Does the NRA Think Rand Paul Is Too Extreme?
Why is the NRA snubbing pro-gun candidate Rand Paul? The answer lies in his historic affiliation with gun groups with even more extreme views than the NRA.
Why is the NRA snubbing pro-gun candidate Rand Paul? The answer lies in his historic affiliation with gun groups with even more extreme views than the NRA.
“WELCOME NRA” read the signs in the windows of every bar in downtown Nashville. The National Rifle Association has taken over the town for its annual conference—a deadly ComicCon of sorts that boasts “9 acres of guns!”—and joining them soon will be the entire field of likely Republican primary contenders, who will flood the stage of the Music City Center on Friday to fight over the affections of the pro-gun constituency.
The entire field, that is, except for Rand Paul, who was not invited.
Publicly, the NRA’s relationship with Paul is cordial, but he maintains ties to 2nd Amendment organizations, run by or involving longtime allies of his father, that are openly hostile toward the NRA. They are ties, the NRA knows, that he may never break.
“I can confirm that we did not extend an invitation,” Jennifer Blake, the NRA’s spokeswoman, told me by phone Wednesday. But, she said, it was Paul’s own fault because his campaign hadn’t requested an invitation. “They did not reach out to us,” she said.
Had they reached out, I asked, would he have been invited? “I can’t say definitively that we would have,” she said. “But I can say he was not issued an invitation.”
However, a source with knowledge of Paul’s dealings with the NRA said the claim that he did not request an invitation to the convention was “not true.”
Further, the source said, “Is that really how invitations work?”
more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/09/why-does-the-nra-suddenly-hate-rand.html?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
DO SOMETHING!
| 
