Fact Check Friday: Assault Weapons Sales Funding NRA Salaries?
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - It's time for Fact Check Friday, when with the help of factcheck.org, a nonpartisan non-profit part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, why try to find the truth.
Today's claim to check is from newly sworn-in junior Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, who spoke on CNN.
"When assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are bought in this country, often, the NRA gets a cut of those sales through its Round-Up program, where the purchase price is rounded up to the nearest dollar and the NRA gets the difference," he said. "The NRA makes money. They pay their salaries off of these gun purchases."
So, do assault weapons sales really pay NRA salaries?
Fact Check Friday: Assault Weapons Sales Funding NRA Salaries?
"Well, what the Senator did there was make an inflammatory statement that distorts the facts," factcheck.org's Eugene Keily told WCBS 880's Wayne Cabot. "The NRA doesn't get a cut from assault weapons sales. What they're getting is a donation from gun customers at the time of the purchase. It's a fundraising program like the one that supermarkets use these days, you know, where you go to the cash register to check out and they ask you for a dollar to fight cancer or hunger or whatever cause that they're looking to raise money for. The larger of the two programs is run by the NRA Foundation and the foundation uses that money for community programs and organizations. It gave more that 220,000 grants worth more than $20 million in 2010 for gun safety courses and groups like local gun shops and shooting ranges, even Boy Scout groups and 4H Clubs."
"The fact is that the NRA does not represent gun owners anymore. This is not your father's NRA. It represents gun manufacturers," Murphy also said.
Is there any evidence to back that up?
"Well, that's kind of a strange statement because he says that and then he points to this Round-Up program as evidence that the NRA doesn't represent gun owners when, in fact, it's the gun owners who are making the donation. So, it's not really logical," Keily said.
Check back next week for another session of getting at the truth!
