We often tend to focus on how our National Rifle Association repeatedly wins in the U.S. Supreme Court and in the U.S. Congress. And indeed, victories at those levels are vitally important to safeguarding our Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms.
However, the diligent work NRA does at the state level is something we don’t herald as much as we should. Every day that state legislatures throughout the country are in session, NRA-ILA state workers and NRA-ILA Grassroots volunteers are fighting the good fight to scuttle anti-gun bills and ensure passage of measures that protect the rights of lawful gun owners in those states.
In fact, the effort in the states is an excellent example of our Association’s tenacity where legislation is concerned. Our NRA-ILA state workers, as well as our grassroots organizations, do an excellent job in bringing important issues before state legislators, keeping them before the state legislators and making sure that they get across the finish line.
One great example is the effort in many states to ban so-called “assault weapons,” which seems to be never-ending. However, our effort to fight against bans on common, semi-automatic firearms is equally diligent.
In Colorado, a measure that would have banned countless semi-automatic firearms, including the AR-15 and many other rifles, pistols and shotguns that Coloradans use for hunting, target shooting and self-defense, died a much-needed death. In Maine, a measure that would have created a backdoor ban on commonly owned firearms and firearm parts by redefining a “machine gun” to include any semi-automatic firearm that includes parts that can “increase the rate of fire” was defeated, thanks to diligent efforts by NRA and Second Amendment allies in the Pine Tree State. Lawmakers in Minnesota and New Mexico also defeated such bans this year.
Another important battleground is our fight against so-called “red-flag” laws that undermine state citizens’ Second Amendment rights by limiting due process. This session, NRA directors on the ground and grassroots NRA members helped defeat such Biden-backed proposals in Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire and Tennessee. Additionally, Virginia’s governor vetoed a bill expanding that state’s existing “red-flag” law.
While these are examples of arguably unconstitutional anti-gun measures being defeated in the states with our help, passage of laws that protect gun owners’ rights is equally important. And this spring, efforts in supporting pro-gun state legislation also resulted in a number of important victories.
The continued expansion of constitutional, or “permitless,” carry is one that can’t be overstated. During the 2024 legislative sessions, lawmakers in two additional states—Louisiana and South Carolina—passed such laws with the crucial help of NRA workers and grassroots volunteers, bringing the total number of constitutional-carry states to 29.
Another prime example from this spring’s state legislative sessions is our widespread effort to combat states or state entities that grant government contracts to companies that discriminate against the firearm industry. The answer to this problem is Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) legislation, and both Idaho and Louisiana passed such legislation this year. This brings the total to eight states that now have laws to prevent “woke” corporate banks that have discriminatory policies against firearm industry members from collecting taxpayer dollars through state contracts.
In an even more insidious anti-firearm scheme, the privacy of America’s gun owners has been under attack in recent years since the International Organization for Standardization adopted what is known as a special Merchant Category Code (MCC) for gun purchases. In a nutshell, MCCs are used by payment processors (like Visa and Mastercard) and other financial services companies to categorize retail transactions. Historically, firearm retailers were included in the MCC for sporting-goods stores and miscellaneous retail. When this new MCC is used, credit card companies and other payment processors can see that the purchases were for firearms, basically creating a de facto registry of guns and gun owners.
NRA-ILA’s state-level effort to outlaw the use of the new MCC code has yielded significant success, with nine additional states passing such legislation already this year. Look for this effort to continue in order to protect more gun owners in more states.
I’m proud of the job our state-level employees and grassroots organizations do in working side-by-side with state lawmakers throughout the country. They have to have patience, but also must have a certain amount of chutzpah to push these issues and keep them in the forefront. At the same time, they can’t alienate lawmakers. There’s a very fine line there, and our legislative people and our grassroots people do a very good job of straddling that line to ensure the Second Amendment is protected against assaults, both direct and indirect, for our members and for all Americans.
