Here's what the AHSA's "Who We Are" page said until relatively recently:
When I click on the link, I don't see
anything like what you are quoting. It's sort of a rambling recap of the election year.
May here's another way to get at the nugget of why the theory that the AHSA has different public and private policies is so fundamentally wacky.
For purposes of argument, I will assume that you and the NRA are 100% right, and the AHSA, though publicly pro-RKBA, is secretly and deeply anti-RKBA.
Tell me if there is anything unfair about this assumption.
Let's look at the implications of that assumption:
- The AHSA is secretly an anti-RKBA organization with a publicly pro-RKBA policy.
- Let's assume that the AHSA is wildy successful - it deludes millions of people by appearing to be pro-RKBA, even though it's secretly anti-RKBA.
- So now, it's an secretly anti-RKBA organization with millions of members who are pro-RKBA.
- What does the AHSA do now?
- If they advocate for anti-RKBA legislation, then they will blow their "cover" and lose their millions of pro-RKAB members, so they will have no money and no influence.
- Their only reasonable choice is to continue taking pro-RKBA public stances in order to maintain membership and influence.
- This hypothetical wildly successful AHSA - because its members are pro-RKBA - can never actually advocate for its secret inner sanctum deeply held anti-RKAB policy.
- So for all time, the AHSA will have to be a secretly anti-RKBA organization that publicly advocates pro-RKBA policies.
And that makes perfect sense to you?
Doesn't it make a lot more sense to accept that the AHSA is exactly what it appears to be - a mostly Democratic pro-RKBA alternative to the mostly Republican NRA? Do the vast conspiracy theories even make any sense at all?
The fundamental flaw in all of the "secret cabal" theories about the AHSA is that it's actions will be public - if they endorse an AWB ban, it's members will know that, and will leave. I know I will.
I know that a lot of people like in tone Cold War terminology about "front organizations" and let paranoia have free play. To me those arguments miss a critical point - "front" organizations are necessary when what is being hidden is illegal or oppressed.
Communist "front" organizations never had diddly squat influence in the US precisely because we have an open political process. If you want to advocate for Communism, you can from a Communist Party and work yourself to death to advocate Joe Stalin. There is nothing illegal about it.
"Front" organizations only make sense when there is political oppression. If being a member of the Communist party means that I will go to jail, then I will form a "Cinnamon Bun Tasting Society" that is a front, and skulk around the back of bakeries pretending to taste patries when in fact I am reading Trotsky. But I can just join the Communist Part and pick up a copy of Trotsky at Barnes and Noble, why would I skulk around?
"Front" organizations don't make any sense in a free and open society. Even if you manage to get one started, the very freedom and open-ness will transform the organization so that it is exactly what it claims to be.
As an example, in the beginning of the union movement in this country, there was a lot of socialist/communist influence. That all happened when the union movement was heavily oppressed - when being a union organizer could get you killed. As soon as the unions could openly and transparently advocate and unionize, what happened? The communist/socialist influence died out. As an example, the common icon of
conservative opposition to anti-war protesters was a union construction worker in a hard hat.
The ACLU has pretty much the same history - the open American political process drove the socialist/communist influence out of the ACLU a half century ago.
It made sense to form Communist "front" organizations when membership in the Communist policy was illegal, or would get you dragged in front of Joe McCarthy, or you'd lose your job for being a Communist.
Is there anyone who seriously contends that supporting an AWB is illegal, or that it will get you dragged in front of Joe McCarthy, or that you will lose your job if you advocate for an AWB?
Mike