Got an Email from Marion Hammer this morning

Orange Dust

Orange Dust

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Oct 23, 2015
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Mingo Swamp
I have let my NRA Membership expire. While they do a lot for competitive shooting and gun safety, Their ILA is out of control. Here is a little of it that is very troubling to me:

NRA needs your help to save our gun rights. Nobody else can do what NRA does. Does anybody really think any of the dissidents or their leaders get a call from the President of the United States? Do you really think any of them talks to the President, the Vice President or our leaders of the US Congress? Does anybody believe they even have a clue what to do on Capitol Hill? Absolutely not, they can't even hold Wayne LaPierre's coat.

It's time to stop the lies, stop the attacks, stop manufacturing fake documents, stop cutting off your nose to spite your face. It's time to focus on stopping the anti-gun, anti-freedom, hate-mongering enemies of our rights. Give now!

Pretty arrogant coming from a group that feels it is up to them to negotiate for our civil rights. Every time they do this, we lose something we have today and get nothing back in return. I will not send them another dime as long as LaPierre is there. If he actually has all this power he is not in this for us, he is in it for himself, and more like the Socialists than us. He has sold us out too many times. I will only donate money to groups that are dedicated to defeating the Socialists from either party. I have no interest in negotiating away my rights. Now all of you can jump all over me and explain to me how I am wrong, change my mind. I am willing to listen.
 
I am against 'corruption' in any system, be it our gov't or the NRA. But I don't see the NRA or Mr. LaPierre as being corrupt. There is a board that oversees the NRA, so it would be pretty difficult for any one member to take the organization "off the rails". Perhaps it is just something in the e-mail that bothered you and that's fine. Sometimes things just strike us 'wrong'. You are entitled to your feelings and can clearly take any action you feel is right.

My take is this - the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) does the heavy lifting for helping us retain the 2nd Amendment right guaranteed us in the Bill of Rights, a part of the Constitution. They have accomplished this by lobbying members of the Congress and Senate and letting us (NRA members) know who is on 'our' side and who is going to vote to throw the Constitution down the drain. They have the experience and connections to influence legislators, with our help (by VOTING and writing and calling our representatives.)

The NRA is not perfect. It would be nice if they were. But I'm not so naive as to think our rights wouldn't have been sent down the path of Australia and Great Britain without the work of the NRA and the 5+ million members of it. If you "quit" on the NRA, you hurt all of us. Perhaps you'll throw your money and support to the Gun Owners of America (GOA) instead? That would be good. Just don't leave the "fight" because you are upset with one guy (LaPierre.)

Keep this is mind:
"We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."

Benjamin Franklin
 
Believe me, I have not left the fight, and donate regularly to the GOA. I recently got an email from one of our Senators scolding me for my "Activism". He needs to go too. I just cannot justify in my mind supporting a group that tells us one thing, begs for money, and then supports the very thing we are paying them to fight. They say they "Compromised" and got us the best deal they could. I would write them a check for $1k today if I someone could convince me that they wanted to beat them instead of working with them. BTW I have been a member over 40 years, this is not light hearted.
 
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Hey @ Orange Dust, I'm an endowment member myself so we are definitely on the same team. I'm hoping there is a leadership change at the NRA just to restore confidence in the organization again. I figure if people have an issue with the NRA, they should at least support the GOA as we all need to be in the fight and what politicians understand is numbers. If GOA membership keeps going up, they get the message that people aren't "okay" with compromise on gun rights, even if they may be temporarily leery of the NRA leadership issues.

I can 'hear' your frustration. I feel it, too. The NRA may need to do a little house cleaning. I'm just not ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. I can give directly to the ILA and that helps without funding LaPierre, you know?

Thanks for posting. I'm sure you aren't alone in feeling conflict over how things are going right now.
 
When our anti-Second Amendment enemies mention a firearms rights organization negatively it is almost always the NRA. They don't spend a lot of time demonizing GOA or other agencies. So if the NRA is ineffective why does our adversary always bring them up?

I say support GOA, NRA, and every 2nd Amendment organization out there, within your means. It is better to have a battery firing for effect than only one artillery piece.
 
@jmcmath, I love your suggestion (get people out to shoot). It is a great idea. I will quibble with the "...you'll do more than the NRA has done in decades" comment. Apples and oranges. If we would all do what you suggest, we can definitely help get some people out of the neutral or anti-gun camps, which would be awesome. Yet, without the NRA, we would be showing people to shoot bolt actions only at a 'state' approved range, with a gun license in hand costing however much money the gov't decided it would cost, and it will need to be 're-approved' every other year...if the gov't feels like it. Essentially, without the NRA (and us!) our "rights" would have been converted to "privileges" long ago.

Without the NRA and their lobbying efforts, we would already see a USA that looks like Great Britain and Australia (and, soon, New Zealand.) They have managed to help us keep our rights this long (with our help! Gotta vote. Gotta write those congressmen and senators.) Did we lose bump-stocks? Yes. But if you go back to the Clinton days, we were going to lose our ARs for good. Guess who got the '10 year sunset' provision put into the Clinton Gun Ban? And we got our rights back after 10 years because of the NRA taking a bitter lemon and allowing it to become lemonade in time.

We sometimes act like the oak and when the storm winds become too strong, we will break for good (lose our rights forever.) We are better - at times - becoming the willow and bending with the winds so that we can live to fight another day, under better conditions.

What the NRA did seem to learn was that when you compromise and then do it again, pretty soon you are losing ground and getting nothing in return. They have gotten much better at avoiding that 'trap' (Great Britain was the HUGE wake-up call to where THAT strategy leads.) But as I type this, another "mass shooting" has taken place in W. Texas only four weeks after El Paso and Dayton occurred. Guess how strong those 'winds' are going to be blowing now to take away those evil "assault" weapons? The NRA will stand strong, but we have to do our part, too. Write your representative and let them know you won't support "banning" a tool, when the problem is (and always has been) the person wielding it.

Why do people feel it is okay to kill their fellow citizens in such great numbers? When we can figure out what is driving that, we can make progress on stopping the madness. But Great Britain (again) has already shown us the folly in banning the DEVICE. The bad people just find other ways and the murders keep happening. When we don't properly define the problem, we can never find the right solution.

Sadly, one party in particular and a large portion of the media are 'selling' the American public an 'easy' answer to the problem and people are buying into it. I'm thankful we have the NRA (and GOA) to help us fight to stem the emotional tide that threatens to overwhelm our lawmakers at times like this. Imperfect at times, the NRA is still our strongest tool to fight the tyranny.

But get a new person out to shoot, too. It really does help!
 
jmcmath said:
Take every dollar you would donate to the NRA and buy 22lr with it then take your neighbors, your in-laws and your kids friends and parents shooting and you'll do more than the NRA has done in decades.
Click to expand...

This 100%! it's a cultural war. Create shooters, people who love and respect firearms and that's one more person to join the fight.

Sway the majority, by creating the majority.
 
I have been an Endowment member for at least 10 years. I still donate every year in an endless effort to protect my right to shoot, hunt and enjoy the great outdoors.. You could even find my name inscribed on the walls of Freedom Hall.

We need more members than ever before, not less. Shooters who drop out, for whatever reason, only weaken our primary line of defense. And yes - we are always on the defense.

What I am doing now to help the cause and increase membership is paying for the (new) membership of shooter/hunters who just couldn't be bothered to join. Hopefully, after the first year they will acknowledge the importance of membership in the NRA and continue to be a member at their own pace. It makes more sense than just sending another check which I still do anyway.
 
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