On-Topic The NRA in Disarray

[Kulindahr]

I have no idea why you continue to make the case for a corrupt organization like the NRA that could be replaced in a heartbeat with a new organization.

When an organization is corrupt the focus should be on the corruption -- there's no need to throw in falsehoods.

It's the same reason I "made a case" for Obama when falsehoods were thrown at him, and before that "made a case" for Bush when falsehoods were thrown at him: if you want to attack someone, stick with truth, especially when there's enough true thing to condemn someone for that making stuff up is just silly!

I could write a five thousand word piece about all the corruption in the NRA just using actual facts (like the idiocy of paying a figurehead enough to make him a multi-millionaire). There's no need to ignore facts to make false accusations.

 

[Kulindahr]

Ah, the good old days...

The NRA Supported Gun Control When the Black Panthers Had the Weapons [History Channel]

OMG

LOL You're citing the Hysterical Channel, the place whose unofficial motto is "We'll broadcast/print anything if it draws an audience"?

 

[Kulindahr]

It's like arguing with gay 'pubs who insist the party isn't phobic. They have some kind pf identity issue wrapped up in being a 'pub and will NOT see.

No, because the GOP is on the record as officially anti-gay. The NRA is on the record as officially pro-minority and is 40+% minority in its membership (which is actually higher than the general population).

If you insist on going back three-fifths of a century to characterize an organization, then the truly racist organization everyone should be attacking is the Democratic Party of the U.S., because back then they were the party of the K.K.K. and worse. And if you want to point to behavior by cherry-picked members, then that same political party today is still racist (it was a Democrat here who put up the pro-McCain highway sign with the statement "Because it's the WHITE House") as well as being communist and terrorist.

 

[ClubLevelVegan]

OMG

LOL You're citing the Hysterical Channel, the place whose unofficial motto is "We'll broadcast/print anything if it draws an audience"?

There are plenty of other cites to back up that they were in fact for gun control when it came to Black Panthers having weapons, though.

 

[ClubLevelVegan]

No, because the GOP is on the record as officially anti-gay. The NRA is on the record as officially pro-minority and is 40+% minority in its membership (which is actually higher than the general population).

If you insist on going back three-fifths of a century to characterize an organization, then the truly racist organization everyone should be attacking is the Democratic Party of the U.S., because back then they were the party of the K.K.K. and worse. And if you want to point to behavior by cherry-picked members, then that same political party today is still racist (it was a Democrat here who put up the pro-McCain highway sign with the statement "Because it's the WHITE House") as well as being communist and terrorist.

To be fair there are plenty of racist people that are democrat or liberal. And you don’t need to go back that far at all to find racist comments or practices by a lot of these people or politicians just as well as you don’t have to go back that far to find plenty of shitty things about the NRA. Plenty of other pro-gun organizations to support rather then simping for garbage tier ones like NRA.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

No, because the GOP is on the record as officially anti-gay. The NRA is on the record as officially pro-minority and is 40+% minority in its membership (which is actually higher than the general population).

If you insist on going back three-fifths of a century to characterize an organization, then the truly racist organization everyone should be attacking is the Democratic Party of the U.S., because back then they were the party of the K.K.K. and worse. And if you want to point to behavior by cherry-picked members, then that same political party today is still racist (it was a Democrat here who put up the pro-McCain highway sign with the statement "Because it's the WHITE House") as well as being communist and terrorist.

Are there any major mainstream commonly-known incidents of them publicly supporting black gun owners? I know of countless cases that could've used their advocacy but they were nowhere in sight maybe I missed something over the last few decades?

There isn't any organization that old that has absolved itself of racist culture and hierarchy. It just hasn't happened in any corner of America so it's more plausible than not that it still reeks of white supremacy somewhere that's maybe being swept under the rug or unnoticed by the group? I dunno where modern Americans get this notion that we ever changed our racist ways, let alone long enough ago that there's no cause for conversation.

 

[KaraBulut]

No, because the GOP is on the record as officially anti-gay. The NRA is on the record as officially pro-minority and is 40+% minority in its membership (which is actually higher than the general population)...

The NRA doesn't collect racial demographics on its membership. So where does this "40%+ minority" claim come from?

It's certainly not reflected in the attendance of their conventions.

 

[rareboy]

They probably count 'wimmin' as a minority.

 

[cityboy-stl]

OMG

LOL You're citing the Hysterical Channel, the place whose unofficial motto is "We'll broadcast/print anything if it draws an audience"?

So everything on History Channel is unreliable? Shooting the messanger because you don't like message is soooooo 12th century.

 

[KaraBulut]

So everything on History Channel is unreliable? Shooting the messanger because you don't like message is soooooo 12th century.

^QFT

It seems that that's a common tactic these days- to try to discredit the author instead of refuting the facts. For example, if you cite an article in the New York Times, they'll attack the Times as a liberal media outlet.

The article on the History Channel website (not the TV station) was written by Thad Morgan who is an editor for the website. He has a BA in Journalism from Georgia State University, so the writer does have formal journalism training and his facts are easily verifiable.

So... given the choice of believing Thad Morgan's article or a speech made by Wayne LaPierre (yes, I did read through a couple of those), I chose Mr Morgan.

Of course, one could also use Wikipedia's footnoted citations in their article on the Mulford Act:

The Mulford Act was a 1967 California bill that repealed a law allowing public carrying of loaded firearms. Named after Republican assemblyman Don Mulford, and signed into law by governor of California Ronald Reagan, the bill was crafted with the goal of disarming members of the Black Panther Party who were conducting armed patrols of Oakland neighborhoods, in what would later be termed copwatching. They garnered national attention after Black Panthers members, bearing arms, marched upon the California State Capitol to protest the bill...

Both Republicans and Democrats in California supported increased gun control, as did the National Rifle Association of America.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

[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.

You being a member + denying a historically inaccurate portrayal of the NRA + using the same black guy twice to prove inclusion = me less than convinced.

I swear to god if you mention that mailman one more time I'm leaving this thread forever.

 

[rareboy]

You being a member + denying a historically inaccurate portrayal of the NRA + using the same black guy twice to prove inclusion = me less than convinced.

I swear to god if you mention that mailman one more time I'm leaving this thread forever.

 

[rareboy]

One way the National Rifle Association projects its power is through the image of tens of thousands of members in a convention center, in front of the politicians who back the powerful gun rights organization.

But this weekend, for the second year in a row, the NRA's chosen convention center will stand empty, after it was forced to cancel its annual meeting due to the COVID pandemic.

It is an ill wind that doesn't blow some good.

Thanks COVID. It is delightful to know that for another year, they are missing the chance to trot out the politicians they own and use the optics of 80,000 attendees to scare the others they don't.

It is still depressing though that the NRA still has 5 million members and is able to raise 284 million dollars in 2020. Although, again, the good news is that membership numbers are stagnant since 2013.

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/03/1033...again-underscoring-the-groups-uncertain-futur

 

[Kulindahr]

It is an ill wind that doesn't blow some good.

Thanks COVID. It is delightful to know that for another year, they are missing the chance to trot out the politicians they own and use the optics of 80,000 attendees to scare the others they don't.

It is still depressing though that the NRA still has 5 million members and is able to raise 284 million dollars in 2020. Although, again, the good news is that membership numbers are stagnant since 2013.

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/03/1033...again-underscoring-the-groups-uncertain-futur

What you should find depressing is that the same corrupt crew that got the NRA into this mess is still in charge.

I and many others have been advocating for La Pierre to be booted for two decades or more, and all that's happened in that time is that they managed to rig the rules to make it even harder to get rid of him and his cronies. What we would find to be good news would be La Pierre and a dozen or so board members in jail this year (What is good news is that the safety programs haven't really been harmed by this).

 

[TX-Beau]

It's always been apparent that the way to get rid of that whore LaPierre is to stop paying dues.

 

[Kulindahr]

It's always been apparent that the way to get rid of that whore LaPierre is to stop paying dues.

There was a move to allow dues to be designated for one or another NRA function, but it failed. I don't remember the details but it may have gone to court, and the ruling was that would require a change to the by-laws -- but the by-laws couldn't be changed without the board approving it, no matter what the membership might have wanted. So I can make a donation and specify where it has to be spent, but dues get spent according to whatever was passed in the operating budget. And with the cronies La Pierre got onto the board, the operating budget was always going to pay his salary even if dues dropped to zero, which meant that useful programs would get shorted before La Pierre would be bothered in the slightest.

The New York suit is more a political stunt than a serious one: a serious suit wouldn't have aimed at shutting down the organization, it would have aimed specifically at what was wrong with the board and executive management. Aiming at the whole organization guaranteed that enough members to keep it going would keep donating, but aiming at what was rotten at the top would have had one heck of a lot of NRA members cheering.

I can't find anything on the web (though two articles about the subject led to "page not found" errors), but IIRC the board of directors got expanded to 76 members as a PR stunt back at the time of the country's bicentennial; before that it was 50, itself a PR number matching the number of states (I remember some people arguing that there should be one from each state). Both of those are too large for any meaningful oversight! I vaguely recall that the board was smaller still farther back, which is worth noting because one of the big problems is the unwieldy size of the board, which results in the real power of the organization resting with the executive management, which led to the mess the organization is in today.

 

[rareboy]

Finally.

Everyone knew that the NRA was used in 2016 to launder Russian money and illegally funnel it to Trump and other candidates.

Now Gabby Giffords is adding to the corrupt organization's legal woes by bring suit directly against the NRA when the FEC failed to act on the case.

The lawsuit claims that the NRA coordinated with seven different campaigns by siphoning money through vendors in a way that violated federal campaign finance laws. The suit alleges that other beneficiaries of the scheme included Republican Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Missouri's Josh Hawley, among others.

It is never a surprise to find out who is owned by the NRA, but I suspect that their ability to set up shell companies for this purpose has been somewhat curtailed in the last few years.

The NRA is being sued for allegedly breaking campaign finance law to back Republicans (NPR; November 3, 2021)

 

[TX-Beau]

We'll never know how much came from where and went to whom. Unless Gabby et al know something more than we do, they'll (the NRA) claim lack of standing, and the S.C. and probably the appeals courts will agree - not erroneously. She can't demonstrate that herself, or her organization was materially harmed by intent or negligence of the NRA. Maybe there's something they aren't telling, but that looks more like a stunt than any serious attempt to get that whore LaPierre and his nasty wife.

All those Federal accusations require a Federal response, and no one seems to be able to find Merrik Garland.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

We'll never know how much came from where and went to whom. Unless Gabby et al know something more than we do, they'll (the NRA) claim lack of standing, and the S.C. and probably the appeals courts will agree - not erroneously. She can't demonstrate that herself, or her organization was materially harmed by intent or negligence of the NRA. Maybe there's something they aren't telling, but that looks more like a stunt than any serious attempt to get that whore LaPierre and his nasty wife.

All those Federal accusations require a Federal response, and no one seems to be able to find Merrik Garland.

I'm almost willing to bet my life savings that she's coming to court armed with more than a hunch. Not that you'll need THAT much evidence to prove the NRA's nefariois dealings. Theyre terrible people who have contributed considerably to America's dystopian landscape.

 

[TX-Beau]

I'm almost willing to bet my life savings that she's coming to court armed with more than a hunch. Not that you'll need THAT much evidence to prove the NRA's nefariois dealings. Theyre terrible people who have contributed considerably to America's dystopian landscape.

I hope she can prove it, nevertheless it's Federal crimes that legally require a Federal response. In the event that she does prove they did it, all that happens is tossing it right back to the people who refused to prosecute in the first place. Civil suits rarely have any success absent a criminal conviction.

Frustrating, but there it is.