npr
What does an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws have to do with the Second Amendment right to own guns?
If you're the Gun Owners of America, everything.
The
GOA, a smaller cousin of the National Rifle Association that often
takes an even more aggressive approach, is branding the just-passed
Senate immigration bill, with its path to citizenship for people in the
country illegally, as an "anti-gun amnesty."
As the GOA sees it, allowing the
estimated 11 million immigrants now in the U.S. illegally to eventually
become U.S. citizens would inevitably lead to many more Democratic
voters in the electorate and thus more votes for gun control
legislation.
In an interview, Larry Pratt, the GOA's executive
director, told me his experience with many Hispanic immigrants (he said
he's bilingual and that he attends a Spanish-language church) suggests
that "they really don't know much about American politics but that their
default assumption is that the Democrats are their friends.
"And
the Democrats very likely will end up getting their votes. And if that,
indeed, winds up with a Democratic dominance politically, there go our
guns," he said.
