For reasons I don’t really want to get into right now, I am very seriously considering becoming a card-carrying, dues-paying member of both the National Rifle Association *and * Greenpeace. Is this contradictory? I mean, do the two organizations actually have conflicting goals, or are they just made up of people from different ends of the political spectrum? I don’t know anyone who is a member of both, so I’m a little confused. I should probably clear this up somehow before I join either one. Note: This is not the place to sound off on either organization. Go to the Pit for that.
Sounds perfectly sane to me!
[ul][li]You care about the environment;[/li][li]Animals eat plants and trees, thus damaging the environment;[/li][li]Guns can eliminate animals, thus relieving the stress these hideous creatures have on our wildlife![/ul][/li]Hell, if anything, Greenpeace oughta throw in an NRA membership for free! 
Plus, when the U.S. finally stops pretending and conquers Europe for real, American colonists will already be well equipped to harvest the native Sarcastic Jackass, found in the Low Countries! 
Well, speaking as a NRA life member and a current and former member of the Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club and Greenpeace, I have to say that the organizations contradict each other ideologically in parts, but in terms of what each organization actually does, there shouldn’t be a problem.
Take a look at what the NRA stands for, both in principle and in execution. Protection of Second Amendment rights (and let’s PLEASE not take this into the Pit on interpretation of the Constitution and whether the NRA actually does what it says it does)and gun safety education programs. Oh, and, OK, they pay people off and support evil weapons manufacturers. That’s not the issue.
Greenpeace is a conservation and environmentalist group that’s done some unbelievably courageous shit. Good people, for the most part.
However, if you look at the consituencies of both groups, you’ll find raving nutballs on either end of the spectrum, so what you really have to ask yourself is “does belonging to both of these organizations contradict what I believe in and am trying to do by sending them money?”
If the answer’s yes, then make the choice accordingly.
As for me, I joined the NRA very young, primarily to get access to the ranges they run and to participate in the gun safety programs. I’ve shot since I was 9, and it’s a big part of my life. I shot competition pistol for five years, went hunting (and still haven’t killed anything bigger than a pheasant), and it’s a part of who I am.
At the same time, organizations like Greenpeace, who sponsor environmental education programs and activism, might just be our last chance to keep everything from going “foom” in a burst of methyl-ethly-bad-shit. That’s important to me, too.
An armed Rainbow Warrior II?
May change its fate from the original Rainbow Warrior!
There is no problem joining both.
The NRA is not a hunting group. It is a gun group. There are many legal uses for guns; hunting is one, so is self defense, so is sport [target shooting, plinking].
The NRA is pro-environmental. After all, if developers convert forests to malls, you have fewer legal places to shoot. OK, some of their conservation efforts are to preserve hunting areas and animals to hunt. They actually do stress the importance of cleaning your mess up and leaving areas like you found them; minus an animal or two if you are a hunter.
When you join the NRA, you have the choice of two magazines, American Hunter [geared towards hunters] or American Rifleman [geared towards shooters but with some hunting]. I don’t know which most people choose.
Joining the National Harpoon Association might conflict with Greenpeace.
I’ve been an NRA member for a long time, and can say that I really don’t see a contradiction. False_God makes some good points, and I can’t argue with anything he said. For the most part, NRA members are either hunters or shoot competition. Or both. A lot of the hunters are members of organizations like the Sierra Club. The main reason is that without an environment, there’s nothing to hunt. What you will have to deal with is the fact that both groups will have beliefs or agendas that you may not agree with entirely. But, I don’t see any real problem with it.
I think what may at first seem a contradiction is in actual fact a good show of balance. Most gun owners I’ve met over the course of my life have shown more than average respect and concern for environmental issues.
IMHO hunting is in a very big way a connection with nature. One could argue that sport shooting is too. Self defence… well… in a way they are both methods of enacting a sense of self preservation…
Makes sense to me that you joined both, is all I’m trying to say…