Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) predicted the end of the NRA on Tuesday.
“The NRA is crumbling. The gun lobby is cratering, it’s dividing, it’s fraught with internal divisions and even corruption,” Blumenthal said at a press conference.
“It's only a matter of time. It may not be this session, but remember that Republicans joined in passing the universal background check bill in the house. Not a lot but a handful. They see the handwriting on the wall. So will other Republican colleagues. And they're going to see that the NRA is an emperor without clothes and just no longer has the power that it did financially, politically or in any other way,” Blumenthal claimed.
Blumenthal made the comments outside the U.S. Capitol during an announcement to re-introduce the Equal Access to Justice for Victims of Gun Violence legislation.
The legislation seeks to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which was signed into law in 2005. The PLCAA prohibits civil liability against firearms manufacturers and distributers from “injunctive or other relief resulting from the misuse of their products by others.”
The act says:
The possibility of imposing liability on an entire industry for harm that is solely caused by others is an abuse of the legal system, erodes public confidence in our Nation's laws, threatens the diminution of a basic constitutional right and civil liberty, invites the disassembly and destabilization of other industries and economic sectors lawfully competing in the free enterprise system of the United States, and constitutes an unreasonable burden on interstate and foreign commerce of the United States.