Wisconsin Citizens Join the Rest of the Country in Saying, Thanks, but No Thanks to the Gun Lobby’s Extremist Agenda
NRA Endorsements and Money Are, Once Again, Meaningless in Election
(November 5, 2008, Milwaukee, WI) – The citizens of Wisconsin won another overwhelming victory against the extremism of the gun lobby this election.
“Commonsense, democracy, and Wisconsin citizens who want to live in safe communities won,” said Jeri Bonavia, Executive Director of Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort.
“The big loser yesterday was the pro gun lobby. Voters ignored the gun lobby’s endorsements and rejected the gun lobby’s radical pro gun agenda. We saw this playing out in races all across the state, such as Assembly District 2, where Representative Frank Lasee, the legislator who wanted to ‘arm the teachers’ in response to school shootings, was defeated,” said Bonavia. “The gun lobby talks a big game, but we’re simply too smart, too savvy, and too pragmatic to be fooled or intimidated.”
Voters truly value Wisconsin’s gun culture, but they refuse to be misled by extremist rhetoric. For example, just last week, the Lake County News Chronicle reported that, “John Rusch, an avid gun collector, identified the National Rifle Association (NRA) as the organization which has misled sportsmen about gun control issues. Rusch suggested that the once reliable NRA has…used their control to scare sportsmen and sportswomen about the future of gun ownership.” Like Mr. Rusch, Wisconsin voters reject the gun lobby’s nonsense.
Yet, because Wisconsin is a “gun friendly” state, the gun lobby continues to set Wisconsin in their sights at election time. Using money and endorsements in an attempt to influence the election, the gun lobby tries to secure a legislative body that will march in lockstep with them. The NRA even tried to persuade Wisconsinites to vote against Obama through television advertising throughout the state, but The Obama-Biden ticket, which clearly supports sensible gun laws, won convincingly.
Nationally, the NRA claimed they would spend $40 million dollars on this election. “Even by today’s standards, the gun lobby made a bad investment,” said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “They invested millions of dollars and got virtually nothing in return.”
Indeed, Brady Campaign officials believe that the Supreme Court decision in D.C. v. Heller may be part of the reason that the gun lobby’s old rhetoric trying to scare legitimate gun owners about possible confiscation of their privately-owned firearms, was rejected at the polls. “Guns are no longer a ‘wedge’ issue for most voters,” Helmke said. “Rather than being frightened with false alarms about the government taking their guns away, most voters want to do something to make it harder for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons and stop the trafficking in illegal guns.”