My frustration with the NRA and other RKBA activist organizations

Status
Not open for further replies.
The NRA is the only pro-gun group that actually gets anything done. They also support both Republicans & Democrats if they are pro-gun. The NRA's purpose is to elect pro-gun people, they aren't there to protect the rest of the Constitution.

I also think that if Obama gets elected and passes a new AWB it will be Bush's fault. Bush has been the worst thing that could've ever happened to the Republican party. The Republicans will pay at the ballot box for Bush's mistakes.
 
The NRA will support pro-gun Democrats, but the Democrats view the NRA endorsement as political poison. This is a very sad state of affairs that ends up leading most people to believe that the NRA is exclusively a republican club. For what it's worth, it's become highly partisan, and less effective because of it. I don't know entirely who to place blame on for that. Politicians for the most part, but the NRA probably doesn't do all it can to reach out to pro-gun dems.
 
I wont even dignify the OP's original post with a response. Sounds like a bunch of whining.
 
I feel like our gun-rights are eggs and all of them are in the Republican basket. This is a failing of the NRA-ILA.

belus,

No, this is the failing of the Democratic party that you support. If the Democratic leadership should ever decide to become the party aligned with promoting 2nd amendment rights, the NRA-ILA and NRA members will stand with them. However, I hope you realize, that this will be be a cold day in hell.;)

Don
 
I think the most poignant response so far was the poster who noted the organization the OP should be angry with is the ACLU, as they proclaim themselves to be defenders of the entire Bill of Rights, with the asterisk noting the 2nd isn't their cup of tea. The NRA is a single issue organization, yes, but they are not a single party organization. They supported several Democrats who had pro-gun voting records, without asking them where they stood on abortion, separation of church and state, etc. etc. If anything the NRA's portrayal of themselves and their mission is more honest than the ACLU's.

Still, it's your money, spend it where you want. If you find an organization that agrees with all your positions you'll probably be the only member.

Good luck with that.

gp911
 
Soybomb said:
So how do you rationalize membership in the ACLU while not the NRA?
It's not hard. I don't consider the 2A to be the most important protection we have under the Bill of Rights. Especially if the people we elect to support it are willing to ignore or erode our other ones. I think a large number of gun owners also believe this, maybe a majority of the 75million non NRA members.

I am frustrated with the ACLU's stance on gun rights too. But listening to the agendas of our politicians over the last couple years has made me much more concerned about the protection of other areas of the constitution than the potential restriction of some firearm's cosmetic features. That's why I support them.

I'm not trying to make this Democrat vs republican - people seem to be latching on to my registration. This election period it happens to be the Democrats which are working hardest to protect the things I value most. The NRA-ILA supports candidates who, while they are pro gun rights, are awful representatives of the gun-community as a whole, and who will seriously inhibit much of what I want to see done.

I've read the frustrations of other members here: that while there are an estimated 80million gun owners in the US, only 4million are members of the NRA. Additionally, only 30 some percent are active (and 4% vote). This doesn't surprise me because I think a lot of the NRA's tactics alienate other gun owners.

antsi said:
The NRA-ILA is not preventing the Democratic party from embracing gun rights.
I haven't met a Democrat who votes against someone because they're pro-gun. I'd be surprised if it really holds much weight with them at all. The NRA has no problem sleeping with a lot of filthy characters, and that gives the whole movement a bad reputation. A lot of my friends are very involved in the democratic party, but they happily accept invitations to go shooting. From their perspective, guns aren't scary, it's the people which care exclusively about them.

JohnBT, I started to fill their TAG Poll with my own opinions to return it. But I think we both know they wouldn't be read.

Eleven Mike said:
belus, have you considered that the NRA might be more to your liking if more people like yourself joined, and took an active part?
Yes! And I like this idea. It's the reason I bothered joining the Democratic party. I'm managing about 200 volunteers in a race trying to restore some fiscal accountability to local offices. However I'm not very optimistic after their lukewarm response to the founding of the Pink Pistols.

ilbob: If your issue is more leniency to terrorists who want to kill Americans, that is also your right...

MinnMooney: If you are too cheap or idealistic to join an organization...
:confused:
 
Reasons not to like the NRA:

1. They only support Republicans. Not true. I am represented in Congress by Dan Boren, a Democrat, a hunter, and a member of the NRA. I get letters regularly reminding me to vote for him.

2. They don't care about the other rights. Not true. The NRA was a coplaintiff with the ACLU against the McCain Feingold bill, which limits free speech during political elections.

3. They don't care about violent crime. Not true. They sponsored Operation Cease Fire and Operation Exile, both aimed at violent, gun-using criminals.

4. They have turned gun rights into a partisan issue. Not true. See # 1 for part of the answer. Also: the NRA, left to its own, would be content to just be a marksmanship and safety organzation. But it can't if there are no guns to shoot. Democrats like Hubert Humphprey used to support gun rights. It was the assassinations of the 1960s and the resulting gun control laws that made it a partly partisan issue.

5. They send you junk mail and call you. True, but all you have to do is so don't send me any and they won't. Or you can become a life member like me, and the mail and calls will stop.

I suspect the real dislike from the original poster is cultural.

He has heard so much nonsense about the NRA from the media that he thinks of them as a bunch of fanatical rednecks with no teeth who marry their cousins. He doesn't want people to think of him that way. It lets him say, "I believe in the 2nd amendment, but I'm not a fanatic like those NRA types."

Believe me, there are plenty of smart people with all their teeth in the NRA. And marrying your cousin is not even legal in Oklahoma, though it is in Arkansas.
 
Belus, I like that the NRA's mission is focused solely on the Second Amendment. If they start looking at the rest of the Bill of Rights they are instantly going to involved in a whole lot of controversy because no-one else is going to agree on what the rest of the Bill of Rights means. Read the arguments in other parts of this forum on immigration, the police, etc. Heck, people argue endlessly about whether the NRA is hard core enough on the 2amendment on this site.

For example, personally I disagree with you that the Bush administration is doing much to the Bill of Rights. So does Ilbob, obviously. Any focus outside of the 2nd for the NRA would just alienate certain segments of the membership. I imagine a lot of NRA members wholeheartedly support the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terrorism.

I also disagree that the NRA is purely a Republican organization. This is a product of the media and Republican party spin more than reality, in my opinion. NRA aligns with the Republicans a lot because they are much more solidly pro-2nd party as a whole, but NRA certainly will support pro 2nd Dems and fight against gun grabbing Republicans. And thank god for that because the Republicans can't stay in control perpetually.

Anyway, if you want to pursue your other issues, I think other organizations are better, the ACLU as you said, or form one of your own perhaps.
 
Last edited:
Belus wrote:

It's not hard. I don't consider the 2A to be the most important protection we have under the Bill of Rights. Especially if the people we elect to support it are willing to ignore or erode our other ones. I think a large number of gun owners also believe this, maybe a majority of the 75million non NRA members.

I know lots of people say it is cliched to say that without the 2nd amendment, none of the rest would matter or be in existence. I've got news for you, there is a whole lot of wisdom in "them there words".

As cliched as it sounds, if our country did not have the 2nd amendment and 80+ million gun owners holding somewhere in the neighborhood of close to 200 million guns, our country would be a much different place, with it's freedoms on the way out.

England is a great example, they are slowly but surely continuing to slide down the road of big brother totalitarianism. They continue to lose more freedoms, more privacy, and more rights as the years roll on. The problem being if they finally get sick of it, what are they going to do? Run down to the local shooting club and see if they can "borrow" a rifle or two?

Words are sure nice, but they don't carry much in the way of effect, unless there is something of substance to back them up. Our founding fathers that made fun little statements like, "give me liberty or give me death", backed that up with a rifle in one hand and the desire, passion, and resolve to fight the fight. It wasn't freedom of the press, religion, privacy, or any of the others that won our independence.

It pretty much chaps my hide, when I read laissez fair comments about our 2nd amendment and gun rights, from gun owners. If you don't understand the importance of the 2nd amendment, that says a lot about how far we have to go in educating the rest of our non-gun owning citizens. :banghead:
 
NRA

If I remember correctly the NRA did not support the so called "patriot act"
because they knew that a liberal Democrat could possibly deem that all gun owners be considered as possible terrorists and monitored. They didn't like the fact that it might tread on other parts of the bill of rights and they understand that politicians sometimes interpret things rather loosely.

They (the NRA) have and do support many Democrats that are pro-gun and I myself have voted for pro-gun dems.

The only pro-gun dem that I voted for and regretted was Lloyd Bentsen and that was because he turned against us when be became the running mate for Dukakis is 1988, When he voted for the Brady bill in the early 90's he was asked by a reporter if he had ever taken contributions from the NRA and he lied and said "I think that maybe I might have". He took contributions from NRA for all of the previous years he had been in office but in voting for the Brady bill he had become one of the new media "darlings" and refused to talk straight.
 
It's not hard. I don't consider the 2A to be the most important protection we have under the Bill of Rights. Especially if the people we elect to support it are willing to ignore or erode our other ones. I think a large number of gun owners also believe this, maybe a majority of the 75million non NRA members.

I am frustrated with the ACLU's stance on gun rights too. But listening to the agendas of our politicians over the last couple years has made me much more concerned about the protection of other areas of the constitution than the potential restriction of some firearm's cosmetic features. That's why I support them.

I'm not trying to make this Democrat vs republican - people seem to be latching on to my registration. This election period it happens to be the Democrats which are working hardest to protect the things I value most. The NRA-ILA supports candidates who, while they are pro gun rights, are awful representatives of the gun-community as a whole, and who will seriously inhibit much of what I want to see done.

I've read the frustrations of other members here: that while there are an estimated 80million gun owners in the US, only 4million are members of the NRA. Additionally, only 30 some percent are active (and 4% vote). This doesn't surprise me because I think a lot of the NRA's tactics alienate other gun owners.
You'll probably find that many gun owners are the same way and lean more libertarian than anything else. Eventually you'll probably have to wind up analyzing the office in question and deciding which candidate can do the most harm/benefit to the issues that are important to you. 4th amendment issues might not be a huge deal in your state legislature but might sway you for national representation. And then you have to keep an eye on your candidates to be sure there is a difference at all. I voted for Obama for senate rep in the last election because I thought he would do more good for the issues important to me than he could do harm to the others. His recent fisa vote showed me I was wrong and I just had two really bad choices.

I'd also point out that the nra isn't just one big wallet, you can be a member of the nra which helps teach shooting and safety and helps people build ranges without contributing to the nra's political victory fund, their pac.

Personally I've come to the conclusion to that I don't like everything the ACLU does but they put up the best fight for things that are important to me and I need to support them while pushing for change. Not doing so won't get anything but defeat. The same goes for you and the NRA.

At the end of the day though you're going to have to make a choice on who to support and what rights they're going to chip away. I think you'd be much more effectiving trying to get legislators that reflect your values than you are trading off the 2nd amendment for an established agenda.
 
(sorry, I didn't read through the previous 4 pages, so I may be being redundant ... appologies up front)

belus said:
I'll give you all an idea of who I am ...

24 year old, white male, unmarried, no kids
I've owned guns since the day before my 13th birthday (H&R Topper in 20ga )
I own handguns, rifles and shotguns - for self defense and target shooting (I no longer hunt)
Democrat and member of the ACLU
Atheist/Agnostic
Completed college, but still a student
Under $25k/year
County population ~4 million

So you already belong to two organizations that actively work to end your Second Amendment rights ... yet there's probably other reasons why you joined them. Why not join the NRA? You obviously join other organizations that you don't 100% agree with.

Politics aside, the NRA does a LOT to teach children gun safety, they help shooting ranges get affordable insurance and they facilitate much of the competitive shooting that goes on in the US. You don't have to give money to the NRA-ILA (which is the political part of the organization).
 
So far Belus is responsible for $75 toward the defense of 2nd amendment rights. I'd like to thank my fellow contributors, and recommend, again, that we all chip in every time one of these silly threads comes up.

Again, for the record: the arguments against joining the NRA are almost universally childish and petty. "They didn't ask me to tell them all about me", "They called me at work and read from a script", "The hat makes my head look big", yadayadayada.

Meanwhile there are anti-gun propositions making their way towards law as we type. Too bad anti-NRA mewling isn't an effective response; we'd make Switzerland look like Japan.
 
I haven't met a Democrat who votes against someone because they're pro-gun. I'd be surprised if it really holds much weight with them at all. The NRA has no problem sleeping with a lot of filthy characters, and that gives the whole movement a bad reputation. A lot of my friends are very involved in the democratic party, but they happily accept invitations to go shooting. From their perspective, guns aren't scary, it's the people which care exclusively about them.

Again, this paragraph just increasingly convinces me that you are out to pick a fight with the NRA, no matter what the facts might be.

Here's your argument:
1) Most actual Democratic voters are pro-gun-rights, or at least tolerant of gun rights
2) For whatever reason, the Democratic party continues to promote an anti-RKBA and pro gun control agenda
3) This is somehow the NRA's fault
4) The NRA should support Democratic candidates who are directly opposed to the organization's pro-gun-rights agenda, on the basis that some Democratic voters you know are tolerant of your gun ownership, or on the basis that Democrats support other issues that are not part of the NRAs agenda.

I am not finding you to be engaging honestly on this issue, Belus. You seem to have an intractable anger directed at the NRA, but it doesn't make any sense. Most of the things you seem to actually be angry about, like the Democratic party not representing their pro-RKBA supporters, or the partisan divide on RKBA issues, are not the fault of the NRA at all but are in fact actions of the Democratic party.
 
White male
conservative, mostly
don't care about what party they belong to.
married 23 years
NRA ? yes
own firearms? several
This makes me look like a minority many times over
 
Christian fascists.

That's right folks. There's a bunch of Christian fascists out there, and they want to take away all your rights!

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.”

Attributed to Sinclair Lewis
 
.38 Special you have misread my posts, perhaps intentionally. And the false positions you attribute to me is what Wes meant by a reverse straw man.
.38 Special said:
Again, for the record: the arguments against joining the NRA are almost universally childish and petty. "They didn't ask me to tell them all about me", "They called me at work and read from a script", "The hat makes my head look big", yadayadayada.
If it's 'on the record' let's keep it straight, honest and factual.
In this thread, the two reasons people have given for not joining the NRA, or letting their membership lapse have been:
The NRA has taken credit for the success of other pro-rights organizations, or attempted to prevent their success.
The NRA is too willing to support any pro-rights candidate, regardless of that candidate's respect for the rest of the Bill of Rights.
The reasons attributed to the posters who are not current members of the NRA are much less reasonable, I agree. But that is the origin of your straw men. Please keep your sources straight.

antsi said:
Here's your argument:
1) Most actual Democratic voters are pro-gun-rights, or at least tolerant of gun rights
2) For whatever reason, the Democratic party continues to promote an anti-RKBA and pro gun control agenda
3) This is somehow the NRA's fault
4) The NRA should support Democratic candidates who are directly opposed to the organization's pro-gun-rights agenda, on the basis that some Democratic voters you know are tolerant of your gun ownership, or on the basis that Democrats support other issues that are not part of the NRAs agenda.

1) I think most Democrats, especially those of my generation, are tolerant of guns. Perhaps those living outside of Arizona are less reasonable.
2) I don't think the Democratic party is pushing gun control nearly as heavily as before. It's not listed on their website's Agenda page, and there is only one blogger who brings up the issue. http://www.Democrats.org/page/community/tag/Guns I recognize though, that in general, conservatives have better gun rights records.
3) I think it is in part the NRA's fault through pushing candidates which can galvanize a liberal base, and which allow liberals to easily associate the things they don't like with the NRA. I want more discretion in who the NRA supports.
4) Never said that. I don't think the NRA should move counter to it's mission at all. I do think that it should have the good sense to be more selective about who they endorse.

I think my disagreement with the NRA is pretty specific. I have more general concerns about our government and the direction of the country. Some of the blame for this state of affairs rests with the NRA-ILA as they worked hard to get our current politicians elected. Similar blame can be placed with the ACLU for their sponsorship of ardent anti-rights politicians. But the ACLU shares more of my values and concerns than the NRA, which in my opinion has tunnel vision focused on the 2A.

edit: Some people have mentioned they appreciate the NRA's single minded focus on gun-rights. I don't, and those are just value judgments - nothing to get angry over.
 
.38 Special you have misread my posts, perhaps intentionally. And the false positions you attribute to me is what Wes meant by a reverse straw man.

The attribution of a false position is known as a strawman. A "reverse strawman" would, as far as I can figure, be the attribution of a correct position.

As for the rest, well, you use a lot of unnecessary words, so forgive me if I got lazy and assumed they meant what they said.

We now return you to the regularly scheduled mewling.
 
Belus: Nobody is going to force you to join the NRA. So if you don't want to join, don't.

However, I think your arguments are a bit weak and I would love for you to explain how the NRA is the cause of this situation I described in an earlier post:

I hate to break it to you, but it is not the NRA's fault that LIBERAL Democrats are the ones trying to get rid of the 2nd amendment. When the leaders of your party are Kennedy, Clinton, Obama, Kerry, Feinstein, Durbin, Boxer, Lautenberg, Schumer, Pelosi, Daley, etc.... It reads like a who's who of anti-gunners. Please spare the rest of us the joke of blaming the NRA. You have a handful of Republicans that are anti-gun and they rarely vote that way. But you have loads, and loads, and loads, and loads of LIBERAL Democrats all lined up to support restrictions on the 2nd amendment, with the real goal of getting rid of guns in general.

You have already stated that the 2nd amendment isn't too high on your list of most important freedoms. So I would say, you should probably continue to enjoy the benefits of being able to buy pretty much any kind of gun you want here in Arizona, thanks primarily to the work of the NRA and other pro-2nd amendment groups.

It has been mentioned several times that the NRA is not in business to protect the entire Bill of Rights or Constitution. Thankfully they are focused on maintaining our gun rights and they do a pretty good job. I have said before there is no organization that is perfect, but the NRA does a heck of a lot more good than bad. So you continue to enjoy your membership in the ACLU and Democratic party, while they continue to try to tear down our 2nd amendment. A bit hypocritical if you ask me, but hey, that is your choice.
 
belus, you are showing signs of immaturity here. Why don't you join the NRA for a year and then come back and tell us how you feel.

I agree that their are issues with our government and that there is more than one front that we need to fight for but don't get on here and bash people or organizations that are fighting for a right. Try making a stand by supporting the organizations that support your cause. :)
 
Within the context of the discussion on this thread:

NRA donations to Republicans and Democrats:
Perhaps some of you can help me find it, but I got a mailer from the NRA in 2007 that compared their political contributions to Congress versus the Brady committee contributions to members of Congress. The NRA spread its money over both major political parties, and also across ideological lines (they donated money to members of Congress who generally vote against gun rights, in order to get into their offices to discuss the gun rights agenda). Meanwhile, the Brady committee donated almost exclusively to members of Congress who already support gun control. The Brady strategy would certainly seem very limited compared to the NRA strategy. Clearly NRA lobbyists see the wisdom in recruiting players from the other team.

Support of gun rights by Republicans and Democrats in Congress:
In our Forum discussions we often assume that this is a Republican versus Democrat debate. That's too simplistic for a real world strategy. In 2006 just before the election I went to the Congressional web site where you can look up the voting records on legislation before Congress: http://clerk.house.gov/legislative/legvotes.html I looked up all the gun-related votes going back 10 years and kept a tally on party affiliation. In general, about 65% of Republicans voted for gun rights and about 35% voted against gun rights during that time frame; about 25% of Democrats voted for gun rights and about 75% voted against gun rights. That demonstrates that we are foolish to think that this is a Republican issue, because 65% of Republicans are not enough to protect our position. Recruiting more Republicans on our side won't give us the real control in Congress we seek, we must also recruit a larger percentage of Democrats. 25% sounds like a darn good start, but we have much more to gain by increasing that percentage by 10 points among Democrats.

In light of these two paragraphs, you can see that the NRA lobbying effort is probably more astute than we might think. And we gun owners need to broaden our view of the strategies necessary to protect our rights.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top