NRA Loses Key Supporter Over ‘Reasonable’ Background Checks

The National Rifle Association may have won the war (or at least, round one) over gun control on Capitol Hill this week, but not at the expense of one of the group’s most powerful and staunch supporters.

Adolphus Busch IV, heir to the Busch family fortune and a 38-year member of the NRA, resigned his membership after the group’s successful lobby against the expansion of the background check system.

Though he’s absolutely a firm pro-gun advocate, avid environmentalist and hunter, Busch thinks that expanding background checks on gun purchasers is “reasonable,” reports KSDK. In a letter sent directly to NRA President David Keene, Busch explained why he chose to resign from the group’s rolls.

“It disturbs me greatly to see this rigid new direction of the NRA,” Busch wrote. “One only has to ask why the NRA reversed its original position on background checks. Was it not the NRA position to support background checks when Mr. LaPierre himself stated in 1999 that NRA saw checks as ‘reasonable’?”

Busch also noted that he’s not alone in his support of background checks, and implied that the NRA’s leadership stood in direct opposition to the will of its members.

“I fail to see how the NRA can disregard the overwhelming will of its members who see background checks as reasonable,” Busch wrote.

The NRA took a firm stance against legislation that proposed to expand background checks for gun purchasers, calling such proposals “misguided.”

Busch pointed out that the NRA should devote its strength to protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens, and failed to see how their war on background checks had anything to do with that.

“The NRA I see today has undermined the values upon which it was established. Your current strategic focus clearly places priority on the needs of gun and ammunition manufacturers while disregarding the opinions of your 4 million individual members,” he pointedly wrote.

He concluded by stating that the NRA’s leadership works in favor of “manufacturing interests” instead of the interests of its members.

“One only has to look at the makeup of the 75-member board of directors, dominated by manufacturing interests, to confirm my point. The NRA appears to have evolved into the lobby for gun and ammunition manufacturers rather than gun owners.”

What do you think? Was the NRA right to oppose background checks?

[Image via: Stephanie Frey, Shutterstock.com]