What does the NRA specifically stand for?

The NRA's emphasis has changed over the years. It really did not become primarily political (in the sense of pushing for gun rights) until the "revolt in Cincinnati" in 1977. Before that, it was primarily a Fudd organization.

I remember back in the late 1950's - early 1960's, a lot of people joined the NRA mainly so they could get surplus guns from the DCM (precursor of the CMP). Being an NRA member satisfied some of the requirements for ordering from the DCM. For example, you could get M1911 pistols, arsenal refurbished, for $17. Carbines, Springfields, and Enfields were other popular items. (Unfortunately not Garands. The Army was holding onto those, except for a few National Match versions released to documented competitors.)

Other than working with the DCM, the NRA in those days put a lot of emphasis on organizing shooting competitions and sponsoring hunter safety training. Lobbying for gun rights was a weak afterthought.

It`s a shame you know so little about the NRA! If your a member ,as you say you are, what magazine you do get ?

Their position is well defined with in. Each and every month .

By your questions, I wonder if you really are a member...............

hi-impact said:

Please educate me. What is the DCM and CMP?

Click to expand...

DCM - Director of Civilian Marksmanship, later became the CMP, the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Its purpose is to promote training in marksmanship for civilians, roots I believe in WWII to train those who may be drafted or enlist. Later chartered by Congress to sell surplus rifles to civilians.

AlexanderA said:

The NRA's emphasis has changed over the years. It really did not become primarily political (in the sense of pushing for gun rights) until the "revolt in Cincinnati" in 1977. Before that, it was primarily a Fudd organization.

I remember back in the late 1950's - early 1960's, a lot of people joined the NRA mainly so they could get surplus guns from the DCM (precursor of the CMP). Being an NRA member satisfied some of the requirements for ordering from the DCM. For example, you could get M1911 pistols, arsenal refurbished, for $17. Carbines, Springfields, and Enfields were other popular items. (Unfortunately not Garands. The Army was holding onto those, except for a few National Match versions released to documented competitors.)

Other than working with the DCM, the NRA in those days put a lot of emphasis on organizing shooting competitions and sponsoring hunter safety training. Lobbying for gun rights was a weak afterthought.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure of the historical relationship between the NRA and the CMP, but currently you cannot satisfy the CMP requirements of being in a marksmanship program by joining the NRA. You can participate in an event by the NRA where you demonstrate you can fire a firearm and have basic marksmanship skills, and use that as evidence...but membership in the NRA alone won't cut it. Wanted to clarify that for anyone who read this and wasn't familiar with the CMP.

By the way the CMP address is www.thecmp.org.

hi-impact said:

I'm an NRA member and believe this is the best organization/advocate that pro-gun people have. I trust they are doing everything they can to further our cause. But my questions are:

1) What exactly does the NRA stand for, historically and more importantly presently?

2) Are they for reasonable gun laws, whatever "reasonable" is?

3)Would they like to have little to no gun laws?

4)Do they support politicians that are pro 2nd amendment, while disregarding all other issues?

5) What is the NRA doing right?

6) What can they do better?

I would like to get feedback from NRA members because you put your money where your mouth is.

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

You could probably get a lot of these answered by the NRA directly. Feel free to call them up and ask, as a member you certainly can do so.

From my personal opinions:
5) What is the NRA doing right?
They are trying to protect the 2nd amendment rights of Americans, which were being eroded consistently for a time, and it's constantly trying to be eroded by legislation and politicians.

6) What can they do better?
They can stop sending me a "renewal notice" every month (I'm good through 2017), and the pile of junk mail they waste my dues on that just annoy me and make me throw out/recycle them. I intend to call them and ask them to stop sending me all that junk mail.

I think the NRA "specifically stands for" what the bulk of its members stand for, and that changes over time/decades.

National Rifle Association

stonecutter2 said:

You could probably get a lot of these answered by the NRA directly. Feel free to call them up and ask, as a member you certainly can do so.

From my personal opinions:
5) What is the NRA doing right?
They are trying to protect the 2nd amendment rights of Americans, which were being eroded consistently for a time, and it's constantly trying to be eroded by legislation and politicians.

6) What can they do better?
They can stop sending me a "renewal notice" every month (I'm good through 2017), and the pile of junk mail they waste my dues on that just annoy me and make me throw out/recycle them. I intend to call them and ask them to stop sending me all that junk mail.

Click to expand...

I agree on this 110% they send me something every other day in the mail. they email me 1-2 times a day. the other day I was emailed by someone about hiliary and renew my membership and they noticed I didn't respond. ive only been a member since april and that's only because my club requires it. I email them back and said geeez you didn't get a response from me in 1 day so you want to send it to me again telling me I have 48hrs to respond. my response was send me one more thing in the mail, send me one more email and I wont renew next year. Im sorry for those that disagree with me but the NRA is just another business into it to make money. if the govt wants to do something they are the freaking govt and how can a business tell the people who run this country what they can and cant do. just MO

The biggest distinction that everyone should be aware of is that there is the NRA and then there is the NRA-ILA which is the Institute for Legislative Action. Your annual NRA dues don't go to fighting gun control laws, rather gun safety programs, marksmanship, awareness, and whatever else the NRA does (I'm a member but focus on the ILA side).

When you donate money to the NRA-ILA that money goes towards fighting gun control Bills, creating ad campaigns to educate the general public, interacting with politicians, etc. For all intents and purposes they are two separate entities (and legally they are, even if they are run by the same people).

stonecutter2 said:

6) What can they do better?

They can stop sending me a "renewal notice" every month (I'm good through 2017), and the pile of junk mail they waste my dues on that just annoy me and make me throw out/recycle them. I intend to call them and ask them to stop sending me all that junk mail.

Click to expand...

I see this complaint all the time. Your preferences can be changed online. I don't receive any extra mailings from them.

hi-impact said:

I'm an NRA member and believe this is the best organization/advocate that pro-gun people have. I trust they are doing everything they can to further our cause. But my questions are:

1) What exactly does the NRA stand for, historically and more importantly presently?

2) Are they for reasonable gun laws, whatever "reasonable" is?

3)Would they like to have little to no gun laws?

4)Do they support politicians that are pro 2nd amendment, while disregarding all other issues?

5) What is the NRA doing right?

6) What can they do better?

I would like to get feedback from NRA members because you put your money where your mouth is.

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

1. Historically they were mostly about teaching basics of marksmanship to civilians who might later be drafted into the army. These days they seem to focus on training from the NRA side and politics from the ILA side.

2. In the 30s they were all in favor of banning handguns and it was pretty close as to whether the NFA was going to cover handguns and not just machine guns.

These days they seem to be mostly interested in licensing carry. That is a great improvement though. Not all that long ago, I can recall they were pretty much dead set against most of us carrying at all.

3. I am a cynic. I think they like having gun laws that requires them to go after. It gives them a reason to exist.

4. Mostly. Although they were faulted at one time, legitimately I think, as only supporting Republicans. That was once pretty much the case. It is much less that way now.

5. Training. Fund raising.

6. Everything can be done better. Whether they can be more effective is another story. Politics is a pretty slow game. It takes staying power and patience.

4. Mostly. Although they were faulted at one time, legitimately I think, as only supporting Republicans. That was once pretty much the case. It is much less that way now.

Click to expand...

I would disagree about the direction of that trend. For instance, they supported the GOP candidate for governor over the democratic candidate for governor in the last Georgia gubernatorial race, even though the Democrat (Jason Carter) had supported the "guns everywhere" bill.... and the republican (who won the race) has gone on to veto campus carry legislation.

The NRA was started shortly after the civil war by northern officers, the north was more industrial and urban than the south, the union soldiers had less experience on average and poorer marksmanship than thier southern counterparts. Industrial might won the war anyway, but the lack of fun familiarity was seen as a problem, for the next 100 years the NRA went about the buisness of Competitive shooting.

What they stand for currently is a big question, but what was stated above, they Belhaven what thier members believe, is the moast suscinct. Every once in a while the NRA makes the wrong move and is chastised by its members and quickly makes corse corrections.


The NRA does Believe in reasonable gun control, what is considered "reasonable" differs wildly from person to person.

For instance the NRA did recently back a bill that would have barred those on the terrorist watch list from buying a firearm, the Version they backed differed in that the barred parson would have been able to get a judge to view the evidence against them, if the government could not being evidence within 3 days the sale went through.

That shows the NRA Believes only law abiding citizens hold the right to bear arms. And it supports laws to that end.

Doing wright/wrong? I think the NRA does a good job blocking bad legislation, I think they do a poor job getting previously passed bad legislation overturned, for example 922r does nothing helpful, but places a burdon on those who assemble foreign made rifles, making them much more exogenous than they should be.

The NRA is almost exclusively single issue, those fighting the animal rights groups would love for some assistance from the NRA, the issues are so close together but not identical. The NRA stays out of it, probably as they do not want to decrease the size of thier tent

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

The NRA is for making Hillary Clinton and all the other liberals upset, the NRA does a fantastic job at this.

The NRA does Believe in reasonable gun control...

Click to expand...

Be careful that you don't fall for "common sense" gun laws (which will no doubt will be interchanged with reasonable gun laws by the anti-2nd crowd) - common sense gun laws is just the latest rebranding of total gun control (the eventual goal).

The game these days is a constant rebranding in order to throw off low information voters / gun owners - does anybody remember The National Coalition To Ban Handguns? (Now The Coalition To Stop Gun Violence).

For a little more insight to what they really mean when they say common sense gun laws, here's a little underground video.

4. Mostly. Although they were faulted at one time, legitimately I think, as only supporting Republicans. That was once pretty much the case. It is much less that way now.

Click to expand...

The trend may be swinging back the other way, based on the far-left loonies we have trying to take control these days.

I remember hearing longtime holdout Tom Gresham on a recent podcast state that he had finally given up on the Democrats due to the overwhelming crop of anti-2nd Amendment folks seeking office these days.

For a long time he preached that we should not alienate folks just because they had a "D" by their name, but he said in today's realty, he's finally had to change that point of view.

Until the mid to late 1970's their primary purpose was to promote marksmanship. Since then they have become very vocal in the guns rights movement, but still promote marksmanship programs as well as youth gun safety.

As far as "reasonable" gun control laws everyone's definition of "reasonable" is different. Personally I'd be willing to accept some restrictions if I were confident that would be the end of it. But most of the anti-gun movement has proven that they won't be satisfied with anything short of complete confiscation and the outlaw of modern weapons from private use. Any compromise we make at this point is just going to be used as a stepping stone to go farther.

CMP current Civilian Marksmanship Program,
before that it was the DCM, Director of Civilian Markmanship,
and way before that, it was the NBPRP National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice, which dates back to the aftermath of the Spanish-American War and the formation of the state militias into the National Guard in the 1898-1903 time frame.

The NRA of America was founded in New York in 1871 by Union Officers who were appalled by the poor marksmanship and bad gun handling of urban conscripts during the Civil War. Much the same motivation as the founding of the NRA of UK in 1859.

The NRA is all about separating YOU.... from your MONEY!

They are not trustworthy..

The wisdom of the Founding Fathers is evident in that the Bill of Rights is not a list of things the Federal Government says the people are allowed to have but the Bill of Rights is a list of things the people say the Federal Government is not allowed to restrict or control.

But over the years some of "the people" have become so complacent and so dependent upon the Federal Government to be like a Daddy to them they actually think handing Daddy Fed the power to regulate and control the government instituted infringement upon the right to bear arms called a concealed carry permit is some kind of good thing.

Obviously the wisdom of the Founding Fathers is not shared by some of "the people" today.

Why on earth would you think that 5 million (+-) "gun owners" have the power to change things?

Let's see... Approximately 320 million Americans and MAYBE 4/5 million NRA members........

Yeah... That's clout... NOT!

The 2nd Amendment does not GIVE us anything. The 2nd Amendment recognizes that the people already have the right to keep and bear arms just because the people are human beings and the 2nd Amendment tells the government it does not have the authority to restrict or control (infringe upon) that right.

In other words, we... the people... are born with the right to keep and bear arms and even it there were no government we .. the people... would still have the right to keep and bear arms just because we are .... people.

And the same holds true for all the other rights mentioned in the Bill of Rights. We ... the people...already have the rights and the Bill of Rights does not give us anything but actually tells the government to leave our rights alone. And that is a very important distinction.

By the way...

Background checks and carry permits are infringements simply because they restrict, limit, and control, who is NOT allowed to keep and bear arms. It is the... NOT allowed... part that is a very important distinction because it is the government that is doing, and controlling, the NOT allowed part. And the background checks and permit systems never were about who is going to be so special as to be given a pat on the head by being allowed to have the government's permission (permit) but is all about who is NOT going to be allowed. And the government controls the criteria for who is not allowed.

Change the criteria and who is allowed is changed by increasing those who are NOT allowed. And the NOT allowed part will always fall on the side of the most restrictive as possible. I wish folks would think about that before believing a national reciprocity system controlled by Daddy Fed is some kind of good idea.

By the way the word "arms" is not limited to just pistols but means any and all weapons.....

Arms

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

n. pl.1.Instruments or weapons of offense or defense.
-snip-

Arms | Definition of Arms by Webster's Online Dictionary