I can tell you you are the mental lightweight here. All the NRA did was stop redlining. This made banks loan the same amount of money on a given house, regardless of the location. (providing the appraisal was adequate)They could not refuse to loan just because they didn't like the neighborhood.
This nation was brought to it's knees by 8 years of Reagan politics, followed 20 years later by 8 more years of Reagan politics inflicted by W.
We currently have outsourced every job possible to China while lowering the standard of living for each and every person who is not of the elite status. Our national debt is around 11 trillion dollars, and the interest on the debt is almost as large as the entire military budget.
But you say Carter started this? Let me remind you that when Carter left office, we were less than 900 billion in debt.