I'm beginning to wonder about the NRA...

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NRA is terrified of a Supreme Court decision.

This is one of the many things they have deliberately done to doom the Parker case. If the Hutchison Bill is enacted, Parker v. DC is moot and any appeal will be dismissed.

That means THE case the Supreme Court gets will be that of a gun-toting convicted child rapist charged under the felon in possession law presenting a "joke" defense motion brought by some disparate public defender who knows less about guns than Hilary Clinton. Rather than have the case brought by lawyers who know what they are doing, NRA wants to stick its collective head up its a** and make us all run the RISK that some disparate PD gets lucky and pulls three lemons on the slot machine of justice. Bad strategy.

Look here: http://www.gunweek.com/2003/nra060103.html
 
If we could have a show of hands here, I'd ask how many think the government is too big and getting bigger. Since most of us can type one-handed I believe we'd get a lot of hands in the air.
What has been one of the worst aspects of big government? A good many of us would cite lack of accountability. The original 'checks and balances' don't seem to work the way they were intended.
Any large organization - the NRA included - has the same problem. Just as government wants nothing so much as its own longevity... the NRA does too. If Congress suddenly became a part-time job we'd see a huge exodus from the ranks of politics (and a similarly huge unemployment spike).
By the same token, if SCOTUS were to uphold the Parker decision and hold that most gun control laws were unconstitutional the NRA would go back to keeping scores and setting up matches. It's not likely that they'd need a high-priced executive director to run it or a staff of hundreds (if not more) people working in an expensive headquarters building. No, the NRA executives are nothing more than another bunch of politicians trying to keep their jobs and they're quite willing to lie, obfuscate or simply fail to communicate to their constituency to do so.
Just as a certain test of the veracity of a congresscritter is whether or not his/her lips are moving - the same can be said of the NRA heirarchy. When congress and the NRA are on opposite sides of a question it's easy for us to decide who to back. All too often though, the NRA has blurred the line to accomodate some segment of government in the faint hope there will be an opportunity to balance that accomodation in the future. One can only wonder just what we're supposed to get for GCA '68. Maybe the next AWB won't include flash hiders.
 
Wow, being misunderstood is one thing... :rolleyes:

Hyperbole and misquotes don't interest me. I think I'll just stick to the more gun-related threads here, and I'll support the gun rights organizations I choose, for my own reasons. If you like the NRA, support them, by all means.
Cheers



oldfart, my hand's up. :)
 
I'd hate to see a SCOTUS decision that could wipe out our gains, particularly on such a main point that "the people" is singular and not collective.
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Amen! This thing with the Supremes is like a Russian roulette as far as I am concerned. I know some of you are ecstatic about the Supreme Court getting involved but I am not so much. I see it as too risky and unpredictable. And if the ruling is heavy handed against the RKBA then the only remedy is to wait for the Court to hopefully reverse itself 60-80 years later. Most of us will not be alive by that time.

All in all, we all want the same thing but what's the best way to get it?! Time will tell but I am skeptical if the Supreme Court route is the right one.
 
I think a bigger concern is that if Parker doesn't make it to the USSC, that as others have said, a less desirable case will and we'll certainly lose that one.

Parker is the case that could prevent another 70 years of the status quo. Also, Mr. Levy is not wasting a LOT of money just to chalk up a loss. There is a lot of money and expertise behind this case and it is taking a different angle than many previous cases. At some point you have to look at the odds, make a decision and roll the dice.
 
Both the NRA and Brady are paid political lobbying organizations. Neither side wants an all-out win because that would make them both businesses without a cause.
 
The NRA has substantial non-political functions. Even if they won a convincing victory in the supreme court next week, I predict that they would have at least another 30-40 years of hard work ahead of them. Look at how long it took the NAACP to become irrelevant after Brown v Board (1954). And they are a purely political org, not an organization dedicated to the promotion of marksmanship.
 
would make them both businesses without a cause.
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There is this thinking among some us but I beg to differer. NRA does others stuff besides lobbying. Education services, youth programs, women's programs, competitive shooting, etc. People thing that the NRA is only a political organization but it is not. Folks, just because we are often talking about NRA in the context of RBKA let's not forget about the various other things they do. Let's not be cynical here.


Now for the Brady bunch, their only purpose is to get rid of firearms as far as I know.
 
Just to keep in perspective what the NRA has been doing for the last two decades keep in mind that without this organization there would be no modern CCW movement as we know it. One would be able to count the number of shall issue states in one hand.

It was the Florida chapter of the NRA led by former NRA president Marion Hammer which pionered the whole modern concept of shall issue legislation. Prior to this only a handful of states like Vermont and Maine were truly shall issue. The south for example, arguably the most pro-gun region of the country did not implement shall issue legislation until the 1990's. A state like Texas did not have this most basic of rights until 1995.
 
Put simply, NRA cannot afford a victory in Parker v. DC.
Membership would drop back to well under 1 million.
Fundraising for ILA would produce negative dollars.
There would be no need (or ability) to pay an EVP $800,000.
NRA's brain (the outside PR agency) would loose the big money teat.
 
Bartholomew Roberts, you have a reasonable approach and you state it reasonably. I've written Levy to thank him for what he has done and is doing. He obviously is sincere. I also think that the NRA is sincerely trying to do what it thinks best. Suggestions to the contrary are the usual irrational invocations of a conspiracy and subversion by people with strong opinions and little more than a generalized sense of unease to support them. Claims that the NRA has done little or nothing to further the cause, or that it intends to hurt it, are so irrational and out of touch with reality that I wonder how the people who say such things could possibly believe them.

I don't know what is the right approach in this situation. It seems a gamble either way, and the stakes are high.

What troubles me is the refusal to accept that people can differ without being evil. It's destructive and self-destructive to attack the NRA because it's strategy is different from Levy's. Many gun owners tend to behave that way. It's sad.
 
A couple of weeks I called NRA-ILA and referenced the following documents: http://www.gurapossessky.com/parker_pleadings.htm

I informed them that as a NRA member I didn't want them using my money to subvert and derail the Parker case. The response from the representative (Eric) was that he "never heard of Alan Gura" and that "no one had ever called to complain to the NRA before about the matter". So I spent several minutes trying to tell him how to spell the name so that he could look it up in Google: "A L A N..." and he still couldn't find the information.

Here's my question to those of you who think that the NRA has a brilliant master plan: If the NRA is on top of things, how is it that their representative doesn't even know who Alan Gura is?
 
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He obviously is sincere. I also think that the NRA is sincerely trying to do what it thinks best. Suggestions to the contrary are the usual irrational invocations of a conspiracy and subversion by people with strong opinions and little more than a generalized sense of unease to support them.
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I agree with this.

I certainly don't think the NRA is perfect. It is certainly rational - and even healthy - to have different opinions about how best to promote and protect RKBA. I also believe that the cause benefits from having other gun rights organizaitons and activists pursuing their own strategies, in addition to whatever the NRA is doing. All that much I can agree with.

What I cannot understand is all this irrational hostility to the NRA that you see on gun boards all the time and all the conspiracy theories people purport to believe.

If you disagree, disagree. Fine. Dissent, even among allies, is a good thing. Rational dissent supported by argument and evidence is even better.

But don't accuse everyone who disagrees with you of secretly working to sabotage RKBA, or not wanting to defend gun owner rights, or being cowards because they don't agree with your "bold strategy" or that they are only working to enhance their own prestige. That is not rational, it is not healthy debate, and it is not helpful to the cause.
 
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Both the NRA and Brady are paid political lobbying organizations.
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This is just flat-out untrue.

Brady is purely a political lobbying organization.

Political lobbying is just a small fraction of what the NRA does. In fact, any money or activity you see under the banner "NRA" is expressly NOT political - only the NRA-ILA is allowed by law to do political lobbying.

All the shooting classes and gun safety courses, and the myriad of competitions, setting safety standards for shooting facilities, youth programs, print publications, videos, hunter services, law enforcement services, women's programs, museums, collector services, and thousands of affiliate clubs and organizations would absolutely flourish in the absence of an anti-gun movement.

The assertion that the NRA would whither up and die without political opposition is nonsense.
 
Yes, I think people miss that there are a lot of reasons to disagree on strategy. I also disagree with the view that the political lobbying parts of the NRA would be out of work if the Court found the Second Amendment to be an individual right.

Look at some of the gun control laws that the Parker court found to be constitutional. Don't think for a minute that the antis wouldn't immediately push for those types of laws (registration, training requirements, etc.). The NRA would be VERY busy fighting that type of legislation as well as pursuing litigation for another 20 years or more to define exactly what the boundaries of the individual right are.

Look at NARAL as an example... Roe v. Wade happened in the 70s. By 1990, NARAL was trumpeting a new peak in members - 400,000. This was more members than NARAL had ever had and almost 20 years after the decision. Along comes Casey v. Planned Parenthood which rewrites the protections given under Roe; but reaffirms a right to privacy as a fundamental right. Despite two Supreme Court decisions affirming a right to an abortion, NARAL's membership today, over 30 years after Roe, is over 900,000.

The NRA will have no shortage of work to do, even should the Court declare the Second to be an individual right.
 
antsi and Bartholomew Roberts-- Yup. We agree.

Statements like "Both the NRA and Brady are paid political lobbying organizations. Neither side wants an all-out win because that would make them both businesses without a cause" from gc70 are mindboggling. Gc70 seems not to know anything about the NRA, what it is, or what it does. But he has opinions.

Gc70 has one advantage over me: I don't have the slightest idea of what he means by "paid political lobbying organizations" when he uses those two organizations as examples of whatever it is he's talking about. It's bad, I guess, whatever it is.

Does F4GIB actually think that an outside public relations firm runs the NRA and sets its policies so "NRA's brain (the outside PR agency) would loose the big money teat"? I've dealt with public relations firms throughout most of my adult life and never before encountered anyone who thought such a thing. I can't even imagine a PR firm stupid enough to try to impose business policies on its client. An account rep who suggests any such thing would be tossed out the window.

It requires the kind of belief system in which doctors cause disease so they can generate patients, ammunition manufacturers create criminals so they can sell self-defense cartridges, and this forum exists because Oleg Volk is really an aspirin magnate who wants messages that make people's heads spin.

Please tell Oleg that he has just sold another bottle of his aspirins--the giant size. :)
 
While I see why the NRA would like to wait for a perfect case and a Supreme Court roster decidedly in favor of liberty, that could possibly take forever. Setting aside the point others have brought up about another future Miller-esque defendant, or what would happen if Hillary or Obama end up with the chance to appoint Justices, are there any other cases anywhere on the radar that might make it this far?

Take that Fincher guy down in Arkansas, for instance. Yes, his defense is rather disorganized and a bit tinfoil-y, but otherwise it's a somewhat clean case; in that he has no criminal record and the only charge is possessing/manufacturing a MG. 'Tis probably a long shot, but imagine for a second he was the one to make it to SCOTUS after Parker was nullified by a repeal of the law. Who would the Justices be more likely to favor? DC Residents who simply want to defend themselves from criminals? Or a bearded militia dude who they'd think wants to shoot down black helicopters?

Or, perhaps more importantly, who do we want to be our proxy representative?
 
Fincher is a not the sharpest tool in the shed and he definitely didnt bother to talk to a lawyer. There are effective ways to challenge federal criminal statutes, but subjecting yourself to prosecution is not one of them. If you dont approve of DUI statutes, you dont challenge them by getting liquored up and driving around the police station parking lot.

His only real hope is that the evidence would somehow get tossed out, but if I remember correctly he has admitted to knowingly possessing machine guns. At this point, I beleive he is pretty much done. Unless I fundamentally misunderstand this case, it should be a slam dunk for the government. He basically did all the work for them.

His second amendment argument is pretty much dead in the water in the 8th circuit- he might as well be in califorinia. Parker may go our way in the supreme court, but it will come way too late for Fincher.
 
I, too, think the NRA is trying to do what it thinks is best. And they might even be right about what's best. I don't think so, but I might be wrong.

The problem is that what the NRA thinks is best is considerably at odds with,

1. What the NRA membership thinks is best.

and because of this,

2. What the NRA deliberately leads it's members to think is what the NRA is doing.

They could come out, in a nice, tightly reasoned editorial in the Rifleman, and explain that we're winning on the political front, that the Supreme court is iffy at best, and that they think if the Supreme court does take a 2nd amendment case, it will rule against us, which would be a really big setback. So the NRA's policy is to not bring Second amendment challenges to gun laws, and do their best to spike any cases other people bring.

They could run that editorial. The reason they don't is that their membership probably WOULD drop by a million in a couple of years, as all those members who want a balls to the wall legal assault on gun control, and thought they were getting it from the NRA, went someplace else.
 
Well, my point to that approach is that NRA has met with Gura and Levy and guaranteed them that they will not spoil Parker. In the world of politics, guaranteeing that you won't pass legislation to moot a case isn't the same thing as saying "We will not promote this legislation." NRA may think that it can do things like the recent House vote that show the lie in Democrat claims to support the Second Amendment without facing a risk that the bill actually gets passed.

After all, if you know that the Democrats will kill a bill they desperately want rather than vote for a simple thing like giving DC citizens the same rights that most other citizens of the U.S. enjoy, then you can definitely score some cheap points for the campaign trail by forcing record votes that will go nowhere; but will force Democrats to go on record as for/against gun control.

If the NRA was pursuing that strategy, then it can't very well tell everyone it is bluffing before it pursues it. On the other hand, I think it is dangerous to pursue the strategy and this bill is not a good vehicle for it. As more gun owners understand that passing the bill could be very bad for any future Supreme Court cases, a Democrat candidate who wants to avoid the problem can simply vote "No" and give a rational explanation of how that vote protected the Second Amendment. The Democrats could also call the NRAs bluff and leave them in the position of killing their own bill, doing a major rewrite of it, or passing legislation that much of their membership will be angry about.
 
+1

BR said:
After all, if you know that the Democrats will kill a bill they desperately want rather than vote for a simple thing like giving DC citizens the same rights that most other citizens of the U.S. enjoy
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It was the Florida chapter of the NRA led by former NRA president Marion Hammer which pionered the whole modern concept of shall issue legislation. Prior to this only a handful of states like Vermont and Maine were truly shall issue. The south for example, arguably the most pro-gun region of the country did not implement shall issue legislation until the 1990's. A state like Texas did not have this most basic of rights until 1995.

BEEP! No, sorry, contrary to popular myth, Washington has been a shall-issue state for many many years, and state pre-emption has existed here for more than 20 years. That "handful" of other states were the true pioneers here.

Marion did yoeman work down there in Florida. But the concept of "shall issue" didn't start in the Sunshine State...
 
BEEP! No, sorry, contrary to popular myth, Washington has been a shall-issue state for many many years, and state pre-emption has existed here for more than 20 years. That "handful" of other states were the true pioneers here.
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What a paradox our beloved Evergreen state is. Given the political climate here the past decade or so, I count my blessings daily that we have the "rights" we do today. There is NO way either pre emption, or shall carry laws would pass here today. Power here has become too centralized. (Read: King County)

Forgive the thread hijack.

As for the thread's original theme. I still tentatively support the NRA, because I believe in their ideals. The hierarchy however does sometimes seem out of touch with we peons. I guess that's the nature of any large organization.
I do appreciate the work they do for us, but I find it hard to imagine someone like Wayne LaPierre manning a table at the next WAC show. Hoppe's # 9 is tough to get out of an Armani. ;)
 
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by antsi:
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Both the NRA and Brady are paid political lobbying organizations.
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This is just flat-out untrue.
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Only if you mentally insert "only" or "solely" in my statement. You even went on to lecture on how both organizations were involved in political lobbying. Quibble over the degree of explanation if you want, but you proved the basic premise.

by Robert Hairless:
Statements like "Both the NRA and Brady are paid political lobbying organizations. Neither side wants an all-out win because that would make them both businesses without a cause" from gc70 are mindboggling. Gc70 seems not to know anything about the NRA, what it is, or what it does. But he has opinions.

Gc70 has one advantage over me: I don't have the slightest idea of what he means by "paid political lobbying organizations" when he uses those two organizations as examples of whatever it is he's talking about. It's bad, I guess, whatever it is.
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I am aware of the variety of functions of the NRA in promoting the shooting sports, as well as their lobbying efforts through the ILA. My comments were clearly directed toward the lobbying efforts.

Allow me to define the term that Hairless can't comprehend. Both the NRA(-ILA) and Brady are organizations with paid professional staff that solicit money for the purpose of political lobbying, hence "paid political lobbying organizations." The term is descriptive, not judgmental.

My conclusion about an "all-out win" may be cynical, but is certainly rational.

The NRA has a corporate culture, derived from decades of history and experience, of incremental efforts to protect firearms rights. While the NRA's efforts are sincere, they are careful and methodical. The concept of betting everything on one roll of the dice is alien to the NRA's way of operating.

The movers behind the Parker case appear to be "true believers" who are willing to put everything on the line on one roll of the dice.
 
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