To the members of the National Rifle Association, we'd like to say welcome to Dallas. You are among the nation's most passionate defenders of gun rights and visit us at an urgent moment in our history.
Our request of you--the 80,000 NRA members visiting our city--is to pay careful attention to the debate raging around you.
Americans' increasing anxiety over gun crime--and particularly mass shootings--has given you a unique spotlight for your annual meeting. That's especially true with President Donald Trump joining you for a second consecutive year.
The question is, how will you use that spotlight?
Many people not aligned with the NRA see it--and its members--as monolithically opposed to change. That isn't true. For instance, the NRA is organizationally opposed to universal background checks for gun purchases; you may have participated in a 2013 survey that shows 74 percent of NRA members disagree. The government needs to take all reasonable steps to minimize the risk of massacre--in schools, movie theaters, or anyplace else. Do you want to be part of a group that stubbornly stood in the way of that?
It's no longer enough to argue against each proposed gun control measure by noting that it would not have prevented a Sandy Hook Elementary School or Aurora, Colo., true though that may be. The task before us, and you, is finding a way to stop the next one.
Recognize, too, that your critics believe in their point of view as sincerely as you do yours. And with high school students joining the fray, they are growing in influence. Nor are those critics a single voice. Some, like this newspaper, join you in supporting the Second Amendment as written and interpreted by the Supreme Court. We also back restricting access to assault-style weapons and limiting magazine capacity.
What gives the NRA its cultural power is only in part the millions of dollars it puts into political campaigns, almost exclusively Republican. More important is an energized membership of 5 million people like you.
The Second Amendment is worthy but not absolute. In its nearly 150 years, the NRA has supported specific restrictions to firearm access in the public interest. Finding solutions that protect your rights and that enhance the right of the public to be safe needs to be part of your organization's purpose.
You can ignore the debate, or you can steer it. The latter is our challenge to you while here in Dallas.
Editorial on 05/08/2018