for Hamlin to effectively reform the organization as he’s said he wants to. But he also argued it may not stick to the NRA for longer than Hamlin is around, especially given the lightning-quick nature of the modern news cycle.
He also said the animal cruelty story may have had an impact on the group canceling its Georgia event with Donald Trump, but that might also be part of a broader trend of Trump canceling events. Still, he said the scandal is likely to hurt the NRA’s efforts to rebound from its previous CEO’s, as yet unsettled, corruption scandal. And it’s becoming increasingly clear how much that’s put them at a disadvantage against the gun-control groups when it comes to political spending.
We also discuss Elon Musk’s recent pro-gun turn and whether he could become a counter to Michael Bloomberg’s funding of gun-control groups.
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Plus, Contributing writer Jake Fogleman and I cover new polling that finds the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision is more popular than ever. We also talk about the Court’s recent move to grant, vacate, and remand a lower court decision that sided with pro-gun plaintiffs. We briefly touch on some recent ad spending blitzes from the gun groups before wrapping up with a discussion of what either a Trump or Harris presidency might mean in practice for gun policy.
2 Responses
On the Doug Hamlin story, the main issue is lack of transparency. I suspect the Reformers would not have chosen him as President. I am not saying we should be looking for a Saint, especially when going back looking at what all of us may or may not have done back in our 20s. He was elected as the President of his Fraternity which shows he has the capability for leadership. The problem is he failed to stop immoral behavior of his fellow colleagues, which makes me wonder about the quality of his leadership in the NRA when things continue to be turbulent.
Yea, that is an important point. It’s possible the NRA board would’ve picked Hamlin to be EVP knowing about this. But they should’ve been able to make that decision with a full understanding of his background.