Rolling_Stone_Australia_October_2017

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FLASHBACK

ANNIVERSARY

18 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com October, 2017

I

n 1980, america’s gun-violence epidemic hit

closetohomeforRolling Stone,whenJohnLennon

was gunned down by Mark David Chapman. For the maga-

zine’s founder, the slaying in New York sparked a now-four-

decadecommitmentonthegunissue.“Itallstartedwith

Lennon,” says Jann S.

Wenner. “That tragedy. Try-

ingtomakesenseofit.Or

make something good come

outofit.”Withinmonths,

Wenner had launched the

Foundation on Violence in

America,anonprofitthat

began a public-education

campaign, including PSAs

starringOprahWinfreyand

Walter Cronkite. But mo-

mentum quickly stalled. “It

became obvious that the be-

ginningandendofthiswas

the NRA,” Wenner says.

Exposing the National Rifle Asso-

ciation’s influence has been a main-

stay ofRolling Stone’s political

coverageeversince.Inhis1981ex-

posé, “Inside the Gun Lobby”, How-

ardKohnwrotethat“politiciansfall

into three groups on the gun issue.

There are hardcore believers on both

sides. But the majority of congress-

men would appear to belong to a

third group...those who don’t want

tobeputontheNRA’shitlist.”Exit-

ing the NRA headquarters, Kohn re-

calls,“Ihadanincrediblysickfeeling

becauseithitmerightbetweenthe

eyes that they were absolutely sure

that nothing would change.”

Still, there was a persistent opti-

mism inRolling Stone’s coverage

that common-sense reform would

carry the day. “We’ve got the gun

lobby and the NR A on the run,” Hillary Clinton had said in a 1993

piece, “Gunning for Guns”. Two years later, Eric Alterman predict-

ed the NRA’s crusade to overturn the assault-weapons ban “may

prove to be its Vietnam”. But the NR A only emerged more power-

ful – as did the weapons it champions. Wenner now describes gun

control as “one of the most frustrating issues in American politics”

InthewakeofJohnLennon’sassassination, ‘Rolling

Stone’enteredthefightformeaningfulgun control.

Fourdecadeslater,thebattlerageson

Ta k i n g O n G u n s

• likening it to climate change. “The logic, the science, the policy,
  the research are so clear,” he says. “Yet nothing gets done.”
  The magazine also set its sights on the wider culture. Dan
  Baum’s 2000 piece “What I Saw at the Gun Show” describes a
  table of bumper stickers, one with a picture of robed Ku Klux
  Klansmen and the caption the original boyz
  in the hood; another warns, welcome to
  america: speak english or get the hell
  out. Three years later,
  Peter Wilkinson report-
  ed from a West Phila-
  delphia hospital, where
  half of trauma-centre
  deaths were the result
  of gunshot wounds.
  In the aftermath of
  the 2012 massacre at
  Sandy Hook Elemen-
  tary in Connecticut –
  which led to zero polit-
  ical change in Congress


• I chronicled how the
  NR A and gun manu-
  facturers had joined
  forces, political-
  ly and financially, to
  block major litigation.
  Today, the NR A func-
  tions as a front group
  for gunmakers, cham-
  pioning their deadliest and most lu-
  crative products. As I described in
  “The Gun Industry’s Deadly Addic-
  tion”, assault rifl es have been market-
  ed “to children as young as the fi rst-
  graders slaughtered in Newtown”.
  On election night 2016, I was fi n-
  ishing a cultural and political history
  of the AR-15 – “All-American Killer”


• expecting a Hillary Clinton presi-
  dency might cement modest restric-
  tions around weapons bred for war.
  Instead, the nation was upended anew by the political muscle of
  the NRA, which spent $30 million to elect Donald Trump, help-
  ing target rural gun owners in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan
  and Wisconsin. Wenner, who remains committed to pursuing the
  subject, acknowledges the frustration of the beat. “You really feel,”
  he says, “like you’re shouting against the wind.” TIM DICKINSON

(1)Investigating gun

sales, 2013.(2)Kohn’s

expose, 1981.(3)The

history of the AR-15,

published days after

the 2016 election.

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