Before the NRA spent millions getting Trump elected it already had forged close ties to Putin allies. Russia has a fairly new guns rights group called “The Right To Bear Arms” founded by Marina Butina who uses rhetoric remarkably similar to the NRA’s.

In a previous diary I posted about Sheriff Clarke being in Moscow at the same time the photo was taken of Flynn/Stein eating dinner with Putin. That trip was partially paid for by Butina’s Russian Gun Rights group. Looking at Marina Butina’s biography, the wide variety of jobs in her resume is unusual and include being special assistant to a Russian mobster tied to Putin, Alexander Torshin. Recently, after Trump’s election she has boasted several times of helping communications between Trump and Russia.

It sounds as if ‘The Right To Bear Arms’ group may have been created specifically to reach out to the NRA and provide a channel at the very least to groom American Conservatives and possibly to channel information to Putin. There aren’t many guns in Russia except for hunting rifles, those who own handguns are wealthy and Butina’s group isn’t very large.

Doing a web search on NRA, Russia turns up a lot of very good journalism and information. This diary is an excerpt to give some idea of what’s out there. I hope someone with some serious chops can help digest all of it and do more digging

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Top Trump Ally Met With Putin’s Deputy in Moscow In March 2014, the U.S. government sanctioned Dmitry Rogozin—a hardline deputy to Vladimir Putin, the head of Russia’s defense industry and longtime opponent of American power—in retaliation for the invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Eighteen months later, the National Rifle Association, Donald Trump’s most powerful outside ally during the 2016 election, sent a delegation to Moscow that met with him. snip Why was the NRA meeting with Putin’s deputy in the first place? “Rogozin is chairman of the Russian Shooting Federation and his Board hosted a tour of Federation HQ for us while we were there,” Keene told The Daily Beast. “It was non-political. There were at least 30 in attendance and our interaction consisted of thanking him and his Board for the tour.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-trump-ally-met-with-putins-deputy-in-moscow …………………………………..

Guns and religion: How American conservatives grew closer to Putin’s Russia The burgeoning alliance between Russians and U.S. conservatives was apparent in several events in late 2015, as the Republican nomination battle intensified. Top officials from the National Rifle Association, whose annual meeting Friday featured an address by Trump for the third time in three years, traveled to Moscow to visit a Russian gun manufacturer and meet government officials. At least one connection came about thanks to a conservative Nashville lawyer named G. Kline Preston IV, who had done business in Russia for years. Preston said that in 2011 he introduced David Keene, then the NRA’s president, to a Russian senator, Alexander Torshin, a member of Putin’s party who later became a top official at the Russian central bank. Keene had been a stalwart on the right, a past chairman of the American Conservative Union who was the NRA’s president from 2011 to 2013. snip Torshin was also a leader in a Russian movement to align government more closely with the Orthodox church. “The value system of Southern Christians and the value system of Russians are very much in line,” Preston said. “The so-called conflict between our two nations is a tragedy because we’re very similar people, in a lot of our values, our interests and that sort of thing.” Preston, an expert on Russian law whose office features a white porcelain bust of Putin, said he had told Tennessee friends for years not to believe television reports about the Russian leader having journalists or dissidents killed. snip https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-the-republican-right-found-allies-in-russia/2017/04/30/e2d83ff6-29d3-11e7-a616-d7c8a68c1a66_story.html?utm_term=.cf4121b02e33 .......................

Moscow Cozies Up to the Right Russia is equally keen on cultivating links to Republicans. Some of the officials who attended the dinner--including a deputy central banker and former Russian senator named Alexander Torshin, and his protégée, a young gun-rights activist named Maria Butina--have been part of a years-long campaign to build connections between Russia's leaders and American conservatives. The crusade, which predates the rise of Trump, has garnered scant attention but achieved significant success, sparking new alliances with leading U.S. evangelicals, lawmakers and powerful interest groups like the NRA. http://time.com/4696424/moscow-right-kremlin-republicans/ ..........................

The Rise of Russia’s Gun Nuts It must feel especially nice because she is their leader. About a year ago, Butina founded an organization called Right to Bear Arms, in the process almost single-handedly inventing Russia’s gun-rights movement. The guys at the shooting gallery were her dues-paying members, all of whom believe the legal code should be amended to allow Russians to carry concealed handguns. This is not a popular idea in Russia, where there is no constitutional right to bear arms, in a well-regulated militia or otherwise. Instead, Russians are allowed to own smoothbore hunting rifles, as well as “compliance weapons”—that is, guns that shoot rubber bullets or are powered by gas. newrepublic.com/… ……………………………………………………….

The Kremlin and GOP Have a New Friend—and Boy, Does She Love Guns Just a few years ago, Maria Butina owned a furniture store in Siberia. Now she’s wheeling and dealing with D.C. think-tankers, Republican strategists, and a Russian bank chief with alleged mob connections. Depending on the audience, Butina has presented herself as a Russian central bank staffer, a leading gun rights advocate, a “representative of the Russian Federation,” a Washington, D.C., graduate student, a journalist, and a connection between Team Trump and Russia. She used each role to help her gain more high-level contacts in the nation’s capital. It’s another chapter in what’s becoming a familiar story in Washington: Kremlin-connected operators building bridges to the GOP. snip Two of Butina’s friendships in particular have raised eyebrows. She started a business with Paul Erickson, a decades-long Republican Party activist. And she served as a special assistant to the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank, Alexander Torshin, a former Russian senator belonging to Vladimir Putin’s political party with alleged ties to the Russian mob world. On Nov. 12, 2016, shortly after the election of President Donald Trump, Butina held a birthday party at Cafe Deluxe near American University, where she attends graduate school classes. snip As chilled vodka flowed through an ice sculpture—a bottle imprinted with the Soviet hammer and sickle—she took some time to brag. She brazenly claimed that she had been part of the Trump campaign’s communications with Russia, two individuals who were present said. On other occasions, in one of her graduate classes, she repeated this claim. www.thedailybeast.com/...