(Not so) Quick Fact - The National Gun Registry that the NRA Warned Against Already Exists

Remember the Senate fight a few months ago over new gun regulations?  Conservatives killed a bipartisan and publicly popular bill calling for universal background checks for all gun buyers. The right's main argument was that this would lead to some kind of national gun registry.  Oh, the horror!  Oh, the invasion of privacy!  How un-American!

It didn't matter to the NRA or to Senate Republicans that the bill specifically stated that the creation of such a registry would be a felony; they just wouldn't let go of their argument, and the bill died under a Republican filibuster.

Well guess what, there already is a massive and secret gun owner database.  And it wasn't created by the Justice Department or the Department of Homeland Security. According to one-time NRA lobbyist and former NRA Regional Political Director Richard Feldman, it was compiled--without the consent of gun owners--by the National Rifle Association. 

The massive database is housed in the NRA's Virginia offices and includes the identities of current, former and prospective gun owners.  The NRA has systematically built this file for years by purchasing gun permit registration lists from state and county governments.  A 2009 memo from a firm called Preferred Communications contacted the Virginia State Police asking to purchase the names of those who applied for a concealed carry permit "on behalf of the National Rifle Association."

"Can you please let me know if you offer 2008 and/or 2009 names?" and "Can you please let me know the address to send the check to and also whom to make it payable to?"

Officials in Oregon, Iowa and Arkansas reported receiving similar requests.

The NRA also collects the names of people who take gun safety classes and identifies potential gun owners by buying lists of names from gun magazine publishers and gun show attendee lists.

It must be noted that the NRA's secret database is not limited to NRA members--according to Mr. Feldman, they have the names of tens of millions of gun owners who have no association with the NRA--private citizens who have no idea that their personal information has been collected and is stored in a Virginia office building.

It would seem that the NRA's real worry wasn't the creation of a database, but the part of the bill that would make felons of themselves for already possessing one.

I didn't think there was anything the NRA and their bought-and-paid-for conservative congressmen could do that would make me dislike them more than I already did.  

I was wrong.