As someone who follows gun news with obsessive, some would say maniacal fervor, I’m here to say that the NRA is the 800-pound gorilla that isn’t in the room. In general, America’s oldest civil rights organization doesn’t respond to journalists’ requests for comments. If there’s a high-profile gun-related tragedy in the news – such as the mom killed by her toddler at an Idaho Walmart – the NRA stays stum. Personally, I think it’s a mistake. It’s not enough to be America’s most powerful gun rights group; the NRA needs to be seen as America’s most powerful gun rights group. Strangely, gun control advocates are doing that for them . . .
Well, not so strangely. The antis conform to Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals playbook. Specifically, rule 12: ““Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” The NRA is the target, constantly, with Wayne LaPierre as its public face. The polarization takes the form of endless tweets, Facebook postings and mainstream media rants that paint the NRA as the enemy of public safety.
It’s a shame these attacks go unchallenged by the NRA, but there you go. And here here go. Again. Still . . .
It has been a week since Ismaayl Brinsley, a deranged man with a long criminal record, killed two New York City police officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, in cold blood, but so far we haven’t heard a word from the National Rifle Association (NRA).
It was Brinsley who pulled the trigger on the silver Taurus semiautomatic handgun that he used to kill the two officers, but the NRA and its fanatic Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre also have blood on their hands. LaPierre, who has worked for the NRA since 1978 and served as its top official since 1991, is the organization’s hit man when it comes to intimidating elected officials to oppose any kind of sensible gun control laws, including a federal law requiring background checks on would-be gun buyers and a national registry of guns. LaPierre likes to fulminate about gun owners’ rights. But he’s been silent on the ambush of the two New York cops.
As you can see by the intemperate language deployed by Peter Dreier, his HuffPo essay Focus on the NRA pulls no punches. But thanks to the NRA’s silence, the Professor of Politics is simply shadow boxing. Is that a good thing? Again, I say no. But there is that whole give ’em enough rope, hoisted by your own petard thing. To wit:
If [the New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick] Lynch wants to point the finger of blame for his colleagues’ deaths, he should focus on the NRA, not de Blasio. For decades, the NRA has fought every effort to get Congress and states to adopt reasonable laws that would make it much less likely that people like Brinsley would be able to obtain a gun. The NRA even defends the right of Americans to carry concealed weapons in bars, churches, schools, universities, and elsewhere. This poses a huge threat to police and civilians alike.
The NRA could have supported “reasonable” laws that would have made the NYPD assassination “much less likely”? That’s weak sauce, easily perceived as a preposterous prescription against murderous madmen. The NRA defends the right to carry concealed weapons “elsewhere”? As in “somewhere?” That’s hardly what most people would call an abomination (even in the Obama nation).
Dreier really wants people to focus on the NRA. Which means the media needs to stop focusing on Brinsley and start focusing on . . . you know it’s coming . . . the gun.
The news media will spend an inordinate amount of effort trying to figure out what was in Brinsley’s head before he shot and wounded his ex-girlfriend at an Owings Mills, Maryland apartment complex, posted anti-police messages on social media, then traveled to Brooklyn, where he fired his gun several times through the window of a parked police car, killing the two police officers.
Although the psychology and motives of the murderer may be fascinating, it should not be the major focus. There are plenty of deranged people in the world, but in most well-off countries they can’t easily get their hands on a firearm.
“Most” well-off countries deranged people can’t “easily” get their hands on a firearm. Dreier uses weasel words because he knows there are numerous examples of deranged people in well-off countries (with stringent gun control laws) committing heinous atrocities with firearms. Norwegian Anders Breivik‘s slaughter of 69 people, mostly teenagers, springs immediately to mind – which Dreier later dismisses by stating that “the shooting in Norway was an infrequent occurrence.” Anyway . . .
Brinsley had a history of criminal activity as well as mental instability. In 2008, he was convicted of felony shoplifting, which made it illegal for him to buy or carry a gun under federal law. Three years later, after he shot a women’s car with a stolen handgun, he admitted to other crimes. According to police records, he was arrested 19 times in Ohio and Georgia.
This is where the NRA should have put in its two cents. For decades, the gun rights group has been arguing that firearms-related crime can be prevented by enforcing laws against firearms-related crime. Don’t infringe on Americans’ gun rights. Lock up violent criminals. It’s a message that doesn’t see the light of day nearly often enough. Which should be all the time. But isn’t because the NRA prefers radio silence to arguing with antis.
Professor Dreier certainly provides enough grist for the gun rights mill. I won’t bore you with his litany of misleading statistics, half-truths and out-and-out anti-gun agitprop that follows his initial anti-NRA salvo. Suffice it to say, the academic eventually resorts to a simple rhetorical flourish: because I said so.
In 2012, there were 32,288 deaths from firearm violence in the United States, including 11,622 homicides (32 a day) and 20,666 suicides. Firearms were used in 69.6 percent of all homicides that year. Of course, many more people are injured — some seriously and permanently — by gun violence.
The NRA has two knee-jerk responses to this. The first is that the Second Amendment gives all Americans the right to possess guns of all kinds — not just hunting rifles but machine guns and semi-automatics. Efforts to restrict gun sales and ownership is, according to the NRA, an assault on our constitutional freedoms.
The second is the cliché that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” To the NRA, gun laws have nothing to do with the epidemic of gun-related killings.
Both of these arguments are bogus, but the NRA has the money and membership (4 million) to translate these idiot ideas into political clout to thwart even reasonable gun-control laws.
Dreier’s dietribe [sic] ends as it began: with unbridled animus.
Every American grieves for the families and friends of the two police officers killed in New York City on December 20. But until we tame the power of the NRA, we can expect more killings like this, a part of the deadly daily diet of murders throughout America committed by angry gun-toting people whose “freedom” to own weapons of mass destruction that the NRA defends.
The NRA doesn’t defend the right of men like Ismaayl Brinsley to walk the streets, never mind keep and bear arms. Nor does it defend the right of anyone who seeks mass destruction to keep and bear arms, no matter what their mental state (which somehow morphed from “deranged” to “angry”). And it’s time they said so, each and every time American gun rights are challenged. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
There is literally nothing the NRA can say that won’t be twisted by the Mainstream Media. They have learned the lesson many Republican politicians refuse to. The only way to win is not to play.
I do wish they would start offering more access to some of the newer and less mainstream media outlets. However, there is nothing to be gained by offering up statements that will NOT be reported accurately or objectively by the likes of MSNBC or HuffPro
Spot on. It doesn’t matter what the NRA says it’ll be twisted.
The story itself is twisted. They take a situation (cops being slaughtered) caused largely by the media, including PuffHo, and turn it against the NRA?!? That IS twisted, but then so is Arianna Huffington.
Exactly. The NRA doesn’t respond to the idiotic distortions of the leftist media because that only lends credibility to them. “LOOK, LOOK, we pissed off the NRA! They noticed us!” Besides, anyone who believes the HuffPo or the NYT or any other leftist media isn’t going to be persuaded by anything the NRA says.
As an NRA member, I prefer not to waste my contributions giving feedback to the hoplophobes. That would only let them know which anti-gun lies to repeat.
Clearly we need more laws to tame the unregulated Wild West chaos that is New York City, where guns are hardly restricted at all.
As has already been said. If the NRA comments it will be twisted 101% by the anti’s.
If something happens that doesn’t involve the NRA directly they shouldn’t comment.
Just to have it twisted?? I think not.
Now if asked directly maybe Wayne in his capacity should reserve the his right to comment. But. His comments should be taken as that of an individual and not as a representative of the NRA.
Just as any other commentators remarks should be taken. As individuals.
Its the NRA after all so anything said gets twisted around by the media.
So in the end. Its best to say nothing.
Clearly, the NRA has taken some sage advice from a great American author.
“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
― Mark Twain
+100 That about sums it up right there.
I was JUST going to post this, but you beat me to it. I could NOT agree more that they should stay the hell out of the stupidity, they have NOTHING to gain and never will with statements like the above. Wow, idiocy at it’s best. Arguing with them is like us trying to explain to MDA why I want to carry my gun into Kroger, it’s just wasting time.
No doubt.
Beautiful. Adding that to my list of favorite quotes.
Let them argue with themselves. I trust the NRA on this one.
For the most part. I don’t give a shit what people say if our side wields the power. Can the NRA be strong and silent (in public)? Seems so.
Besides, are you going to get down in the gutter and argue with every leftist SJW kook that ‘writes’ for a click bait troll website?
I mean I will do that all day long, but the NRA needs to inspire FEAR. Like a vengeful God. You never know when he’s watching and he might just show up and throw a few lightening bolts at your ass.
Not argue on your blog.
Guy is getting reamed… in the HuffPoo comments section no less.
If the NRA responds to each, or even just the most bloody or most sensational, shootings, they’ll only validate among the public at large the antis’ view that the NRA is the right and proper whipping boy for all firearms-related tragedies.
You’re demanding that the NRA volunteer to be pilloried, to allow the antis to frame the debate, every debate, every time, and frame the NRA for individuals’ crimes. I know, I know, in the NRA’s absence and silence, the antis can run free. Well, that’s going to happen, anyway, only they’ll have to do it without the NRA as a prop in their security theater.
The NRA should stick to the nuts and bolts safety, training, grass roots day-to-day advocacy, lobbying, and litigation they’re good at. They shouldn’t allow themselves to be trotted out like some sacrificial lamb every time some whack job demonstrates anew the futility of so-called gun control.
I would encourage, though, anyone with an opposing view, to organize some five million dues-paying members like the NRA has, and then go show ’em how its done.
“I would encourage, though, anyone with an opposing view, to organize some five million dues-paying members like the NRA has, and then go show ‘em how its done.”
Absolutely – and that way, we will have TWO effective gun rights groups! Politicians tend to listen to any group with that many real, dues-paying, highly vocal and politically active grass-roots members.
Quiet is good sometimes.
I like the old saying:
“Arguing with a progressive is like playing chess with a pigeon.
No matter how good you are, the pigeon will just knock over the pieces, sh!t on the board and strut around like he won the game.”
Huffpo is a pigeon.
I’m stealing this, it’s just too good.
Not just neo-progressives, friend; it applies to anyone who is immune to reason – climate deniers, f’rinstance, or the KKK.
I’ll just borrow that – with full attribution, of course.
The NRA is smart in not publicly addressing antis like this loon. Anything they say can and will be twisted against them in the public court.
NRA responding to request for comments after some crime was committed with a firearm is like GLAAD responding/publicly commenting after a gay or lesbian criminal rapist is caught. Does not compute.
Alinsky’s tactics have never been successfully applied to people who don’t fundamentally agree with them. Shining the spotlight on someone who supports your views embarrasses them and they cave. Shining the spotlight on the NRA only rallies people to their side since unlike the gun control lobby the NRA is made up of ordinary people.
As I said when this first came up let’s not get into gun control debate on the assassination of the two NYPD officers. Their deaths should be laid at the feet of both Progressives and faux Libertarians who supported the mob calling for Officer Darren Wilson’s head. The race hustlers and gang members have directly called for the killing of police officers, and still do today. They bear the responsibility and not the NRA or supporters of gun rights. We need to call them out and hold them accountable for their inflammatory rhetoric. Their switching the discussion to gun control is designed to obscure their role in these murders. Don’t let them continue to do it.
They are pushing real hard the notion it’s not deblasio or sharpton at fault because that would quickly turn public opinion against them.
“As you can see by the intemperate language deployed by Peter Dreier, his HuffPo essay Focus on the NRA pulls no punches.”
But really, given where the article appears, it appears that all this guy’s doing is preachin’ to the choir. There are not many in the HuffPro audience that don’t share his bias in one way or another. I’d also like to see the NRA become a little less, umm, lofty in their dialogue with America’s body politic. When they’ve deigned to comment on a gun-related crisis, they’ve often been devastatingly effective. NRA’s “Good Guy With A Gun” commentary just blew away the anti-gun bleating that appeared after Sandy Hook. It still resonates and is one of the few good ideas about how best to protect schools and school children. As good politics, it’s right up there with Sarah Palin’s “Death Panels” comment about Obamacare. Somewhere in the reaches of the NRA there’s a logic for all this. I hope.
You and me too. I wonder sometimes if the big wigs at the NRA really know what they are doing… I think they do.
I loved David Keene. He was a guy that seemed like he was in charge of shit.
Why don’t we propose a situation where, when the bloody shirt is waved, we go along with the proposed “common sense” proposals. Just as soon as we follow the “common sense” reaction of repealing every fed or state gun control law that was broken in the course of the particular crime involved. In this most recent case, RF listed about a dozen different gun control laws which were broken (ie, did not prevent) these murders. And I bet there were more if we had a reason to look. If they did not work, then REPEAL them, then we’ll talk about a new one. But only one.
Has HuffPo taken a penny of foreign support to overthrow our Constitution?
There’s a name for that.
They have the same aganda as FOX, misinform and divide th public.
Didn’t you mean to say “Faux News”? If you’re going to repeat that old bromide, you might as well use the old terminology.
Sorry bud, word tricks are for kids. My point is that all main stream has the same agenda, not just the ones that are perceived to be liberal or left.
What does NRA have to do with any of this? They are an organization that focuses on firearms training, education, and marksmanship (and, through NRA-ILA, political action). The NRA doesn’t sell firearms, and doesn’t represent the firearms industry.
Any effort spent responding to and refuting gun-control twits is effort taken away from their core activities.
My Rights do not come from the NRA. Nor do they speak for Me. They compromise at every turn , and fail to counter / call out the lies . ( Silence = Acceptance ) Gun Owners of America and Larry Pratt do it Better. Wayne LaPubic and the NRA FAILED to even TRY to hold David Gregory accountable for the DC magazine stunt on Meet The De-Pressed. Cut those salaries NRA. Sell the Corvette. Spend the money on Air-time , local radio / TV.
Seriously–David Gregory?? Everybody and the dog knew that would come to nothing. You may have some other good examples there of NRA sloth, but Davis Gregory was and remains a non-issue, as a practical matter.
They forgot Pinkey and the Brain.
The NRA has been set up to be the current KKK. Make no mistake.
If you are WHITE one already bears the label….and water runs off a duck’s back!
Worse – murderers of children of all races.
Sickening, really, the state of journalism.
What Peter Dreier wrote is just read meat for the progressive crowd attempting to deflect the atmosphere that was created in response to the police involved deaths. The simple fact is that even though prominent members of their movement did not directly call for violence their acquiescence of members who did leaves them just as culpable.
“If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.” — Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
I didn’t see Sharpton or Jackson or De Blasio promote anything remotely like this.
A veggie burger, or a quorn dog perhaps.
But not meat.
Because meat is bad, m’kay?
Should a representative of the auto industry speak up when there is drunk driving related homicide?
What about when the crazy dude used a car to intentionally plow down a crowd of people at Venice Beach in 2013, leaving 1 dad and 11 injured? He used a car as a weapon. Should the auto industry chime in lest they be presumed complicit?
Make that AAA (or NTSA), and you might have a pretty solid analogy.
Alrighty…. let’s run with that, then. 🙂
Or even AA. 🙂
I joined the NRA around 1993-94. After the OKC bombing, the Klintonistas alleged that it was a result of the “militia movement.”
In response, the NRA editorialized in an issue of American Rifleman that they did not endorse “private militias, and that firearms ownership had no relationship whatsoever to militia membership.
I knew what they were trying to say, but in my opinion they had caved to both the Klintonistas AND the “duck-and-deer-hunter” wing of the NRA. They constantly talk about guns defending freedom. Yet when they had a large group of Americans who needed some serious leadership and education about how that could be practically accomplished, they distanced themselves from them.
They also endorsed B- rated Jon Kyl for Senate over his A+ rated Libertarian opponent, right after Kyl voted FOR the Klinton Krime Bill, even though he continually promised that he would never do so. (Proved to me that the “R” in “NRA” actually stands for “Republican.”)
After those two incidents, I resigned. I rejoined NRA (and a bunch of other orgs) following Newtown, but haven’t renewed my NRA membership.
They were also MIA in the I-594 battle here in WA.
They always crow about how they are the most powerful lobby in Washington. Why is it that they often act like they’re not?
There also seemed to be some disorganization in the NRA apparently backing Dan Newhouse instead of Clint Didier in the Senate race.
There seems to be this misconception that the Militia as conceived in Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 16 calls for private militias. That is simply not true. The Militia as conceived by the Founding Fathers was an instrument of government. While it didn’t flat out ban private militias such organization do not have Constitution protection outside of the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms and the right to free association in a lawful enterprise. There is no constitutional prohibition on outlawing private militias.
I’d need some evidence beyond “simply not true”. It has been my understanding for very many years that the militia might be eventually working AGAINST the government, as likely as for it. The militia was intended to be unpaid and largely disorganized, ready to act to redress grievances, and such. Sounds like you are thinking of the “Army”.
PBS FRONTLINE will be attacking the NRA on Tuesday, January 6th. Title of the episode is: ‘Gunned Down: The Power of the NRA’. From Michael Kirk, “a veteran FRONTLINE filmmaker”.
Someone has started an agitprop campaign against the NRA.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the NRA use to comment on tragedies that made national news in the past? And then the antis would criticize them, saying that they were exploiting the tragedies for political gain. Oh, the hypocrisy.
To my ear, Dreier’s invective against the NRA just goes to show how desperate the Progressive Left is getting about their failure to get their agenda for gun control implemented. Now that Congress has passed to Republican Control, they have virtually no chance of getting any Federal Laws passed while Obama is still in the WH.
The NRA refusing to take their bait so they can twist it against gun ownership must be crazy frustrating to people like Dreier. The fact that the recent Pew Poll showing more Americans than ever favor gun ownership and do not favor more gun control laws has the Progressive Left foaming at the mouth and practically chewing on the carpet. Meanwhile the NRA stays silent and keeps succeeding at advancing gun ownership.
I would not advise the NRA to do anything different. Besides, people like you, RF, do a great job of standing-up for the NRA, even if that’s not what you originally intended. Maybe it’s better that way.
Just why DO they keep harping on the NRA? Is it because the NRA really is the biggest pro-gun player in the room and they figure if they can take it down, the rest will follow like dominoes? That’s a pretty “logical” thought process, antis usually aren’t that intelligent. Is it simple juvenile lashing out against a boogieman who they have convinced themselves actually exists, but does not? That would be more in keeping with the lack of rationality that characterizes the gun-control movement. Would like to know what some of you all think.
The antis are reaching. They know they face a tough, if not impossible battle. There is one huge factor standing in the way of the antis. It’s blocking the road like a big tree that fell across it. It’s NOT the NRA, it’s public opinion and the general gun culture. The NRA is simply the big guy who tells the bully to kick rocks.
This is why the antis are starting a different strategy. They are going at it like big tobacco did. Start them young, tell them it’s good for you, make it seem cool and grown up. And that is what they are doing but not exclusively with kids. It’s subtle. You have a gun? You’re gun nut. You’re paranoid, that what the police are for. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense.
Here’s the truth of the matter. Big money bags Bloombag won’t be around long enough. It will take far longer than he has left to see this through and in the end, the beating on drums, and bad mouthing the NRA and getting XYG Coffee company to ban open carry, will fail. They understand with precise clarity that public opinion must change FIRST, and that simply is going to be very VERY difficult to do, especially when the argument is as transparent, shallow and false as the antis argument is.
They have as much less chance of getting rid of guns as they did with drugs. Yeah sure they will have some successes like I-594 here in Washington State, but really, that law isn’t going to affect the large majority of gun owners in the least. It’s like putting cold medicine behind glass doors. Yes it’s inconvenient, but really, it doesn’t make a bit of difference.
Ultimately, although it’s hard to see now, the antis agenda will fail. They will never succeed in changing public opinion sufficiently to effect significant change. That’s why they have Bloombag. All those pats on the back, and “we need you” and “you’re a swell guy” are filling is endless ego and he has the money to blow on a dead end run. Only problem, he bit off something he can’t chew. Oh sure he’ll get some juice out of it, but he’s eventually going to spit it out.
No one ever talks about the other pro-gun orgs. EVER. I’ll pile on and agree with the folks who believe the NRA shouldn’t respond. Look at the abuse after Newtown. Lots of victories lately. I’ll continue to support the NRA.
I’m resisting the temptation to click over to the Huffpo piece and comment. I am slowly becoming convinced that they are writing this stupid crap intentionally to get us pro-gunners to read and respond and buck up their page views.
They blocked me from commenting so screw them, I won’t read anything there. There is a dedicated group of gun rights people who comment there though. It’s not organized, but I would see folks there making good comments on most of the gun threads. .
This is more of the “under the radar screen” collusion of the anti-gun propagandists, and their enablers in the fake news outlets, like PuffHos, Vox, and Politico, who exist to give the NYT and WAPO and CNN and CBS something to report as “news”.
The progtards are eager to go along, for access to FedGov officials controlled by the Executive branch, to generate something, anything, other than the the increasingly hysterical weather news, that is about they only other non-controversial topic.
We must not discuss that which is critical of the Agenda, despite gaping holes in news on the abject failure of Obama’s foreign policy, the Middle East of fire, the Ukraine invasion by Russia, Chinas massive cyberwarfare and spying, or even little North Korea mocking him as a monkey. Never mind TARP corporate fraud by the Banks Too Big to Fail, Solyndra-green fraud, Fast n Furious, IRSgate, or the elephant $hitting in the living room, ObamaCare.
So, the left-progtards have only a couple of things left, evillll white privilege, male rapists hiding behind every tree, and of course, the gun nuts. Or wrapped up all in one fear-filled nightmare of any choom smoking oppressed person of color, THE PIGS!!!
The cognitive damage of years lived in NY elite enclaves leads to serious cognitive dissonance, that unresolved can only br rationalized in more and crazier paranoia and projection.
The NRA has it right mostly…giving any answer to this kind of attack only gives it the semblance of credibility.
Just do what you do when some crazy old drug addled homeless person comes down the street muttering while pushing a creaky shopping cart filled with the rotting collection of long discarded ideas from the 30s, avert your eyes and step out of the way, with compassion, and drop a buck in the cup held out…
Thats the Gray Lady, of the NYT, long gone down the road to dementia…still dreaming of when she was a wannabe ballerina-model-coke recreational user…
PuffHos is already crumbling as the lies of the social media news “agregators propaganda as news” business model hits the wall of reality.
And you can find crazy old cranks hidden in dusty back rooms in any of hundreds of departments of this or that progressive private school, discredited and obscure already, even while believing they matter in the typical eastern liberal dreamworld. Drier gets it, and is desperate to sell something, anything, of the institutions or his departments dusty and rapidly declining prestige and reputation,
Perhaps for his own legacy, that book in retirement, his last chance at the bras ring, even aswhile student enrollments, drop off the cliff, as they realize the actual marketplace demand for that name on the diploma is imploding in the real world.
New York City makes California to look like Arizona by comparison. While the implementation of gun laws in other areas of New York may be less burdensome, NYC isn’t it like $300 a year to have a permit to OWN a single handgun? Assuming you can even get said permit?
The only next step would be to ban handguns altogether. If that is what they mean by common sense, they should say so. Obviously restrictions alone don’t do anything, and yet the failure of a restriction to stop a tragedy is always cited as a reason for more restrictions, rather than a reason to say, well our attempt did not work, let try another approach.
Ok, quick role call. Tell me this cop-killing thug was a dues-paying member of the NRA. Now tell me how many police officers are dues-paying members of the NRA. Don’t confuse the two.
As for the NRA’s self defense; something tells me you’re not changing HuffPo readers’ opinion with facts and constitutional principles. Just remember, the NRA isn’t some huge lobbying powerhouse. It’s me and you, $25 at a time. The POTG are multiplying while the rest are dying in riots and abortions. Stay the course.
Two things:
First, the only game plan that would work for the NRA to speak up would be to draft a careful statement about one issue, such as one that has already been supported, the mental health angle. Then every time there’s a total nut case who does a multiple shooting, re-issue the statement. Continue with re-issuing that statement until someone actually pays attention, e.g. legislation is actually proposed to fund basic mental health programs that would be designed to catch such people before they turn violent (which could be paid for by ending the NICS and transferring the funding, then slashing the size of the BATFE until there’s enough for the mental health program).
Second, in order to understand La Pierre, you have to be aware that he is the tool of a PR firm he brought in the “help” but which then effectively took over the whole public side of the Association, and that the focus of that firm is not to fight for gun rights but to maximize cash flow. They’re the ones who keep La Pierre sucking in a salary of just a few dollars short of a million a year, and as long as his salary isn’t threatened, he just does not care about anything else. He speaks when they say it’s time to speak, and that’s it.
Well, *I* like it, but then I am notoriously easy.
Silence is golden.. so get rich!… . saying less is saying the most… I had a NW Guru tell me that the one who has the most to say in a debate,usually is wrong
HuffPo?
Electronic bird cage liner is all that site is, the crazy preaching to the deranged.
Good one. Thanks Bob.
The NRA Needs to focus on exposing the true agenda of the anti gun left. It is not protection from gun violence they want. It’s the elites wanting to take control of people, and by doing that they need to disarm everyone.. Gun laws are for one purpose. to discriminate certain people on the pretense of public safety. Something Hitler done to the Jews.
I believe that their (NRA) silence is the right thing to do. There’ll always be an asswipe in this world who’ll blame them for something every single day. And going into these kinds of arguments, is to add legitimacy to what they say about us. Should they respond to every ridiculous accusation, just like this one? No police officer from NY will ever confirm that Wayne and NRA are to blame for a criminal killing cops with an illegal gun. Because they know how it really is. That crooks and bandits will always find ways to perpetrate evil and heinous acts, they did with stones, bats and sharp things before firearms were even invented. And our right to bare arms is there as a equalizer – so we can defend against them. Also for all other purposes, hunting, target shooting, controlling the govt. They (NRA/ILA) do important work, like educate kids about guns and gun safety, train them, their parents and hundreds of good instructors every year. Defend our rights in Congress.They’re like Salvation Army – they do good deeds daily and quietly. And I’m grateful to them for not joining spit fests like that.
right to keep and bear arms – I was in a rush and a bit pissed, so I wrote faster than I wanted and didn’t check it until it was too late.
Total silence isn’t good. I still think they’d do best to have a set of carefully prepared position statements calling for legislation that would actually address issues, e.g. funding for mental health and a program to eliminate the stigma of seeking it — and when an incident occurs that is related to that position, just re-issue the identical statement.
Then if they’re (“we’re”, actually; I’m an Endowment Member) called on just saying the same thing, have a secondary prepared statement that basically says, “Yes, and we’ll keep on saying it until Congress acts on this”.
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