(Stolen from here)
I guess that the little brouhaha between us and the Germans and Japanese in the early `40s wasn't all that serious, so we can forget all of that "greatest generation" malarkey. Not to mention that little family spat between 1861 and 1865. Or the two wars of independence against the most powerful power on the planet (the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812). Or all of those years where the USA and the USSR had thousands of nuclear-tipped missiles aimed at each other.
Those were safe times, according to the NRA.
The NRA has gone off the deep end many times during the Obama presidency. One mark against them is having an avowed racist on their board. The NRA has darkened photos of Obama to make him appear more like a scary Black dude (like Time magazine did to OJ).
I can understand a vigorous opposition to the Obama Administration. That's fine. And I get the need to whip up one's supporters in order to beg for more donations to the political action funds. But I sure wish that the NRA could do it without coming across as a pack of sheet-wearing mouthbreathers.
For once, I wholeheartedly agree with you.
ReplyDeleteSometime in the 90s - I can't be arsed to figure out exactly when, it ultimately doesn't matter - the NRA went from being an organization that represented gun owners and shooters to an organization that represents gun manufacturers. It's no longer measured by membership, it's measured by units sold.
ReplyDeleteWhere is their voice for hunters? It's gone, because hunters don't buy enough guns. The guy with six ARs and AKs spends the kind of money, so the emphasis is on 'tactical firearms' and concealed carry all out of proportion to what it needs to be. And you can't pump the tac without a threat, right? We're sitting here in North America, safer than everybody else in the world, but if you're gonna move units you gotta have a threat. So let's try to gin one up.
Last year I took a couple kids up to the cabin with a .35 Rem and my .300 WSM BAR, along with my TC Contender and a couple of magnums. We killed a 90 pound pig and ate fresh pork belly and I honestly don't think those kids blinked once the whole trip. But I'm going to bet that at least one of them, if not both, will end up being hunters...
The NRA is a fundraising operation. I let my membership lapse once I realized that.
ReplyDeleteI would be good to have a Gun Rights organization.
My problem is that the NRA runs a program to provide reasonable-cost liability insurance to gun clubs. But in order to access that insurance pool, every member of the club has to be a NRA member. So either you maintain your membership in the NRA or the club'll tack on renewing your membership to your club dues.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to have a gun rights group that resisted the urge to jump on the Crazy Train.
I am a used to be member. I wonder if we the 'No longer members' now outnumber the actual membership.
ReplyDeletew3ski
One of the main consequences of NRA's shift from a gun-owners' group to a gun-manufacturers' lobby is an ever-greater rift between gun owners and non-gun owners.
ReplyDeleteNRA has become the image of a gun owner to so many people who are uninformed that simply being a gun owner often gets one automatically labeled as a "gun nut."
Of course such a "divide and rule" strategy requires a compliant media and a public willing to be led astray, but NRA's often crazy rhetoric provides the template for what I see as a growing anti-gun public.