Latest Emails from the NRA Change in Tone

I'm not so sure Obama has "chosen" to get into the gun battle - I think he's a more pragmatic politician than some folks give him credit, and I've got a feeling he's taken to heart Bill Clinton's views on the NRA / gun rights, and how that could affect your political career.

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I think I concur. Back on January 18th, right after the announcement that the President was naming Biden to head up the effort to stamp out gun rights in the names of the dead children (or however he put it), I posted this:

Me said:

[A]ll indications -- really right from the initial burst of outcry -- seem to have been leading to an inevitable petering out of momentum. The best thing he could do with something so contentious and hard to win would be to delay and "think on it" for a while, release a few non-contentious orders that won't do anything at all and don't really get anyone up in arms, give it to his political scapegoat (Biden) to separate himself from the inevitable failure to go anywhere, blame Congress, and simply let the momentum for any action at all to die away as it always does.

If that's the plan (and it is pretty smart politics, after all) then he's RIGHT on track.

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Most people in my area are members of the Democratic Party, and are mostly Obama supporters. I find a lot of their support of him to be misplaced, but that's a separate issue. Most of these people are also pro-gun. Democrats with concealed carry permits, and who enjoy hunting (or would like to). So I can sympathize with wanting the NRA to stick to a single issue. However, I also don't trust the NRA, and don't think they do a good job of defending the right to keep and bear arms. So in that regard, I'm really not surprised.

It is concerning. There are plenty of Republican leaders who want to tie gun rights in with a general culture war. It's not a good idea for a lot of reasons.

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It may be disconcerting, but it is not "concerning." I agree it is not a good idea, but I am not sure I agree that this is as wide spread as suggested. Most cultural conservatives support gun rights, but I don't think they are trying to "tie" gun rights to their cultural causes. I would be one of those.

But how do you fight an opponent infringing on the 2nd amendment if it happens to be the POTUS and his party? The strategies the NRA uses will almost always be deemed political if the administration is the focus of those tactics.

Which I guess begs the question: at what point in recent history did guns become a partisan issue?

This is exactly why I quit the NRA, Doc7.

Waywatcher said:

This is exactly why I quit the NRA, Doc7.

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...and then donated to the NRA-ILA?






Right?

Sam1911 said:

Amen! If RKBA could be truly divorced from the partisan hackery and culture war, red/blue, nonsense, gun control would be deader than disco.

Here's hoping, someday.

Unfortunately, the way we do things is to pretend that "people like us" think what we think. And then WE are often daft enough to buy into whatever we're told "people like us" think!

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The antis constantly tie social, political, or anything negative that happens, into screaming for more gun control.

Me, I can remember when the NRA was a namby pamby, goody goody organization of, can't we all just get along with our skeet shooting and hunting. The NRA back then was always ready to roll over to appease the antis on way too many issues.

The members had to fight like Hades to wake them up as to what was really going on, which was/is the antis will never relent with their anti 2nd amendment crusade using any and all means. It is a multi facet/front war the antis are waging, and the NRA (and us) had damn well better fight fire with fire.

... and the NRA (and us) had damn well better fight fire with fire.

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Certainly true! But that can't entail hooking the RKBA wagon to wayward social issues some folks see as "conservative" or whatever. I think that's the main point of this thread. If the NRA starts standing for some party stance on immigration, abortion, healthcare, foreign policy, religion, education, etc., etc., then our rights get dragged down into all that ugly partisan bickering over issues that folks who strongly support gun rights do NOT agree with each other on.

Do that, and the "star" of RKBA rises and falls on the fortunes of the specific political vermin who pander to one or the other particular socially self-identifying wing of society. And that's non-sustainable if we hope to have real long-term success.

RKBA just HAS to be beyond and above all that fluff.

Look at it this way.......

What major social issue is NOT tied to a political party or "side"


Unfortunately, it is what it is.......... I wonder how we got here......

The NRA is a friend, not foe. While not always agreeing with them 100%, they do far more for gun rights than any other group, and I won't withdraw support over what I see as a largely petty issue in the grand scheme of their mission. They had my support before, and they will continue to receive it until I feel there's a better alternative out there. At this point, no other group comes close in my view.

If you like guns, and are not in the NRA, then I say you are totally clueless.

Of course this applies only if you really do want to be able to keep your guns, don't care if you can keep buying as many guns as you want, don't care if you have good access to ammo, don't care if you have places to shoot your guns.

Folks who say, "Ewwww. The NRA has some allies who are like totally icky and everything" are completely clueless as to the nature of the fight we are in here.

Lefty-wing, anti-gun urbanite liberals hate us. Not just guns. They hate people who own guns, and who think they have a right to own guns.

Urbanite liberals are almost universally far-left Democrats.

If that's your enemy, then you adjust your tactics accordingly.

Lest we forget?

I don't think our biggest problem right now is Obama, etc.
I think it's King Michael (Bloomberg).

Realizing he's not having much luck on a national level, once again the strategy is divide and conquer as Bloomberg and company attempt to pick off states in order to gain national momentum.

As some of the posts in here seem to indicate, divide and conquer is working much better than it should.

And a big part of the "divide and conquer" effort is to pin RKBA down to one certain wing of the political spectrum and tie it up in unrelated issues that a large portion of society will never agree to support, no matter how much they support the Constitution and RKBA.

On the surface, its easy to agree that the NRA should focus on a single issue. Even from NJ where they totally ignore us while our senators plot to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate (but do take our money.)

At the same time, isn't it kind of like tying one hand behind your back?

All of the issues of the day, Benghazi, Shenanigans at IRS, Obamacare details, don't they all erode credibility and as such help in the RKBA struggle?

If there wasn't all this noise going on, we might be in a lot more trouble than we are now, even though individual states are doing some serious damage of their own accord.

It depends on whether you see a politician or an administration as the embodiment of the anti-rights movement, and if you're willing to see our single-issue rights organization diversify into broader political infighting. Unfortunately, the "liberal" side of the aisle from generation to generation, doesn't have any sort of monopoly on unethical or even illegal activities, so if you tie RKBA to one platform or the other, then RKBA is vulnerable when "its" politicians falter, just as we may see Schumer & Co. as vulnerable when "their" folks are caught doing something despicable.

Surely, issues of the day can be used to torpedo the prospects of individual politicians, but the NRA should stay out of such things. Let the other political rodents gnaw on each other. Don't bring our RKBA organization down into that morass.

If not for the NRA and NRA-ILA, we would have lost our gun rights a long time ago. Those who object to the politics should continue to object ............ I don't have a problem with that, but we are in a fight that we will surely loose if we don't continue supporting NRA-ILA.

Without the NRA........ We would be in some deep waters....

They get my support

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=261154614856#description
maybe this will help the nra

SuperNaut said:

I donate to the NRA-ILA instead of just the NRA for this very reason. There is a positive to the way it is structured, think of it this way:

NRA = Kata

NRA-ILA = Randori

Or:

NRA = The Battle Cry

NRA-ILA = The Battle

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I really like the martial arts reference!

I'm a NRA member because our local range requires it.

Strongly dislike their present political posturing.
If I want to read political mudslinging/crap I'll read
newspaper editorials.
I sent a few e-mails to the NRA about this....got a
"thanks for sharing" reply.
Somebody should forward a link to this thread!
Dave

Well, look at it like this. The more noise made about the other big issues the antis are up to like Benghazi or the IRS acting biased towards conservatives the more attention is diverted from the anti gun rights movement. I think its a good strategy. You haven't heard much about the UBC's or AWB's since the Benghazi hearings started have you?

Whatever it takes to keep them out of my sandbox.

Bruno2 said:

Well, look at it like this. The more noise made about the other big issues the antis are up to like Benghazi or the IRS acting biased towards conservatives the more attention is diverted from the anti gun rights movement. I think its a good strategy. You haven't heard much about the UBC's or AWB's since the Benghazi hearings started have you?

Whatever it takes to keep them out of my sandbox.

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We don't need to let our guard down. The antis with their gun control agendas have only retreated into the nearest closets with their cloaks and daggers for round two.

Possibly counting Bloomberg's money for a political bribery scheme. Surely not here, in America?

Amazing to me how many folks posting in this thread who appear to want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend politics isn't all related.

NOBAMA needs to be discredited on as many fronts as possible. His lack of political clout will force gridlock which is good for everyone given 99.9% of his socialist agenda. It is all related and if you pretend it isn't you're fooling yourselves. If NOBAMA had any political clout at all we'd all be living under an assault weapons ban right now.

Don't fool yourselves into thinking this is over or that it wasn't his idea. He's screwed the Democratic party in '14 unless you all decide to forget or decide you're going to vote the other issues that don't matter.

(His policies are flawed to the core and are not creating jobs or growing the economy. Unless you're in the Government sector and even if you're employed by the Govt. he's milking taxpayers dry where that game will be up soon enough as well.)

Say it after me.....Highest Corporate Tax rate of any of the developed nations, including FRANCE. Keep saying it. Even after that, we're Trillions in the hole and the pension liability for all these Government employees is the next shoe to drop.

If anybody here doesn't think the NRA doesn't have well educated think tanks and strategists plotting and planning their every move then you need to wake up. Wayne Lapierre doesn't just all of the sudden write a quick speech on a napkin and then go address the nation on natl TV. There is more deep thought put into everything they come out saying than most mainstream media outlets.

These guys aren't amateurs and they know what they are doing. Just let them do their thing.