.38 Special
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Deleted, based upon the "Wrestling with pigs" dictum.
Please! Join the NRA!
- Thread starter ProShooter
- Start date
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TT
member
I’m sympathetic to the NFA guys, but if you think I’m going to abandon an organization as good as the NRA, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
ProShooter
Member
I'm drawing up a calendar so that we can all take turns helping No Fear carry that chip on his shoulder. Please forward any schedule conflicts to me at your earliest convenience. 
BeltfedMG
member
Is this what the nra has resorted to??? "Please join us!!!!!"
I think its funny. I hope they loose all money, and just fade away.
I think its funny. I hope they loose all money, and just fade away.
I'd much prefer they come to their senses on the unequivocable support of gun owners across the board.
So much of what they do *is* in fact good, but it can't disguise the very, very, very bad things that they have done in the past and continue to support with existing policy.
Imagine the outcry here if every time you bought a new gun you had to wait 2-12 months. That's right. 2-12. And had to beg an authority figure for permission and signature, and hope that this time he didn't say no because you've bought too many toys, or jump through the rigamarole and make legal entities to buy them for you as a trust, corporation, or other entity. And register it too. And beg permission to drag it with you in your travels.
That's what the NRA gave us.
Every time I fill out a NFA form and write another check for $200, I remember who and why.
It's not just about NFA stuff, either - every time I see someone whose legal rights have been restored, yet cannot get their gun rights back because Congress has not authorized funding for the panel that oversees this restoration, I remember that the NRA does nothing for them.
And I'm saddened, because they do such good things for gun ranges and youth education.
Someday I really do hope they come to their senses; I'd love to be a supporter, and the money part is the easy part.
Until they do, I'm not feeding a monster that is as likely to bite my hand as save it. Dancing with a drunken gorilla who will sell out my rights for the 'greater' good, as evidenced by FOPA, GCA, and NFA, isn't smart. Funding it is even less smart.
But I don't want them to fade away, I'd rather they change. Institutions can do that.
They've just chosen not to.
.38 Special
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"Sure, they've been instrumental in preserving the rights of handgunners, shotgunners, and riflemen. Sure, they've supported the industry against lawsuits and were instrumental in getting laws passed to shield them. Sure, they've helped to get ranges up all over the country and supported those already in existence. Sure, they've helped elect hundreds of pro-gun politicians and defeat hundreds of anti-gunners. And sure, they've done more than any dozen pro-gun groups combined to promote safety and education for millions of shooters and hunters. But they once dropped the ball, so screw them -- and screw you too, American gun owners."
hilarious. How petty to refuse to support the largest gun rights organization because you dont agree with them 100%. Most people dont agree with McCain 100% but the alternative isn't so pretty. I think some of the guys on here are harder to please than women.
So yeah you're saying, it makes sense to not support the largest gun lobby in the U.S. because you don't agree completely with them. If everybody thought the way you did there wouldn't be an NRA and there wouldn't be guns in your safes.
So yeah you're saying, it makes sense to not support the largest gun lobby in the U.S. because you don't agree completely with them. If everybody thought the way you did there wouldn't be an NRA and there wouldn't be guns in your safes.
Beatnik
Member
Yeah, we're not voting for McCain either. C+ rating for McCain - Barr got an A+. Yet for some reason, the NRA endorsed the C+ candidate....
Some of us here have principles that we apply to the facts at hand. My principles won't allow me to support an organization when every time that organization is brought up, people show up to unroll a litany of gun rights abuses it helped implement (still haven't mentioned the Heller obstructionism in this thread), and the counter-argument never gets beyond "oh, yeah? I never said it was perfect".
The comparison between the NRA and McCain is instructive. McCain is going to lose, hardcore, because he represents a complete abandonment of core Republican values. The NRA will not get my support, because of their abandonment of basic gun ownership principles. (Or perhaps they never believed in them.)
When I get a mailer from the NRA which explains to 4 million people what a natural right is and why it's wrong for government to suppress it, or something more instructive than "THE SKY IS FALLING AND IT'S OBAMA'S FAULT", then I'll reconsider.
Some of us here have principles that we apply to the facts at hand. My principles won't allow me to support an organization when every time that organization is brought up, people show up to unroll a litany of gun rights abuses it helped implement (still haven't mentioned the Heller obstructionism in this thread), and the counter-argument never gets beyond "oh, yeah? I never said it was perfect".
The comparison between the NRA and McCain is instructive. McCain is going to lose, hardcore, because he represents a complete abandonment of core Republican values. The NRA will not get my support, because of their abandonment of basic gun ownership principles. (Or perhaps they never believed in them.)
When I get a mailer from the NRA which explains to 4 million people what a natural right is and why it's wrong for government to suppress it, or something more instructive than "THE SKY IS FALLING AND IT'S OBAMA'S FAULT", then I'll reconsider.
The difference here, and I use the term because it's ugly, is that the NRA is a serial rapist of Second Amendment rights, an unrepentant one at that.
If McCain was as godawful (and I thankfully live in a 'my vote is a throwaway' state), I'd be just as outspoken.
The NRA systematically destroyed the rights of generations of Americans to own entire classes of firearms - the $200 tax wasn't always an annoyance. They've never gone after the ATF for requiring LEO signatures that are nowhere required in the regs or law.
If it wasn't for the NRA, maybe Heller and its ilk would have been decided in our favor generations ago.
Without the tacit support of NRA, NFA 34 never would have occurred. Without the tacit support of NRA, millions of Americans would not have lost firearms rights as non-incarcerated felons. Yeah, I support out of prison felons with guns too, I'm an absolutist like that.
Without the NRA, I wouldn't be looking at $10k pieces of sheet metal worth at most $20.
What are NFA weapons (and EBRs etc) to the NRA? Bargaining chips for the next ban.
Trust me, they'll sell us out in a heartbeat if it means Joe Sixpack keeps his Remchester.
Mrs. Armoredman
Member
I already did join the NRA. I am now a life member. I am sick of all these anti's screaming about us law abiding defending ourselves.
Aran
member
I wouldn't join the NRA if you paid me.
twoclones
Member
Every member of my household is a NRA member.
The Wiry Irishman
Member
NO!
...I'm already a member, I can't join twice.
Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
Yeah, 1968 was a good while back. Today's board of the NRA is a whole different bunch, so get over what boards "back then" did or did not do.
The reason I said, "Get over..." is that I was there, then. Money, letters, optimism and ignorance. Were it not for the NRA in 1967/1968, we'd have actual sure-enough firearms registration and good odds that only cops and military would have handguns. The anti-gun Senator Dodd of today? The son of then-Senator Dodd who was leading the charge against us.
Albeit more conservative, then, it was still a Democrat Congress and Presidency--with more than its share of anti-gun types and the hysteria about JFK and RFK to provide public support.
Folks better thank their lucky stars that the NRA was there. We were young and fairly naive about "fair play" and facts, back then. We dang near had our butts handed to us.
And the NRA is ranked behind only the AARP in terms of lobbying effectiveness--which ain't too shabby a ranking. After all, there are over 27 million of us Certified Olde Pharts drawing Social Insecurity, and only four million NRA members.
Art
The reason I said, "Get over..." is that I was there, then. Money, letters, optimism and ignorance. Were it not for the NRA in 1967/1968, we'd have actual sure-enough firearms registration and good odds that only cops and military would have handguns. The anti-gun Senator Dodd of today? The son of then-Senator Dodd who was leading the charge against us.
Albeit more conservative, then, it was still a Democrat Congress and Presidency--with more than its share of anti-gun types and the hysteria about JFK and RFK to provide public support.
Folks better thank their lucky stars that the NRA was there. We were young and fairly naive about "fair play" and facts, back then. We dang near had our butts handed to us.
And the NRA is ranked behind only the AARP in terms of lobbying effectiveness--which ain't too shabby a ranking. After all, there are over 27 million of us Certified Olde Pharts drawing Social Insecurity, and only four million NRA members.
Art
I have my problems with the NRA and have gone on the record as saying I wouldn't join them because of my disagreements with many of their actions.
That being said, I mailed them a check last week for the first time. It's too late for this election so we need to plan for the future.
That being said, I mailed them a check last week for the first time. It's too late for this election so we need to plan for the future.
As I've said, I'll "get over it" when they actually show they've changed.
Boards may have changed. Things may have changed - but the organization shows no evidence of it in policy and official statements.
1986 wasn't so long ago, nor was Heller. If NRA had its way, we'd likely be heading into a horribly anti-gun administration without Heller being there at all.
Boards may have changed. Things may have changed - but the organization shows no evidence of it in policy and official statements.
1986 wasn't so long ago, nor was Heller. If NRA had its way, we'd likely be heading into a horribly anti-gun administration without Heller being there at all.
ArfinGreebly
Moderator Emeritus
Where's Robert?
It is at times like this that I truly miss Robert Hairless.
Those of you who are NRA members, thank you.
Those of you who will never join . . . well, okay.
However, I'd like you to consider something. The abysmal state of our government today is the direct result of forty years of hippies doing exactly what the adults of that time told them to do: if you don't like the system, then run for office and change it from within."
Imagine everyone's shock and horror when four decades later, the system looks . . . changed . . . from within . . . by those same hippies.
I mean, the nerve! When we said, "run for office" and all that, we weren't serious. We didn't mean it. We certainly didn't mean "change it from within." What we really meant was, "it's too big for you to fix, so quit whining and shut up."
So, here we are today with an NRA that doesn't do quite what we'd like and is spending our membership dues in ways that don't align with what we would really wish.
Well, there's really only one way to fix that, and that's from the inside.
If you sulk and pout and shake your fist and tell them, "you can't have MY money until you change!" then they'll use someone else's money. And you won't have a voice.
So . . . like they told the hippies forty years ago . . .
If you don't like the way it's being run, sign up, agitate, become a voice for change, and make it different.
They listen to their members. They don't listen to random critics who make demands -- of no one in particular -- and yet spend no time or money in the direction of making things different.
If the hippies can do it, I'm pretty sure us rednecks can, too.
My two cents? Join the NRA.
That's where you start.
It is at times like this that I truly miss Robert Hairless.
Those of you who are NRA members, thank you.
Those of you who will never join . . . well, okay.
However, I'd like you to consider something. The abysmal state of our government today is the direct result of forty years of hippies doing exactly what the adults of that time told them to do: if you don't like the system, then run for office and change it from within."
Imagine everyone's shock and horror when four decades later, the system looks . . . changed . . . from within . . . by those same hippies.
I mean, the nerve! When we said, "run for office" and all that, we weren't serious. We didn't mean it. We certainly didn't mean "change it from within." What we really meant was, "it's too big for you to fix, so quit whining and shut up."
So, here we are today with an NRA that doesn't do quite what we'd like and is spending our membership dues in ways that don't align with what we would really wish.
Well, there's really only one way to fix that, and that's from the inside.
If you sulk and pout and shake your fist and tell them, "you can't have MY money until you change!" then they'll use someone else's money. And you won't have a voice.
So . . . like they told the hippies forty years ago . . .
If you don't like the way it's being run, sign up, agitate, become a voice for change, and make it different.
They listen to their members. They don't listen to random critics who make demands -- of no one in particular -- and yet spend no time or money in the direction of making things different.
If the hippies can do it, I'm pretty sure us rednecks can, too.
My two cents? Join the NRA.
That's where you start.
Don't believe we'll have one anyway; NRA is ruled by its business interests.
The example you cite assumes that change can reasonably happen. 70 years of history tells me it's unlikely.
The 40 years of hippies had the backing of 2 generations of New Deal courts as well.
Dustinthewind
Member
The NRA is just like everything else: They can't be all things to all people.
No it is not a perfect organization but they are fighting for yours and my rights to own firearms in this country and they have a large voice in circles where it matters.
Join the NRA, I did.
No it is not a perfect organization but they are fighting for yours and my rights to own firearms in this country and they have a large voice in circles where it matters.
Join the NRA, I did.
The fight is not in 1933, or 1968, or 1986, or 1994. It is in 2008. The NRA made decisions in the past that appear to be bad with the help of 20/20 hindsight.
If you think you have a better idea for how the NRA should operate, it might be best to change it from the inside.
I renew my suggestion for disaffected NFA owners to form their own group and find out just what it takes to actually change things politically. Its not about "no compromise". Politics is 100% about compromise.
I bet you could find more than a few NRA board members who are also NFA owners who probably also want to expand the ability of Americans to own NFA items. You could be making a difference from within by talking to those people, and getting other NRA members to talk to them. A few thousand people who apply gentle pressure over a long period of time can affect a lot of change in an organization of only 4 million.
You could have your own subgroup of NRA members who also support reducing NFA restrictions.
You can't change the NRA from without, and changing it from within is slow and tedious, but it can be done. One goal might be to have the NRA offer a machine gun safety class, something similar to their existing safety classes. Once other NRA members start to see machine guns as just another gun, attitudes can start to change within the organization.
If you think you have a better idea for how the NRA should operate, it might be best to change it from the inside.
I renew my suggestion for disaffected NFA owners to form their own group and find out just what it takes to actually change things politically. Its not about "no compromise". Politics is 100% about compromise.
I bet you could find more than a few NRA board members who are also NFA owners who probably also want to expand the ability of Americans to own NFA items. You could be making a difference from within by talking to those people, and getting other NRA members to talk to them. A few thousand people who apply gentle pressure over a long period of time can affect a lot of change in an organization of only 4 million.
You could have your own subgroup of NRA members who also support reducing NFA restrictions.
You can't change the NRA from without, and changing it from within is slow and tedious, but it can be done. One goal might be to have the NRA offer a machine gun safety class, something similar to their existing safety classes. Once other NRA members start to see machine guns as just another gun, attitudes can start to change within the organization.
The Wiry Irishman
Member
I'll second that. His satire in threads like this was brilliant. It looks like he hasn't been active since late July... did something happen to him? Hope he comes back, the "I hate the NRA because they send too much mail" threads aren't the same without him.
.38 Special
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How terrible for you. I hope you've been able to put the pieces of your life back together.
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