NRA Built Massive Gun Owner Database

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The amount of information out there is a bit frightening. "Expectation of Privacy" went away a long time ago. Ever call a company about a product and have them say, "Good Morning, Mr. Jones" or start to give them your address only to find they had it and you never dealt with them before? Just caller ID with links to a criss-cross database file, not even high tech.

Jim
 
I've been on this forum, other forums, and even facebook spouting all kinds of ideas about self-determination, the Bill of Rights, the natural rights of free people, and the role of government for years.
If "they" wanted to know who I am, they'd have plenty of places to look. They wouldn't need the NRA's hypothetical database.
Hopefully, "they" are looking for the "Tsarnaevs" of the world instead of wasting their time with me. But I admit that the idea of a government with too much power - and with the ability and willingness to turn that power against peaceful people who are just insistent on not relinquishing their rights - does scare and sicken me. It's not the country we're supposed to live in.
Hence, my continued letter/email contact with representatives.
Then again, if you've ever written a rep about the Second Amendment, or anything else, what makes you think that couldn't also be tracked?
 
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Can't see where this is a big deal. They're not even compiling a list of gun owners - just LIKELY gun owners.

Who woulda thunk that an organization that solicits membership would collect a list of potential members for advertising purposes.

Nearly every company/organization out there is doing something similar. Just because you tack "guns" onto it doesn't make it nefarious.

And as has already been stated, to say that there's a risk of "the gub'mint" hacking into their database - why would they? This is just a database of LIKELY gun owners. The government could just as easily (and may or may not already) compile similar types of data just by looking at the forums, websites, etc that you visit. Heck if you use a credit card to purchase anything at a gun shop that technically COULD be used to compile a fairly good list.

Not to mention that gun ownership is so common that to compile a "list" of simple gun owners wouldn't be that useful. The danger that has always been something to stray away from is an actual catalog of the specific firearms you own. Basically plausible deniability. The government might know that you own guns - just not likely how many or which ones. Confiscation isn't feasible without them being able to verify that they got them all.
 
Yawn! So much ado about nothing. Google your own name and find out what is instantly available to ANYONE, just for the asking, and for free to boot. Unless you are a hermit who only uses cash, owns no property, and does not use the internet or e-mail, the world has an amazing amount of information about you.
 
Justin posted:

Oh, how cute. One of the useless denizens of buzzfeed stopped posting cat memes recycled from Reddit long enough to play a game of pretend journalist.
Click to expand...

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner....
 
Sure the NRA has a database, but it's very poorly cross-indexed and correlated. For example, I've been a life member since about 1970, yet I still get regular solicitations to become a member. With such a situation, I wonder how useful the NRA database would be for any kind of serious data-mining.
 
Justin said:
Oh, how cute. One of the useless denizens of buzzfeed stopped posting cat memes recycled from Reddit long enough to play a game of pretend journalist.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but unfortunately, this pretend journalist seems to have succeeded in "unnerving" the OP, and who knows how many more gullible souls out there.:banghead:
 
Dalton - one paragraph in the article has the biggest reason (IMHO) for their database. It says:
“There are certainly some parallels,” said Laura Quinn, CEO of Catalist, a data analysis firm used by Obama for America. “The NRA is not only able to understand people who their members are but also people who are not their members. The more data they have, the more it allows them to test different strategies and different messages on different people.”
(emphasis added for clarity)
Click to expand...
 
Yeah, but unfortunately, this pretend journalist seems to have succeeded in "unnerving" the OP, ...
Click to expand...

No he didn't. Read the second paragraph of Post 17 again. :rolleyes: Just never know who'll show up at THR and what they'll pretend to think in order to further their ends.
 
Hilarious.

How is a marketing list compiled by the NRA, from information available to anyone, the same as a national gun registry? The article is a joke.
 
Yeah, but unfortunately, this pretend journalist seems to have succeeded in "unnerving" the OP, and who knows how many more gullible souls out there.
Click to expand...

I don't think that the OP is unnerved so much as he is using this bit of quote-unquote journalism as a way to sow FUD about the NRA in an attempt to bolster the group he's affiliated with.

I think it's disingenuous that he didn't feel that he should inform us of the fact that he's associated with the American Gun Owner's Alliance, as it seems pretty clear that his post here is driven by an agenda.
 
guys, this is still the high road. we all need to ease up on the insults.

i hope what mr dalton takes away from this discussion is that members of the NRA may whine to each other a little about their marketing and spending our money on mailing us silver bullet keychains, and we may disagree with some of the political strategies, BUT when an outsider sets up an "us vs them" argument, WE are the NRA, and we will come to its defense.

gun owners as a group are much more concerned about our privacy than the average American, but it's unreasonable to think the NRA isn't keeping lists of people who take their classes, etc. After all, everyone who has interacted with the NRA at some point knows the volume of mail you get from them. it just seems kind of silly to equate that with the recent illegal, unconstitutional shenanigans of the NSA etc
 
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Robert
Moderator



Do you keep a data base of your members?
__________________
Click to expand...


:scrutiny: wait... wut? shouldn't we be asking you that question?




Surely someone has made a tin foil hat smilie... Gotta find one....
 
LOL!

Robert was asking that question of dc dalton, the founder of American Gun Owners Alliance, who started this thread to bring this "alarming" bit of news to our attention.

If the founder of a ... shall we say a parallel organization to the NRA ... thinks we should question the NRA's data mining practices, it seems only fair that someone ask him what information he keeps about HIS group's members.
 
Yeah Sam, I followed the conversation... it was just a tongue and cheek response. Except for the tin foil hat smilie, that could come in handy!
 
And the NRA has repeatedly refused to reveal the database to anyone else.

Of course a membership organization has a huge data base of its members and their interests.

This whole thing is just stupid.
 
Is the NRA posting the data base on a public accessible website for casual prowsing, like the Memphis Commercial Appeal has the Tennessee state Handgun Carry Permit list? http://www.commercialappeal.com/data/gunpermits/

Don't think so. Mailing list for internal use. Like other organizations and businesses.

The NRA has my membership info, but it is mostly NRA who uses that database. The NSA could find out more about what guns I own by data mining THR or GRM.

Commercial Appeal helps people afraid of guns to shun people like me: "If we know who these people are who carry concealed weapons, we can give them wide berth and/or keep their actions under close scrutiny" posted Commercial Appeal reader Gregory W. Boller of Collierville TN.

The government maintaining a database on gun owners is usually tied to some criminal law enforcement. Most criminals don't own guns. Most gun owners are not criminals. But gun control is predicated on crime control, the assumption is that a government list on gun owners is a bad thing for the law abiding gun owning citizen. Politicians act as though controling gun owners is controlling crime.
 
The NRA defeated unconstitutional gun control in the senate. They are awesome! Donate to the NRA-ILA and keep your guns and ammo!

And balderdash to the American alliance for gun control or what ever their false pseudo agenda is, I don't trust them an inch. Especially when they try to breed discontent among gun owners on here.
 
I don't care if you subscribe to Readers Digest or National Geographic but you are in somebody's data base somewhere. So if you join the NRA or register for a NRA clinic or event, guess what? You are now in their data base. By doing so it is a strong indicator that you might be a gun owner. Does the NRA have a 'data base' of the guns you do own? NO.
 
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