Are Gun Owners Selfish.....

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BigBore44

BigBore44

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In the thread “A Question of Etiquette...”https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-for-the-next-guy.884262/page-3#post-11838408 I made the statement that people are selfish. Sometimes it’s a good thing and sometimes it’s bad. But I don’t really think my statement went over very well. People typically don’t like to hear they are selfish. This morning I was reading another thread and it got me thinking. So I thought I would start a thread and see people’s thoughts on 2 questions. If you were to be dead honest.....

~85million or so gun owners in the US. At $50 per person (about a single box of 9mm right now) that’s 4.2 Billion dollars a year that could be used to fight for our rights. If each only gave $20 (a 50ct box of 22lr currently) that’s $1.7 billion.

Now I don’t care what organization you support, love, or hate. It’s irrelevant. But I see these posts about buying these new guns with the $1,200 and (possibly) $1,400 stimulus checks. Well what if gun owners took just $50 of that money and gave it to a gun rights group, rather than spend it on themselves to buy guns and ammo?

And this is what I find so interesting. If you combine what Biden and Trump raised in their presidential election, it comes out to $3.65 Billion. DEF2F177-6EE3-4132-AC41-21C0990A8E01.jpeg

So....


1. Do you think your money is better spent to purchase firearms and ammunition for yourself, family, or friends?

2. Do you think some of that money, say $50, would be better served going to gun rights organizations and congressmen/women to preserve the rights for all Americans?
 
"Do you think some of that money, say $50, would be better served going to gun rights organizations and congressmen/women to preserve the rights for all Americans?"

I've given much more than that over the last two decades, not bragging just honesty here. I have to believe that my contributions are being used properly and for the preservation of the rights for all Americans. Due to the media reporting on these different organizations actions, both good and bad, it makes it hard to keep a positive feeling that said organizations are being honest and doing what they say, but who else do we have working for us. I truly wish there was more transparency in how the funds we have donated to the organizations and especially to ANY politician.

I've never felt selfish and have never been told that I was because of my spending habits.
 
BigBore44 - it sounds like you are making an unwarranted assumption that if someone buys a gun, then they do not spend any money on other gun-related things such as donating to gun rights groups or supporting gun friendly politicians. As the other two responders have pointed out, that isn't usually the case in my experience. I dare say it is rarely the case on this platform (THR). This is a good example of "preaching to the choir".


[Oh, and you have too many "are"'s in your thread title. ;) ]
 
BigBore44 said:
Now I don’t care what organization you support, love, or hate. It’s irrelevant. But I see these posts about buying these new guns with the $1,200 and (possibly) $1,400 stimulus checks. Well what if gun owners took just $50 of that money and gave it to a gun rights group, rather than spend it on themselves to buy guns and ammo?
Click to expand...

What makes you think they aren't?
 
Big Bore makes a simple, yet poignant observation. There are a lot of people who, for whatever reason, will rationalize not doing something.

Many come up with the same excuses. Not spending a measly $50.00 to protect our 2nd amendment rights is just one of them. It isn't about the money. The little bit of money is no more than a box of ammo today. I believe the OP is making the point that some use "selfish" personal reasons to not support due to real, or imagined, rationalizations that damage the whole. Liberals, btw, don't do this. They focus, as we should, on the big picture.

Take the recent vote in Georgia. A pathetic example of "protest not voting", that cost us two vital seats in Congress. 400,000 Conservatives DID NOT VOTE as a protest against a "rigged" presidential election. If less than100,000 of the "protest" non-votes had been cast, we would have won.

The OP makes the point that a singular selfish reason for not supporting the big picture ultimately hurts him, and the rest of us.
 
We cannot ignore the very real disconnect that there are from 40-80 million (perhaps more, we'll never know) gun owners in the US, but only about 4-8 million are motivated to be active in gun rights organizations.

Mind, those people in gun rights organizations can punch well above their weight, too. So, membership, and donations, do matter.

We humans can get hung up on words--our text-immersed world may be making that worse (grist for a different forum). It's not in the least bit selfish to be adamant about preserving our rights.
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
Click to expand...

But whether one ought skip a box of ammo to fund one's organizations is "better" is a judgement best left to one's self.
 
BigBore44 said:
1. Do you think your money is better spent to purchase firearms and ammunition for yourself, family, or friends?

2. Do you think some of that money, say $50, would be better served going to gun rights organizations and congressmen/women to preserve the rights for all Americans?
Click to expand...
Yes.

(Both)

there is something to be said for getting the firearms and ammunition out in the world. How many times have we heard of the "weapons in common use" thing when it comes to rights?

the other thing that I will say is that having guns/ammo means I can GET PEOPLE to the range. To me, that has enormous value.
 
I will say the main thing in my age group I hear getting in the way is not believing the money as actually going to the cause and not wanting to get taken advantage of. The blame for this could easily be laid at the feet of one organization but realistically it is a ton of charitable groups we have seen skim off the top and most aren't involved in the 2A at all. It is a cultural thing we grew up watching and it has poisoned the well towards giving to national organizations, the confidence in smaller local groups is much higher. Sadly they have less pull than the national groups.
Another thing I've heard often is they already have a lifetime membership so why keep donating. The motivations there could be all over the place.
If we want to get donations up some transparency to boost confidence of donors would go a long way.
 
with all the new gun owners, that's a lot more people to sit on the side of rights ... if they donate or not ... it shows a public view on the issue that is not much up for debate.
 
We have become accustomed to being served without apparent cost. How many have ponied up a few beans to pay some of the expenses of maintaining this online community? Just because there is no paywall doesn't mean there is no expense for bandwidth, servers and software.

I agree, we should be contributing financially to the battle to protect our RKBA, but I suspect most of us are. Everyone's situation is different, however, so do what you think best.
 
Mal H said:
BigBore44 - it sounds like you are making an unwarranted assumption that if someone buys a gun, then they do not spend any money on other gun-related things such as donating to gun rights groups or supporting gun friendly politicians. As the other two responders have pointed out, that isn't usually the case in my experience. I dare say it is rarely the case on this platform (THR). This is a good example of "preaching to the choir".


[Oh, and you have too many "are"'s in your thread title. ;) ]
Click to expand...
Thank you for pointing that out (the title).

Now to your point about preaching to the choir....
I do feel that, to an extent, I am preaching to the choir. And I understand that there has been some information come to light about a certain organization. And I want that to be investigated. A real investigation. And if there is evidence of corruption, I want those responsible fired and thrown in prison for embezzlement.

But the NRA only has ~5.5 million members.
GOA I cannot find any totals. Wiki says over 100k. It’s got to be more than that.

This isn’t really about memberships. But I can see the correlation.

This is about gun owners spending their money (stimulus checks are our money also) on themselves (which they absolutely have a right to do), as opposed to spending a little bit of money to collectively protect everyone. I don’t care about the NRA. Yes, I’m a member. Doesn’t matter. Not the point. I’m not trying to get people to be members of any organization. I’m simply pointing out that if MORE gun owners spent a little of their money, that can easily be blown on one decent dinner, on protecting our rights, that we would all be in a much better position.

I’ll say it again... $4.25 BILLION. Give it to anyone you believe will fight for our rights. Because it will go a lot further than a box of bullets. We would be, as was stated above, unstoppable.
 
To answer your questions;
1. No
2. Yes

It would be wonderful if all gun owners would stick together and donate $50. We would be unstoppable. I've been an NRA life member for decades and I get angry when I see some of the stuff going on. They seriously need some housecleaning done at the upper levels.

And like someone else posted, I give much more than $50 annually.
 
CDW4ME said:
I was surprised to learn that my membership dues to a prominent gun organization was funding fancy suits.
Click to expand...

Well, our dues never were going toward fighting for gun rights. They were largely simply part of running the parent NRA company (administration, magazine, benefits, solicitation, etc.). According to members here, dues can't be used for lobbying, per law. (JohnBT https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...ticked-me-off-good.201730/page-2#post-2467362)

BigBore44 said:
I’ll say it again... $4.25 BILLION. Give it to anyone you believe will fight for our rights. Because it will go a lot further than a box of bullets. We would be, as was stated above, unstoppable.
Click to expand...

Why throwing as much money at a problem as you can sometimes deals with the problem, sometimes it is just a lot of wasted money. Contrary to you assertion, it would definitely matter which organization you send your money to. What is the NRA going to do with the money for example? Well, they would dump a lot of it in fighting legal battles such as the ones brought against the NRA for fraud. That would not be money spent on gun rights, that would be money spent on the NRA. A bunch of the money would go to pay creditors of the NRA which is in bankruptcy.

So yeah, it would be nice if people gave more money, but the money has to be spent appropriately and so it really does matter which organization you give your money to and if you want to give it to the NRA, you want to give it to NRA-ILA and not the NRA in general.
 
Ok everyone, I’m not pointing fingers at anyone. Nor am I pretending to take some kind of moral high ground. If you do both, that’s great. If you don’t, it’s your money. You earned it. Spend it how you want. The point of this thread was to point out what we could do collectively, if we all gave just a little bit for the good of everyone vs looking out for only ourselves or those close to us.

I was hesitant to even make this thread because when you bring up something like this, people have a tendency to go on the defensive. But @Walkalong said the other day that we should do what we can. I’m not saying “Don’t buy ammo. Donate instead.” Buy all the ammo you can afford or want to buy. Share it, sell it, shoot it, hoard it. Makes me no difference. I’m a very well stocked reloader. However, losing my rights to own my firearms does concern me.

I do wish we had a centralized gun organization that we could all donate to that would be 100% transparent, honest, and use our money to pay themselves a good salary, and fight for our rights. I do not know if that exists.

@Double Naught Spy I completely agree with your thoughts. And that is another thing I wonder about. Is it possible the other side will simply sue gun rights organizations to the point its members are simply paying legal bills?
 
I mean I’m way more likely to donate to socialist gun groups. Do you still want me spending $50 or more on those groups?

And that’s the issue. Getting people to agree on things is hard. Getting people to spend money on a long term nebulous idea versus a short term tangible is even harder.
 
If I thought the NRA was doing a good job toward a reasonable end, I would send them money. Since I don't believe either of those things, I'm not going to, and that does NOT constitute selfishness, just sense. They seem to have mismanaged themselves into bankruptcy, and to have alienated the general public, so I feel I have good reason for my beliefs.
 
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