On-Topic The NRA in Disarray

[cityboy-stl]

That's one of the more irrational things ever posted on this board. The NRA got awards for making children safer!

That's one of the more irrational things ever posted on this board.

 

[KaraBulut]

^
The NRA got awards for making children safer!

Back when they were a safety organization, maybe?

But when they started pushing weapons of war as fun toys for the masses, those awards should have been taken away and burned.

 

[Kulindahr]

^
The NRA got awards for making children safer!

That's one of the more irrational things ever posted on this board.

Facts cannot be irrational -- they just are facts.

 

[Kulindahr]

Back when they were a safety organization, maybe?

But when they started pushing weapons of war as fun toys for the masses, those awards should have been taken away and burned.

They never stopped being a safety organization; that's still the side that gets the most effort put in. In the last twenty-five years, the NRA has gotten awards from organizations that include the National Safety Council, American Legion, Police Athletic League, National Sheriff's Association, Journal of Emergency Nursing Online, National School Public Relations Foundation, National Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officers, and others. They are the leading organization training police and other law enforcement in gun safety as well as the primary training organization for states' concealed-carry licenses/permits.

The NRA has never "push[ed] weapons of war as fun toys for the masses", in fact the only guns they have ever "pushed" have been replicas of historic firearms, commemorative firearms (they made a big hit with a John Wayne revolver that was a replica of one from one of his best movies), and occasional limited-edition specials (usually rifles) auctioned to raise funds for special causes such as scholarships for the kids of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. Indeed despite loud calls from its membership, the NRA has refused to engage in any activity in support of "weapons of war... for the masses" -- actual select-fire rifles like the military uses (only toned down; no fully-automatic option) -- it's one reason the organization has continuously bled members off to groups such as the Gun Owners of America, the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (with their unofficial motto "Never again!"), Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, the Second Amendment Foundation, and the (notoriously reactionary) Citizens' Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Indeed if you want to target an organization that actually does push for weapons of war for everyone, the GOA and the CCRKBA are definite candidates -- and both have publicly wandered in and out of white racist positions (which is odd for one of the two which has consistently decried the KKK and similar groups for their efforts to keep minorities from being armed). The NRA has in fact steadfastly refused to support court cases that would have served to restore things to what they were before the 1968 Gun Control Act and studiously rejected even discussion of undoing the 1934 National Firearms Act -- thus firmly turning away from any court action or legislation which actually could have returned "weapons of war" to the American public.

Nor does the NRA regard guns as "fun toys" -- every edition of their several magazines reminds readers that guns are not toys but are tools, and as tools have to be handled properly and safely (enough so that roughly a dozen years ago there was a complaint to one of those magazines -- I think it was America's First Freedom -- that too much time was spent talking about safety "because we all know that already").

The media has consistently ignored all this in order to paint the NRA as a villain, but the truth is that the NRA no more defends violence with guns than Ford Motor Company defends using cars to run down children. The media also ignores the fact that the NRA is not just one organization, it is at least five (that I can think of off the top of my head) and that only one engages in anything more political than helping a Boy Scout district (the level above troops) work through the necessary steps to get their new rifle range approved. And until the political vendetta in New York, the media also studiously ignored the fact that the public face of the NRA had been crafted over several decades by a PR firm that cared for nothing but keeping the dollars flowing (the infamous Ackermann-McQueen that a corrupt NRA board finally got sick of -- and who took a wallflower of an executive and trained him to be a demagogue). Beneath the media- and PR-driven circus, by far the NRA has sunk far, far more manpower and man-hours into safety than into political activities.

Fortunately Ackermann-McQueen is now out of the business of manipulating the membership for more money (though the NRA is suing them for mismanagement or something), but at this point their parasitical stalking horse La Pierre (who has become a multimillionaire thanks to his dues-gobbling salary) is still in place. With luck, the criticisms leveled in court such as the fact that a board of directors of seventy-six members (a number arrived at for the symbolism, nothing more) is inherently unable to provide organized oversight, and that a board with almost no turnover (only ten board members at present were not board members in 2015, and as far as I can find only fourteen were not board members in 2010) means oversight is likely not happening, and that a board filled with members with conflicts of interest (the NRA board has seen or eight members who work in the firearms [and accessories] industry, among other issues) is unlikely to work for the purpose of the not-for-profit organization, and that a board elected by procedures that make it difficult (nigh unto impossible) for the membership to elect new blood, will become restructuring orders from the judge(s) and the present board will all be ditched, the board shrunk by at least three-fourths (four-fifths would be better; a board of no more than sixteen is recommended for not-for-profit groups), nominations for the board will no longer come from the board but from the membership; and the CEO will be barred from recommending board members (those are all the items I recall from the legal proceedings I've looked at). There was also an issue brought up about how donations not designated for specific purposes are handled, and of course the matter of the CEO of a not-for-profit becoming a multimillionaire from his activities, and those should be changed as well.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Back when they were a safety organization, maybe?

*white safety organization. The NRA actively lobbied against black gun ownership. For the sake of accuracy and honesty.

 

[Kulindahr]

*white safety organization. The NRA actively lobbied against black gun ownership. For the sake of accuracy and honesty.

Not since I've been a member, which began in 1987. In fact they've spent millions in court fighting on behalf of black citizens, and over the last year or so the majority of new members have been minorities.

Heck, my last NRA instructor (handgun safety class) was Asian, and two instructors before than was black. And that Asian was in rural Oregon.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

[Quoted Post: Removed]

Facts ey? What was the NRA's relationship like with the Black Panthers? *leans in so hard for the answerI fall out my chair*

 

[KaraBulut]

[Quoted Post: Removed]

As I am. Basically, your argument is that if a drug dealer teaches a few drug addicts how to clean their works, they're a drug safety organization.

In 2020, 22 million guns were purchased through licensed dealers in the US. There's no safety classes that will prevent the murders those guns will commit.

 

[Kulindahr]

As I am. Basically, your argument is that if a drug dealer teaches a few drug addicts how to clean their works, they're a drug safety organization.

In 2020, 22 million guns were purchased through licensed dealers in the US. There's no safety classes that will prevent the murders those guns will commit.

No, because the NRA is nothing like a drug dealer -- [Text: Removed]

And you expect 22 million murders in 2021? The trend has actually been the opposite -- the more guns people buy, the lower the violent crime level goes.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

[Quoted Post: Removed]

I'm going to pretend you didn't insinuate that half a century ago is ancient, or that the NRA somehow absolved itself of its deeply racist nature, because I know both concepts are extremely silly and we're both way smarter than that.

The NRA are racist thieving pieces of shit and their downfall is actually literally giving me wood right now like I'm boned up.

 

[rareboy]

I'm going to pretend you didn't insinuate that half a century ago is ancient, or that the NRA somehow absolved itself of its deeply racist nature, because I know both concepts are extremely silly and we're both way smarter than that.

The NRA are racist thieving pieces of shit and their downfall is actually literally giving me wood right now like I'm boned up.

Pretty much this.

Demographics is the driver...not the fucking NRA. What they understood..because it isn't fucking rocket science...is that when the absolute numbers aren't driving sales...you lead with fear. And you get as many (white) people as possible to buy as many guns as possible by scaring them with the boogeyman of the FEDS taking away their penis extensions.

They became a shill for the gun industry and Russia years ago.

To pretend otherwise is to either be ignorant of fact or disingenuous.

Destroy them and let Everytown for Gun Safety or some other organization provide real guidance for gun safety and rational gun laws in the US.

 

[KaraBulut]

No, because the NRA is nothing like a drug dealer -- making that assertion is purely irrational.

And you expect 22 million murders in 2021? The trend has actually been the opposite -- the more guns people buy, the lower the violent crime level goes.

Well.... this is going to probably throw gasoline on this fire but the theory that the decline in violent crime is connected to the explosion in gun sales and right-to-carry laws was long ago disproved.

And guess what the statisticians have proposed as the reason for the decline in crime?

Abortion and Crime, Revisited (Ep. 384) [Freakanomics]

...Crime had begun to rise in the 1960s, continued on through the ’70s and ’80s, and by 1990, it seemed that everyone was scared, everywhere, all the time....

Everyone agreed that violent crime was out of hand, that the criminals were getting younger, and that the problem was only going to get worse...

But the problem didn’t get worse. In the early 1990s, violent crime began to fall — and then it fell and fell and fell some more. In many places today, violent crime is at historic lows...

The six factors that, according to his analysis, did not contribute to the crime drop: a strengthening economy; the aging of the population; innovative policing strategies; gun-control laws; right-to-carry laws; and the increased use of capital punishment...

The mechanism was pretty simple: unwanted children were more likely than average to engage in crime as they got older; but an unwanted child who was never born would never have the opportunity to enter his criminal prime, 15 or 20 years later. Donohue and Levitt created a tidy syllogism: unwantedness leads to high crime; legalized abortion led to less unwantedness; therefore, abortion led to lower crime.

What has gone up since right-to-carry laws have passed and gun sales increased?

Gun violence is up. It's been up for more than a year. [NBC]

It may feel like America entered a new wave of gun violence in 2021, but a review of shootings with multiple victims shows that their frequency has been unusually high for more than a year.

Data from the Gun Violence Archive shows that the number of multiple-victim shootings first spiked in April 2020 and has stayed high since. The most recent wave of shootings around the country, including the April 15 attack in Indianapolis where eight people were killed at a FedEx facility, is just the latest symptom of that trend.

Demographics is the driver...not the fucking NRA. What they understood..because it isn't fucking rocket science...is that when the absolute numbers aren't driving sales...you lead with fear. And you get as many (white) people as possible to buy as many guns as possible by scaring them with the boogeyman of the FEDS taking away their penis extensions.

And during a time when violent crime was down, you first tell Americans that they're at risk of "home invasions" and "carjackings" and that minorities are going to kill them and take their stuff.

And when you max out the fear factor market, you market weapons of war like they're muscle cars. It's fun to shoot a weapon that can kills dozens of people in a minute. Assault rifles are sexy.

 

[Kulindahr]

I'm going to pretend you didn't insinuate that half a century ago is ancient, or that the NRA somehow absolved itself of its deeply racist nature, because I know both concepts are extremely silly and we're both way smarter than that.

The NRA are racist thieving pieces of shit and their downfall is actually literally giving me wood right now like I'm boned up.

Enjoy your prejudices, because that's what they are. Here's a piece of history that contradicts your belief:

1957 -- the KKK plans to attack the house of Dr. Albert E. Perry, vice-president of a local NAACP chapter. The attack was thwarted because the local NRA chapter learned about it and showed up early to fortify and defend. The NRA chapter's nickname was "the Black Armed Guard", and was just one of a number of black NRA chapters.

1965 -- black NRA members support the Deacons for Defense and Justice, the organization that kept Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders protected against the KKK and other white supremacist organizations.


Yes, the NRA has had some racist board members -- some astoundingly so, for example Ted Nugent -- but the organization has not been racist. OTOH, both the board and the CEO have overlooked some extreme racists on the board itself because of the perceived benefit of having those individuals as public faces of the NRA because they were celebrities. The truth is the top levels of the organization just didn't care if they had prominent racists among them so long as the money kept rolling in.

 

[Kulindahr]

Well.... this is going to probably throw gasoline on this fire but the theory that the decline in violent crime is connected to the explosion in gun sales and right-to-carry laws was long ago disproved.

And guess what the statisticians have proposed as the reason for the decline in crime?

Abortion and Crime, Revisited (Ep. 384) [Freakanomics]



What has gone up since right-to-carry laws have passed and gun sales increased?

Gun violence is up. It's been up for more than a year. [NBC]





And during a time when violent crime was down, you first tell Americans that they're at risk of "home invasions" and "carjackings" and that minorities are going to kill them and take their stuff.

And when you max out the fear factor market, you market weapons of war like they're muscle cars. It's fun to shoot a weapon that can kills dozens of people in a minute. Assault rifles are sexy.

This all ignores the fact that the new gun owners of 2020 and now 2021 are primarily minorities -- an the NRA is cheering them on.

And violence with misuse of guns is up because of COVID, with criminals being dumped on the street and gun crimes not prosecuted.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

This all ignores the fact that the new gun owners of 2020 and now 2021 are primarily minorities -- an the NRA is cheering them on.

they were quiet as fuck for breonna taylor they were quiet as fuck when that black mom was imprisoned for firing a warning shot against an abusive husband, you will not find a black person* on American soil who believes that the NRA gives a fuck about our right to bear arms, only disillusioned white people patting themselves on the back for a gesture that is so "too late" it's tangibly pathetic. You can actually feel the patheticness of the NRA being so desperate to rehabilitate their image with minorities they never cared about til they had to file for bankruptcy.

*except maybe clarence thomas

Trash organizations go in the trash which is where this one's heading. And please, seriously, do not ever try to convince a black American that the NRA was ever for us. We have the internet now we can simply google their history to learn where they stand in black gun ownership. And that stance didn't change til they literally needed us.

They're already in the mud and I have ONLY addressed the racism not the financial corruption and incompetence. The proof is in the pudding we have their cheerleaders trying to play music as the ship sinks and I wonder if they notice NOBODY is dancing.

 

[Pierresro]

So Oliver North is extorting LaPierre? I feel so sorry for him. Lapierre has used fear to keep ignorant rednecks stirred up. I would love to see the NRA rot to the ground and never recover.

I agree I want all the assholes in the NRA gone and the assholes with illegal guns to be in jail !

 

[KaraBulut]

This all ignores the fact that the new gun owners of 2020 and now 2021 are primarily minorities -- an the NRA is cheering them on.

And violence with misuse of guns is up because of COVID, with criminals being dumped on the street and gun crimes not prosecuted.

You really don't hear what you're saying, do you?

The one consistency in gun owners who kill people with their guns is very simple: they are overwhelmingly male.

Here's the racial breakdown of mass shooters between 1982-2021:

We don't have the final homicide numbers for 2020, but more than likely the deaths will be consistent with prior years - around 37% will be young, black males.

What people never consider when thinking about gun-related deaths is that gun ownership is also tied to suicide rates.

 

[TX-Beau]

[Text: Removed]

The NRA for years has been using Kuli's silly argument as cover for a lobbying scheme paid for by manufacturers of ammo and firearms. They've sold gun as recreation and Rambo fantasies to everyone, they paid for a bunch of the people who are currently trying to kill our democracy. Anti-gay, misogynist, racism, religious bigots, these are the people the NRA has gleefully paid for in order to make money for that whore LaPierre and the rest of them, and now it looks like they are all traitors as well.

There aren't enough safety courses in the world to make up for that.

 

[KaraBulut]

...There aren't enough safety courses in the world to make up for that.

The terrible irony of all this is that the long-time fiction has been that Americans need to arm themselves to protect themselves from their government (the one that they elected).

And here we are in 2021, with 393,347,000 guns in circulation and significant portion of population who appear to be mentally ill.

It's not the government that we need to protection from.

 

[Kulindahr]

they were quiet as fuck for breonna taylor they were quiet as fuck when that black mom was imprisoned for firing a warning shot against an abusive husband, you will not find a black person* on American soil who believes that the NRA gives a fuck about our right to bear arms, only disillusioned white people patting themselves on the back for a gesture that is so "too late" it's tangibly pathetic. You can actually feel the patheticness of the NRA being so desperate to rehabilitate their image with minorities they never cared about til they had to file for bankruptcy.

*except maybe clarence thomas

Trash organizations go in the trash which is where this one's heading. And please, seriously, do not ever try to convince a black American that the NRA was ever for us. We have the internet now we can simply google their history to learn where they stand in black gun ownership. And that stance didn't change til they literally needed us.

[Text: Removed] -- the facts I've already posted show your claims are false. But here's some more:

Recognize this guy?

His nickname is "the Mailman", and he's an NRA board member -- that means a majority of the most active NRA members voted for him; in fact he was among the top five in vote totals.

As for NRA membership, in 2016 that reached a milestone: 40% of members were racial/ethnic minorities, a number that has continued to grow. Sadly that varies widely by state; in some southern states the number skews heavily white. Those numbers surprised me; I would have guessed 15% minority, 20% women, and in fact if you take just the members over 50 my guess is a little high. And that last is why the media view of the NRA is skewed: at large public NRA events, it's that older contingent who tend to show up (can't find it at the moment but I saw an estimate that the average age for convention [and other large event] attendance was around 55).

Your claim about filing for bankruptcy also fails: the effort to reach out to minorities started not long after I got my university degree, in the late 1990s. It stumbled along for years because the NRA couldn't find a high-profile minority figure to champion the cause (Malone wasn't interested in a task that would inevitably embroil such a position), but in 2013 this guy stepped up: Colion Noir. (Also worth noting as a minority person in the NRA is Chris Cheng, an Asian shooting champion who is also outspokenly gay; he's a popular NRA commentator.)

Another reason the public view of the NRA is skewed is that the organization spends over two-fifths of its dues income on fundraising, and the big donors tend to be "OFWG" -- old fat white guys -- so the advertising is slanted to reach them (another thing due to Ackermann-McQueen, since the more money spent on fundraising the more money they earned). That figure for fundraising spending is sufficiently ridiculous it has been brought up in court as evidence of corruption.