NRA front group funds candidates for judgeships to weaken gun control and defendants' rights

A front group has received at least $8 million from the National Rifle Association, the gun industry's mouthpiece, and has worked to undermine sensible gun-control legislation for more than 20 years, according to the Center for American Progress. The Law Enforcement Alliance of America, which claims to represent the interests of the "average cop," spends much of its money "electing judges and state attorneys general who are tough on crime'unless those crimes involve violations of gun control laws," writes Billy Corriher.

[LEAA] was founded with funding from the NRA in 1991, while Congress was debating the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. Police associations such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police had come out strongly in favor of the Brady Act, and relations with the NRA were strained after the NRA opposed a 1986 bill to ban 'cop killer' bullets that can pierce body armor. So the NRA founded the Law Enforcement Alliance of America and claimed that it represented the 'average cop''who supposedly opposed gun control.

Because the Law Enforcement Alliance of America refuses to disclose the sources of its funding, it is difficult to discern how much money the NRA has given the organization. The NRA's tax documents, however, reveal that it gave at least $2 million to the alliance between 2004 and 2010. Previous reports indicate that the NRA donated $500,000 annually to the organization from 1995 to 2004, which would total more than $6 million.

The LEAA's website contains little real information about the organization, whose president is James A. Fotis, a 66-year-old Virginian.

Much of that money and funding from other sources have wound up backing political candidates for judgeships and attorneys general. The LEAA is organized as a nonprofit and doesn't by law have to make public its funding sources. Said Robert Spitzer, who has written The Politics of Gun Control and three other books on the subject: 'People pay less attention to state politics than they to do national politics or local politics. That's been fertile ground for the NRA.' Continue reading below the fold to see how LEAA has operated.