So is the incontrovertible evidence, your two cites noting the same poll, or do you have something else? One would think that if 74% of current member were truly against the direction that the NRA has taken, it would be they, and not a bunch of left leaning pro gun control folks calling them out.
And… if you aren’t a member and unsatisfied with where your membership fees are going, why do you fucking care?
Why should the NRA care what former members think?
Perhaps to get them to rejoin?
If the organization’s policies and statements and actions do represent the members’ views and desires, then “overzealous” is the most complimentary term available for them.
You might notice a few important differences between 1994 and 2013:
Then, if the Dem majority could concur on legislation, it would happen. Now, with the GOP controlling the House and the GOP Senate minority filibustering everything in sight, things are rather different.
If you don’t know these things, then please learn them. Because you are raising issues about what’s politically possible, and if you’re going to do that, then you need to know the basics of what makes legislation politically possible.
That’s nice, but if M&T isn’t politically possible, then neither are those suggestions. For instance, a training requirement to own a gun - how is that going to work without registration or a close equivalent? There has to be a database either of gun owners or of people who’ve had the training to be gun owners for it to work. Yeah, I can see that passing Congress. In the year 2525. And the California law on gun sales - sure, great idea, but it didn’t have a chance, which was why the M-T compromise was reached in the first place.
You’re saying the pro-gun-control folks spooked the pro-gun people, and what they should have done instead was to propose a different set of laws that the pro-gun people would have liked even less, because they would have magically passed.
When I have to explain too many of the basics and preliminaries, a conversation gets kinda tiring. I can’t promise I’ll be back.
The context of this thesis is that the NRA is acting contrary to the wishes of its members. In support of that claim, a poll shows 74% of people both current and former NRA members supposedly disagree.
IN THAT CONTEXT, I am pointing out that the criticism loses steam if the majority of those are actually former members.
Perhaps the current membership thinks that the NRA is doing fine. Every year, we get to elect board members. As a membership, we’re far from powerless.
To the contrary. If you think the NRA’s actions are over zealous, don’t join. But as guaranteed by the First Amendment, I can associate with others to promote my viewpoint. And that viewpoint has been upheld by Congress and the courts. It seems clear that NRA opponents are pathetic when it comes to support of all our civil liberties.
NM
First of all, I had the sense that they were different polls - which is why they had different numbers.
Secondly, yes you would think that if the NRA was going in a different direction from the stated preferences of their membership that the members would have a problem with it. But they don’t. That’s what buttresses my gulls & rubes hypothesis.
You can also see it in their publications. For all their yammering about public safety have they ever provided an expert level of comparisons between guns and other safety devices such as cell phones and the like? Because when I read their publications, their breathless gun-nut self defence examples had all the scientific rigor of a box of hammers. Then again, considering the quality of their membership -as revealed in the paragraph preceding- that isn’t surprising, no?
And of course I don’t have a problem with it. The NRA has a sound business strategy. One based on jizzing up their membership with their bogus publications, hysteric posturing and homicidal fantasies during a fantasy Big War Against the Mean Guv. I’d just prefer it if they wouldn’t advocate handing out firearms like they were candy to every maniac and criminal with $200 and an internet connection or a ticket to a gun-nut show. More guns -> more crime -> more gun control proposals -> more gun stockpiling -> bigger profits. The NRA doesn’t really dislike the Brady campaign, they love them.
I was quoting 2 shards of evidence, one better than the other. The 74% figure came from a more neutral source though. The 53% figure is probably better for our purposes, but was from a partisan website (quoting a decent poll).
Presumably the NRA cares about its deliverables though, like all industry groups do.
So have you just come to that conclusion recently or is this something that you just figured out? In the end, Brady, Million Moms, VPC, Giffords’ group and the rest are no more than a thorn in the paw of the NRA. They are the evil bogeyman that the NRA can characterize however they choose because those anti gun groups are nothing more than bit players in the game. Without them, the NRA would still do fine dealing with the antics of the gun control all stars at the federal level, but the quotes from Josh Sugarman alone are probably worth 10% of the membership base.
Bottom line, there are 4 million members that represent the NRA. If the NRA is an industry group who solely is looking out for that industry to earn profits by having limiting federal interference to sell their wares, that benefits the membership equally who want to buy their wares. It’s a symbiotic relationship at worst.
Something to consider… If the NRA was fighting solely for the gun industry and their interests, they would have rolled over and allowed the M&T amendment to pass. This would have put a significant burden on private transfers or USED gun sales, equaling that of the existing burdens sold on new guns that have been in place for years. Just like used CDs or DVDs, the gun manufacturers make no money on the sale of used guns. Without forced background checks, the new gun sale is always at a disadvantage to a used sale because all things being equal, people typically will pay more for a gun “off the books” knowing that the MAN have no way to track ownership beyond the first sale when the 4473 forms and background checks were completed.
If the M&T amendment passed, the NRA would have pleased its industry masters on two fronts. First, it would have leveled the playing field between new and used gun sales. No longer would someone be able to buy a used gun out of the trunk of a car. They would have to do so through a licensed dealer with access to NICS. At that point why buy used, especially when the used gun market these days is only marginally cheaper than new? Second, it would have mandated that gun dealers would have got a nice fee for ALL gun sales, and would force new potential customers to their shops at little additional expense to themselves.
M&T’s passage was a gun dealer and gun manufactures ideal situation, and supposedly something supported also by the base of the NRA loons, gulls, and paranoid members. If the NRA was in it only for the industry, they only had to make a few calls and it would have passed in a heartbeat. So my question is, why did they fight it if they only represent the industry?
Or, perhaps too many former NRA members made up the sampling of the poll?
So, what you are saying is that on this vertical issue the majority of NRA members disagree…and, because of this, you conclude that the NRA is composed of ‘delusionals, gulls, and a small number of gun manufacturers’?? And you are doing this with a straight face? This is a serious assertion on your part? 
To break it down into simple terms (and leaving aside the polling issues others have brought up…assuming they are correct, which is a big assumption), you’d have to first ask…how important is this to members? I mean, if it’s a critical issue that members just MUST have background checks yet the NRA refuses to entertain them, then that would be a major issue. If it’s one of those things that folks voting on it think it’s ok, but really don’t care that much about then it’s not exactly a make or break issue. Sort of like a political party who’s members poll for something but the party doesn’t go along, yet those members still vote the party line. Ever heard of such a thing? Are the folks in either political party ‘delusionals, gulls’ and whatever else as well? And think carefully before you assume it’s only Republicans who do this. 
Sorry, but this would be insulting (and I’m not even an NRA member) it it wasn’t such a ridiculous assertion.
The vilification of the NRA by some people is mind-boggling.
I don’t like the ACLU. I disagree with many of their actions and I think they are misguided in much of what they do. However, I’m able to grasp that their membership consists of people who are in favor of what they do and that’s why they are members. They disagree with me, and that’s fine. I’m able to wrap my mind around this concept.
People that are anti-gun seem to be unable to grasp the fact that the NRA members actually agree with the NRA and like what the NRA is doing. You just can’t accept it, and the result is all these silly claims of the NRA representing gun manufacturers and not gun owners and the membership being pawns of the evil NRA.
In a straw poll (I asked my dad, uncle and a friend of mine who are all NRA members) what they thought of background checks. All three said they have no problems with it. I asked them, if they were polled, would they say something like ‘do you support background checks’…all three said sure, why not? I then told them the NRA disagrees with them. The universal response was ‘so?’. 
Granted, this was not an exhaustive poll, but I asked them all if the NRA was a good organization, and whether they felt it was doing what it was supposed to do for them as a lobbying group, and all three said it was and they were quite happy and planned to continue as members.
Basically, what we have here is a classic market situation…members are voluntary. They are paying to be members. If the organization REALLY wasn’t doing what they wanted or going in the direction they wanted to go in on the big, critical issues to those members then they would leave, joining other organizations or founding their own if alternatives didn’t exist. When you start to see THAT happening, then come back and ask these questions. Unless of course you assume that anyone in the NRA is a fool, a dupe or a delusional gull (don’t look up or they might crap on your forehead :p), unless they are a manufacturer.
Thanks for bringing up an actual potential conflict of interest between gun manufacturers and gunowners. I had thought that M&T was a cash cow for FFLs, but hadn’t considered the manufacturers’ potential advantage too.
As to background checks, we already have them for the majority, if not vast majority of firearms sales. The NRA advocated for them, back when the NICS system was first developed, as an alternative to waiting however long it took for an individual state to vet a buyer. It’s already been noted in this thread and others here, but the only legal way for a handgun to be sold without a background check is for the seller and buyer to be residents of the same state, and for the seller to not be in the business of selling firearms. Beyond that, the seller can’t knowingly sell a firearm to a prohibited person. States may add additional prohibitions on top of this. Straw purchases and some guy selling tens of guns out of the trunk of his car without an FFL, are already illegal. (O.k., the latter might not be, if s/he could plausibly claim that a collection was being liquidated, but I wouldn’t want to have to explain that to BATFE.) It turns out to be tough to write a law that covers people who aren’t in the business of selling firearms, who nevertheless want to transfer one or two of them, either temporarily or permanently, without unduly interfering with their right to do so.
So you could count me in the 90 percent or so who are o.k. with the idea of a background check, yet not o.k. with the specific implementation within the M&T amendment. Which is one way to reconcile the polling data Hentor, et al, have cited with the NRA’s opposition to that amendment.
As an aside, why does all of the information from the 4473 have to be entered into NICS, in order to be able to use NICS to vet a buyer? Why can’t the buyer’s name, SSN, and address suffice to give a seller a clear Yes or No on the sale? Why do the feds need to know the serial number, make and model, etc… in order to answer the question of whether the buyer is a bad guy? The reason I ask is that I’m not an FFL, but if I were selling a gun, I’d love to be able to be able to call up an agency and be reassured that the buyer isn’t a prohibited person. And I’d be willing as a buyer to give that info to a seller—I did when I filled out a 4473 for a recent purchase, after all. As it is, many classified ads listing firearms in TX require that the buyer have a CHL, but that doesn’t tell me the seller that the buyer is in compliance at the moment of sale.
This is profoundly disconnected from the mindset of those persons who own firearms for personal or home protection. I am not interested in relying only on a cell phone and the passive hope that the police will arrive in time to save me or my family from harm. Of course a cell phone is an important safety tool in my home and personal defense, but I don’t want it to be the only one.
The bottom line is: I have a legal right to self-defense, and the Second Amendment means that I can exercise this right by owning firearms. That’s neither breathless or nutty – it’s a sober and accurate statement of the law of the land.
And while as a Lifetime NRA member I don’t agree with the NRA on everything, they get it right much more often than they get it wrong, and for that reason, I reject the claim that they’re acting contrary to my wishes.
For one thing, the ACLU isn’t headed by a batshit crazy liar. Nor does the ACLU board contain psychos like Ted Nugent, who came up with this gem:
When you have liars and psychos in leadership positions in the NRA, do you really have to wonder why it is despised?
When did this thread get moved to the Pit?
Did you ask them just like that? If so, I don’t doubt that they would agree with you.
But as has been pointed out the NRA is in favor of background checks, and supported the current system.
Try asking your three NRA members again, but specifying that you mean background checks on all transactions, even between private individuals that aren’t gun dealers.
I bet their opinion might change if they start considering that your dad could go to prison for years for buying a shotgun from your uncle.
Cite that Lapierre is a liar?
You think Uncle Ted is a psycho? He gets a little fired up sometimes, but he’s harmless. You should relax.
One notes with amusement you demand citation for “liar” but “batshit crazy” passes without comment.