Buzzfeed has reported on the NRA’s efforts to build a database of possibly tens of millions of gun owners from data they were able to obtain from states on gun and hunting permit owners. Interesting, yes? This is the same NRA that manufactures its outrage over the press publishing the publicly available list of people with gun permits. The NRA specifically fundraises off of manufactured fear that the government is creating lists of gun owners in order to seize those guns, or some such. As if the government didn’t outgun these gun owners anyway. But here is the NRA specifically building the database it accuses the government of trying to do — so where *is* all of the conservative outrage on this data collection effort that is being done without the permission of those gun or hunting permit owners?
The National Rifle Association has rallied gun owners — and raised tens of millions of dollars — campaigning against the threat of a national database of firearms or their owners.
But in fact, the sort of vast, secret database the NRA often warns of already exists, despite having been assembled largely without the knowledge or consent of gun owners. It is housed in the Virginia offices of the NRA itself. The country’s largest privately held database of current, former, and prospective gun owners is one of the powerful lobby’s secret weapons, expanding its influence well beyond its estimated 3 million members and bolstering its political supremacy.
That database has been built through years of acquiring gun permit registration lists from state and county offices, gathering names of new owners from the thousands of gun safety classes taught by NRA-certified instructors and by buying lists of attendees of gun shows, subscribers to gun magazines, and more, BuzzFeed has learned.
The result: a big data powerhouse that deploys the same high-tech tactics all year round that the vaunted Obama campaign used to win two presidential elections.
So — does this mean that the NSA has this list now? Just sayin’…..