From your times, I'm like a lot of this is a daily today investigation, reveals the secret history of how a man because most influential gun rights group unmasked its power and the previously. Unseen war that members of congress played in designing the group's strategies. My colleague, MIKE Macintyre explains its tuesday august first. Mike, it's very well understood at this point that the nrc, the national rifle association, is a seemingly insurmountable force in american politics, so much so that, even in an era defined by mass shootings and gun violence, it's managed to convince members of congress to block almost every meaningful effort to re

the firearms and the basic dynamic is the nrl tells lawmakers what to do and a lot of those lawmakers do it. But you've spent the past few months carrying out an investigation that changes. Our understanding of that dynamic so tell us what you did and what you found well, it turns out that there's a flip side to this commonly understood narrative and that there are members of congress, certainly who have carried water for the array, so to speak over the years. But there is also a subset of lawmakers who are not just members of the an array or supporters of an array. but they actually serve on the board of directors of the national rifle association, and so these members of congress were in a position to not only influence firearms policy but also the path of the private organization most responsible for influencing it. So there are many instances in which the conventional idea that we've had for some time of a member of congress sort of

Equally, accepting talking points or draft bills from yet array was actually the other way around. It was the members of congress telling the other what they needed to do, and I think the one lawmakers the best exemplifies, does John dingle and we recently obtained thousands of pages of his files going all the way back to the nineteen sixties. They really gave us the ability to see what exactly he did for the entire array as a member of congress and tell us mike everything about dingle and his relationship with the ira and with guns. Where does that begin, so dingle having been the longest serving member of congress? It something like fifty nine years. I think one of the few things that probably lasted longer than that

his membership in the nrl he actually joined the ira as a boy, as many did during his generation. His father was a hunter and outdoorsman and was a new deal democrat member of the house representing a working class district outside of detroit, and so dingle junior started as a page in congress. As a young kid one of his pastimes was shooting rats in the capitol basement using an air gun plow, he was known to act I hunt bears with a pistol which requires a certain facility with firearms, so he was somebody with a familiarity and comfort level with guns that carried over into congress when he succeeded his father in nineteen. Fifty five in the same house seat like a lot of people who had a similar mindset. He would cooperate with an array. He was helpful to them in passing legislation or fending off bills that they liked or didn't like, but it wasn't until the nineteen sixties, starting with

the assassination of president Kennedy and then going forward to the murders of Robert Kennedy and martin Luther king later see no way concerted efforts to impose new firearms restrictions. Memories, gun control, our media sixty eight, but also the dingle becoming increasingly radicalized. In a sense, he seems to be convinced that there was an existential threat to. then the rights and he starts doing more and more somewhat extreme things is getting his staff to research. sierra gun confiscation laws in germany to try to show that there is a slippery slope with uncontrolled. He considered having NBC news investigated by the fcc, because he didn't like a gun right segment that they did and we see speeches that he gave it and our meetings in which he was real railing about patriotic duty to defend what he saw, an encroachment on second amendment right, some of the time you you get to the end of the day,

These he has joined the inner a board and dingle was starting to advocate internally that generate really shift its focus and become more aggressive, in fact, legislation. To impose restrictions on guns how was the energy itself at that moment, as dingle is becoming more radicalized? How is it approaching the question of gun rights and gun control? Is it seeing what's happening at that time as an existential threat dinner? I was always somewhat conflicted up till then about what its role should be in the whole gun debate. Traditionally, going back to the lady thing, hundreds, it was an organization that focused on rifle training and works and ship. In fact, they publicly supported some of what was passed as part of the gun control act of sixty eight.

This is also part of what was agitating dingle. During that time you become a member of the leadership of the group and he was not liking what he was saying. So what does he do? He's now? board. Member of the an ira who thinks it's approach is insufficiently aggressive. One of the first things he does, and this is a document that we discovered in his files, was at the end of nineteen. Sixty eight writes a memo to the executive of the

RO, in which, for the first time, lays out the rationale for a new direction that the energy should take, and his key focus is on trying to establish a constitutional right for an individual ownership of a gun on connected to the common defence, or in other words the second amendment to the constitution, talks about a well regulated militia right. What he is advocating in this memo is that they re start trying to work towards establishing an understanding of the second amendment that would protect an individual's right to own a gun for sporting and self defense purposes. and, of course, that's an approach we now think of as the and our is instantly recognisable policy playbook that every individual has a second amendment right to a fire on that should not be impeach in any way what you're saying you founded these records is that was dingle sitting member of commerce,

his idea. He was offering the array its intellectual framework for fighting gun control. What happened to this proposal that he gives to the interact right? He was offering. This is more of an intellectual framework and he was also suggesting the infrastructure of how to achieve it, and this became probably the most important document that we discovered in his files. Was a nineteen. Seventy five plan for the creation of the inner raise lobbying institute the into legislative action with for anybody was covered. Firearms issues as a journalist ashore like finding the dead sea scrolls, and by that I, is essentially uncovering the original document that lays out the lobbying playbook for they had array legal rights,

The array will use all available resources at every level to influence the decision making process, and then he ticks off in detail what the organization will do maintain files for each member of congress and key members of the executive branch, develop contacts in each congressional office, majority and minority, and he talks about using computerized data for the first time to try to influence members of congress effectively increased their lobbying capacity and probably most importantly, begin funding and supporting legal research in court cases. That will be the array to his objective, recognising a second amendment right of an intervene Although a gun outside the context of a militia, what kind of lays out in incredible detail what exactly the un's too was going to do? What is goals were dingle, essentially wrote this document a proposed it at a board meeting and nineteen. Seventy five and the plan was adopted

the old guard? The branding array at the time was very uncomfortable with this idea. That was. Letter which the head of the inner re road to a colleague saying that john seems to think that we should become involved in partisan politics, but they insist on cells in the lobbying organisations, much as they did not like gun control. There are more interested in promoting sport, shooting in hunting and conservation. That sort of thing right, dingle pushing them to go to a place. They aren't instinctively ready to go. So what happens to this bold strategy. What do they do so? Dingle, you know succeeds in rewriting the mandate of the entering and creating this new organization. It took several years for it to get off the ground, but by the end of the decade you pretty much run an array which had been reshaped in the form that John dingle, foresaw, but make, as we all know, in eventually adopting and pursuing this strategy that dingle has written for the end.

The energy becomes more and more affiliated with a single party, which is the republican party. But dingle is a Democrat. So based on your reporting, based on your reading of his personal and professional papers, how does dingle square that pretty obvious conflict between his party identification and who, then our aid is starting to identify with as it pursues, his vision will go of course came up during a period in which the partisan,

dividing lines and firearms were not what they are today, and I think it was more comfortable for democrats in that era to be where he was on the side of gun rights, but by the time he gets. The seventy's key really would begin to make the argument to his fellow democratic party members that they had the gun issue upside down, in that they needed to get more on board with how he viewed it if they wanted to continue succeeding in elections- and you know that's one of the interesting facets of his character is that he was very much in favor of of union rights. He was pro national health insurance. He was a liberal. You know a democratic party favorite on many issues founded on this one thing he was pretty far out there, and and yet he would try to make the argument again and again, all the way up till the time he died, that the democratic party needed to get more in line with his thinking on gun rights.

so once the energy adopts this single strategy. What does the playbook look like in practice during this period of time? He also wants. The infrastructure is so important to place a courtesy of John dingle. They, the inner rape and the subsequent. I say ten to fifteen years, resonating eightys, the fragile, really start, the bear fruit, during the eighties you had the election of republican president and republican control of at least one house of congress, and they really, during this time period succeeded in a lot of ways that previously were unimaginable. They passed and nineteen eighty six one of the single most important

our arms rights laws. But in the modern era the farm owners protection, at which the rolls back some of the limits imposed by the gun, control act and sixty eight and you see during this time period also they continuing shifts in the political affiliation of the inner re membership, and there are increasing indications that membership is becoming more and more partisan more and more conservative right wing, which is sort of leaving dingle marginalized little bit. The members of congress who joined the board during this time- and there were several were all republicans, though you see

in what's happening to the other, a sort of something similar to what's happening culturally in the republican party, and that is reflected in the choices of candidates for the supreme court that the IRA decides. The back is reflected in the number of the people who joined the board during this time, so this nr and the political landscape all around it is starting to bear a lot more resemblance to the n r, a and political landscape that we know Well, today, yeah there was a hair increasing uncompromising attitude by the ira in terms of not only the legislation that they would accept or not accept, but also the willingness to enforce their will on members of congress who deviated from it, and this again harkens back to the outline that dingle had written in nineteen. Seventy five, where he foresaw the need to maintain files on members of congress to an allegiance. So they had voter report cards in which they would give a through F for

your willingness to support their view of what gun right should be campaign, donations or wrapped up, but, as we know, the inner I couldn't really get all that excited about many democrats. When it came to those report guards, it was frequently the Democrats who are getting the these and the alps and in some cases- and I have covered some of those races- those denmark are being taken out targeted by the and our aid and so far we you're describing mike in almost every the modern and our aid, is a creature of what congressmen dingle wanted it to be. Despite the henrys original reluctance to become its clearly like dingle designs, the and our aim to become

the organisation that so many members of congress fear specially Democrats and moderate republicans, and rather that being the story, we thought we know, like you said, of the energy telling lawmakers what to do that That was the dynamic. It really was the story of a single member of congress, telling and our aid. What to tell members of congress to do in. The great irony is that, as this sort of creature took shape, the dingle was responsible for four animated. In the first place, it wound up blowing back against his own party. Keep in some sense foresaw the need, to have them become more politically active, but there's no way he could have foresaw, how that activism would eventually be put into action, so

it's time to reach the end of the nineteen nineties. The IRA has really positioned itself as the dominant player in washington politics when it comes to lobbying their reviews, almost like the death star of lobbying in DC, and yet they are about to have probably their biggest test in the modern era in nineteen. Ninety nine, when you have the columbine school shooting in which two teenagers, murdered twelve classmates and the suburbs denver, and there is an immediate reaction to that in congress. That was going to really forced the interrelated face one of his biggest tests. The hmm,

what you're back I ask the house to this american life and I'm here, because one of our producers has a brand new podcast and it's a kind of story. when you hear it you like, I can't believe this really happened. You get mad. then, who enter the yale fertility centre and had a procedure caught an egg retrieval impatient after patient month after month would complain of excruciating pain, as if the amis nature wasn't working at all, they, basically they the pain was ignored, some of them It must be something wrong with them until finally, find out what is really going on in all kinds of things and for their got? Their travels has to buy. Shares in britain And some of the most memorable stories on this american life produced by our co workers,

that cereal production and by the new york times again the retrieval was one of the first one. I better get hooked, find it wherever it Podcast, the stomach remind us how the nr a response after the national trauma, that is the columbine shooting. So there's a huge push in congress to do something about the private sale of guns at gun shows. Since a couple of the weapons that were used in the columbine shooting, repurchased kind, a gun show in colorado and the private sale of guns, in other words, guns that were sold not by a licensed dealer, but just by anybody who sets up a table at a gun show they are not subject to background checks, and so there was an effort in congress to impose

background check requirements for the first time they enter a strongly objected to that. One of the arguments they had was at gun shows or on the weekends, usually it'll last more than three days, and so, if you're, to impose a three day, background check requirement, which is what was being considered most gun, shows, would end before the background check could be completed and the sale couldn't go through so John dingle who, by that time, was actually off the board of the in array, but he was still very much helpful to them. He worked with the ira to come up with an amendment to the legislation being considered, which would require that a background check be limited to twenty. Four hours have to be done in one day or the gun sale would go through automatically now the problem with that as he and his staff well knew because this isn't. The notes that we found in the files was that most background checks, even though they're done very quickly. If

Person has committed a crime and court records are needed to confirm their eligibility to own a gun. Well, you know, since gun shows happen on the weekends most courts are closed on the weekend is so it would be impossible to conclude the background check for a potentially disqualified person. Dingle knew this, but he pushed ahead with the amendment anyways and he succeeded in getting it added to the bill which pretty much neutralised the effect of the legislation and, in fact ended up killing it bitterly. He sabotages his entire plan to regulate guns bought at countries. That's how you could view it and they re internally, because we have the record showing it view. That is a big legislative victory, the failure of legislation. He was praised as a master leader, a board meeting. In fact, a year later, they honour him with a legislative achievement award. So in many ways that will soon be twenty five year culmination,

of what John dingle had laid out back in the early seventies. So this was a key flashpoints in the history of firearms. Violence in this country that require them to step up and use the tools that dingle has essentially helps provide them with an they succeeded in preventing any meaningful gun legislation from taking place Of course. This pattern repeats itself throughout the two. Thousands were more more mass shootings are happening. Each one leads to calls for some sort of gun control which never seem to go anywhere even after sandy hook, in which you know, twenty students and six adults were shot to death in connecticut. There was a task force put together to recommend new gun restrictions, and nothing came of that either by the time that John dingle retires in two thousand and fifteen the landscape.

It's really shifted in favor of the gun lobby, in a way that it had not been when he first started out with his vision for what the entire race would become, and his legacy in some respects is just that. You now have a washington that is largely beholden to the gun lobby in a way that had not been the case previously. The ira itself, I lost a lot of it's power, largely through internal turmoil, external investigations, but in some interesting sense I mean there isn't even a need for what they do anymore, because so much of what they sought to do has been institutionalized. You now have you know Supreme court decisions that have basically reshaped reframed. Our view of the second amendment and the gun culture, has this change dramatically. Ownership of god has become pretty much political identify

in many ways, and so there isn't really the need for the lobbying juggernaut that John dingle had envision back and eighty seven five, because that juggernaut

succeeded in getting us where we are now, which is quite ironic. Interestingly, because I mean when he did pass away in twenty nineteen, he had written a memoir shortly before that in which he does not really dwell on the issue of guns much at all, but where he does and the very end of the book, he does express some reservations about his role in all of this. He doesn't repudiated. What do you mean? What what are his reservations? He doesn't repudiated his and back away from anything he did, but he does talk about how he wondered whether or not he contributed to the polarization that exists now and the issue of guns the debate about it. He expresses the view that why can't we have a discussion about it, he seemed to be at the end of his life, suggesting that the absolutism that he had practiced up to that point was beginning to

the moderate, but he was open to the idea of considering things that he previously. We would not have been more interesting to hear you describe. Him is worried about polarization around guns because from everything you have described here, there's no one more responsible for that polarization around guns than john dingle, who wrote the blueprint for the strategy that polarized guns and here arms up to that in his memoir. He says they thought about the role that I know I played in contributing to that polarization. So you does accepted that that is the case, but does nothing indicating that he doesn't feel like his role in cementing? That

means that the piano ray was able to achieve over the years was anything other than something to be proud of. You know this is an accomplishment for him. It was something that he talked a lot about all the way to the end, and I think there's every reason to believe that you know he saw this as nothing other than a victory sound like in the end. I wonder if we should see the energy's unique success. american politics as really only possible because it solely on had an insider from congress on its board, telling it had a crafted strategy and carrying out that strategy from the inside in the person of john dingle and if you're, any other lobbying groups. Indeed, pushing for issues like abortion or for oil drilling in alaska shouldn't.

That model make you want to replicate this strategy for your operation might get yourself a congressmen on your board to do your bidding and you'll have success, or should this arrangement this dual arrangement of congressman, congresswoman being a board member? Should it make us very uncomfortable, and is it just a conflict of interest we should avoid. Put, quite simply, is this a success, or is this a cost mary tail is really kind of a shocking arrangement mean there is nothing comparable to at either end is entirely allowed, which is something which I think a lot of people also don't realize that if you belong to a non profit group here as a member of the board, you can serve in congress the same time in some ways. This is it somewhat unique. There is no other comparable situation

that you can look to punish you other than firearms. But when you look back at what the members of congress who serve on the board of the inner re were able to achieve and how they are able to influence, not just firearms policy in congress, but the organisation itself that was most responsible for influencing that policy is a dynamic that is in arguably a car. worked, and it was recognized as such, even by john dingle at one point, when he resigned from the board of an array and nineteen ninety four, he admitted he had an irreconcilable conflict. So it's something which in many ways it may not happen again, but there's nothing preventing it from happening again. Right, in fact, there's everything to suggest on your reporting that, if you're a group trying to get something done in washington, it should be replicated sure me right now, there's nothing which would prevent any other advocacy group that, as long as their non profit as long as the member of the board, who happened to be in congress, is not paid for doing that.

They essentially are lobbyists who are lobbying themselves, thus about What's is that numbers in congress are serving on the board and a leadership capacity of an advocacy group that is lobbying the congressmen, so it really is kind of a through the looking glass arrangement. And certainly in the case of the ira. It worked wonders. mike Thank you very much. We appreciate it Absolutely, I'll try back.

here's? What else you need day on Monday and affiliate of islamic state clean? responsibility for a suicide bombing in Pakistan that killed at least fifty four people at a political rally. Over the weekend, the group said that he, was part of its war against democracy as a system of government the suicide bombing, the latest String of terror attacks over the past year in Pakistan suggests that the country is losing pull over its security. Yet the tonnes reports that phoenix arizona has no experience, temperatures of at least one hundred and ten degrees fahrenheit for thirty one days in a row that not only breaks phoenix his previous record of eighteen straight days of those temperature,

but sets a startling new set of records. The extraordinary heat has filled local hospitals with patients suffering from heat, shrill and bars, and so far this year the city's medical examiner has reported at least twenty five desk related to heat tidies episode was produced by sharing lindsey garrison and Michael Simon Johnson. It was by alexey. Deal contains original by Miriam, was on a leash. an diane walk in engineered by chris- would our theme music is by germany And barely a of wonder later, The

That's it I'm, like all by sea tomorrow,.