Has anyone gotten this call from the NRA?

[Old Dog]

Robert Hairless, I'm sure greenmountaingear can defend himself ... but I think you need to knock it off and quit attacking him. He's entitled to his opinion of the NRA's efforts, and ridiculing him for his position is hardly sticking to the high road. Morever, I tend to agree with him in certain respects with regard to how the NRA staff treats its rank-and-file membership. If a organization lobbying for our cause cannot respect its members, and we, as members, cannot make our views known to the organization because its staff will either not listen to our views or is incapable of understanding our positions ... then that organization should lose credibility with us.

 

[greenmountaingear]

Thank you, Old Dog.

I would respond to the attacking poster but it is hardly worth my efforts. My opinion has been given, some agree and others do not. So be it. As an industry member and someone who has always stood up to the anti-gunners, I'll continue along that path the best way I know how. That would include not backing down, no compromise and no surrender

 

[John G]

The UN wouldn't take your guns. They would pass a resolution that asks you to give up your guns, then when you refused, they would pass another resolution.

Of course, I would just say my guns don't exist. Who thinks UN weapons inspectors could actually find them anyway?

 

[homeka45]

I hang up on all telemarketers regardless of origin.

 

[drinks]

Nra

I am a member, I have a poor opinion of the staff, it seems they cannot even keep a membership list, I renewed for 3 years and about 3 months later got a letter telling me I needed to renew as my membership was about to expire.
I emailed them, got a response that someone would call me, never happened.
I made my opinion of old Prune face, Robinson, clear after 2 or 3 of his tantrums, was told someone would call me about it, never happened.
Then when they replaced him, I emailed them I was pleased they had a Prez who could smile, at least a little, but I was really upset La Pierre gave Robinson a cushy job at headquarters, thought he should take care of himself, not freeload off us, was told staff would call me ,never happened.
I am now on the do not call list, after biting the heads off 2 or 3 of their of their oh so friendly buddy-buddy telemarketers, but I do still get a small amount of the mail begging stuff, all goes in the roundfile, unopened.
I really doubt their basic honesty, the cause of that was their unsolicited mailing of a video to me and then being upset when I told them I put it in the trash, unopened, as provided by law.

 

[Robert Hairless]

Old Dog -- Robert Hairless, I'm sure greenmountaingear can defend himself ... but I think you need to knock it off and quit attacking him. He's entitled to his opinion of the NRA's efforts, and ridiculing him for his position is hardly sticking to the high road. Morever, I tend to agree with him in certain respects with regard to how the NRA staff treats its rank-and-file membership. If a organization lobbying for our cause cannot respect its members, and we, as members, cannot make our views known to the organization because its staff will either not listen to our views or is incapable of understanding our positions ... then that organization should lose credibility with us.

You misread me. My posts are not personal attacks on "greenmountaingear" but attempts to demonstrate that his logic leads him to conclusions that can't be defended except by saying that everyone is entitled to an opinion and that it doesn't matter if it's fallacious. Here's a convenient explanation of the problem I attempted to demonstrate:

The post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this therefore because of this) fallacy is based upon the mistaken notion that simply because one thing happens after another, the first event was a cause of the second event. Post hoc reasoning is the basis for many superstitions and erroneous beliefs.

Many events follow sequential patterns without being causally related. For example, you have a cold, so you drink fluids and two weeks later your cold goes away. You have a headache so you stand on your head and six hours later your headache goes away. You put acne medication on a pimple and three weeks later the pimple goes away. You perform some task exceptionally well after forgetting to bathe, so the next time you have to perform the same task you don't bathe. A solar eclipse occurs so you beat your drums to make the gods spit back the sun. The sun returns, proving to you the efficacy of your action.

You use your dowsing stick and then you find water. You imagine heads coming up on a coin toss and heads comes up. You rub your lucky charm and what you wish for comes true. You lose your lucky charm and you strike out six times. You have a "vision" that a body is going to be found near water or in a field and later a body is found near water or in a field. You have a dream that an airplane crashes and an airplane crashes the next day or crashed the night before.

However, sequences don't establish a probability of causality any more than correlations do. Coincidences happen. Occurring after an event is not sufficient to establish that the prior event caused the later one. To establish the probability of a causal connection between two events, controls must be established to rule out other factors such as chance or some unknown causal factor. Anecdotes aren't sufficient because they rely on intuition and subjective interpretation.

Good high schools and colleges taught logic in the past. His reasoning is a classic example of the post hoc fallacy (the NRA got calls and e-mails about an issue so when it made a position statement it was because they were "hammered" by those calls and e-mails) and so is the above explanation of why that logic is destructive. The source of that explanation did not mean to ridicule him either.

But of course I agree completely that he--and you--are entitled to your opinions. I understand that it is wrong for me to challenge them, especially if I do so in a way that you and he consider unacceptable. It might surprise you to know that I agree with you completely about that too. I am wrong for challenging him on logical grounds and I am wrong for attempting to argue with you on those grounds too. I accept my mistakes and I am truly sorry to have spent my time for no purpose other than to irritate you and others who have your own strong opinions and your own ways of reaching them.

 

[Art Eatman]

ONe thing I've noticed in a lot of these gripes against the NRA is that they don't instantaneously come out with some strong statement against stupidities like we've read about in New Orleans.

Here we, are, unsure whether some gun-grab is an isolated incident or widespread and ongoing.

If the NRA does jump out and blast, and a day or two later it is found that the incident is not commonplace, the NRA then looks foolish.

If the NRA waits for more information, and let's for the moment assume the gun-grabs are commonplace and widespread, the NRA then is operating from fact.

A day or two of waiting doesn't hurt a thing if one's position on an issue is then based upon fact and not rumor.

What I'm seeing here is the emotional reactions of people who seemingly want instant gratification for opinions which may well be based upon rumor and myth, with castigations promulgated as though they're based upon fact.

The NRA doesn't need to put itself in the position of FEMA's Brown, who publicly stated that the Superdome folks were being fed and watered when the whole world knew that was not the case.

As regards the NRA's UN phone calls, those have been part of an ongoing campaign, parallelling efforts of GOA, CCRKBA, et al. I've also gotten send-us-money letters from those organizations.

One last point while I'm mumbling: Notice the sorta dumbed-down tone of calls and letters? They seem to be aimed at near-drop-out thinking. Well, haven't we decried public education? And, aren't most people educated in public schools? When the NRA's efforts are aimed at "the masses", do we expect intellectually challenging discussion, or simplistic reasoning? (Not that I don't find such drivel annoying when I get one of these letters...)

Art