Mark Kelley (courtesy examiner.com)

“The NRA is a gun industry trade association masquerading as a shooting sports foundation,” ex-astronaut, professional husband and gun control advocate Mark Kelley opined in a Houston Chronicle editorial [via cbsnews.com]. “Guns fly off the shelves after tragedies because LaPierre and the gun manufacturers he represents exploit people’s fears. In return, gun manufacturers gave LaPierre and the NRA tens of millions of dollars last year alone – and he spent almost $1 million of it on his own salary, Everyone in the gun lobby gets rich when the gun manufacturers sell the most guns. And that’s why LaPierre and the rest of the leadership of the NRA and other gun organizations are spending so much of their time wild-eyed, preaching possible government confiscations . . .

When LaPierre and his crew of highly paid Beltway insider staff reversed their earlier support of common-sense measures like expanded background checks, they sent a strong message that instead of standing with the 3 million of your members who supported background checks, they were working on behalf of the manufacturers’ profit margins instead. It seems to me that the time is right for a new generation of leaders within the NRA.

Nick agrees that Mr. LaPierre may not be the ideal NRA jefe—given Wayne’s “get off my lawn” demeanor and antipathy to the younger generation’s love of COD. Still, doubting LaPierre’s motives, or the government’s desire to confiscate firearms, is like questioning the fitness levels of a professional cheerleader.

Anyway, Mr. Leghorn, Dan and I are in situ, ready to report from Kelley’s heart of darkness: the NRA convention. We’ll look for Mark, Rachel and any other gun control advocates we can find . . .

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84 COMMENTS

  2. I sent the NRA $500 last year, and I think LaPierre is underpaid. I’m not in the gun industry. I’m just me.

  4. Logic fail: The NRA’s flip-flop on background checks was turning its back on 3 million members and was working on behalf of the manufacturers’ profit margins instead.

    Reality check: The manufacturers’ profit margins would hardly notice a background check requirement. They don’t get a dime from private party transfers. If anything, easier private party transfers would cut into their profit margins, as it makes it more convenient to buy guns on the second-hand market. As for retailers, I know a couple gun store owners and another FFL that were all for “universal background checks” as they would drive additional business to them.

    • Agreed 100%!!!!!! The logic that gun stores and manufacturers are against background check legislation, because they are protecting their financial interests, is WRONG! Both stores and manufacturers would BENEFIT from expanded background checks. But… this doesn’t fit the narrative. And, of course, your low information voters just listen, believe, repeat, and don’t even bother to think critically about it. They accept it as fact and I see anti-gun acquaintances repeating it on Facebook, etc. I’ve posted versions of the following many times:

      Expanded background checks would financially benefit gun manufacturers and gun stores. The legislation would have made it Federally illegal in most cases for people to sell guns privately between each other and would have required that they use a gun store to facilitate the transfer. Gun stores charge fees for this — between $15 on the extreme low end and $80 on the high end. 100% of gun store sales (in-store, at a gun show, or over the internet) already require a background check, so the legislation would have changed exactly nothing about how the store sells its inventory.

      “Universal background checks” makes new guns more attractive by making used guns from private parties less attractive. Obviously buying private party is nice because you don’t have to pay transfer fees or fill out paperwork for 30 minutes. This law would have changed that. Since, now, you’d end up doing the paperwork either way and paying transfer fees for a private sale but not on a dealer sale, it could actually increase the % of gun sales that are new from dealers vs. used via private party. Overall, it would have almost certainly benefited gun stores and gun manufacturers, both of which make exactly $0 any time two people decide to buy/sell a gun between themselves instead of one person buying a new gun from a store, or those two people being forced to use the store and pay a fee for the transfer.

      The idea that gun stores and manufacturers are against this legislation because it would negatively impact them financially is WRONG.

  5. It’s a shame Gabby Giffords had the part of her brain damaged that knew to keep this idiot away from reporters.

    The irony of him now stealing money from sympathetic schmucks and going in this rant is terrific.

    • He parades his wife around like a showpiece to push his ridiculous, hypocritical agenda. It’s morally repugnant.

      • EXACTLY the way Sarah Brady paraded her poor turnip of a husband around. Convince me THAT’S not hell on Earth!!

        • Well, that’s the beauty of such an arrangement. The disabled person is told they’re contributing to society in useful ways post-injury by someone whom they trust… and anyone who suggests that the disabled person is being exploited is automatically a jerk.

        • William Burke, if I’m not mistaken, didn’t Sarah Brady also buy her grandson a rifle for Christmas, a few years ago, much like Kelley buying an AR-15?

          As someone else here posted, oh, the delicious irony!-

          Or is it hypocrisy?

  6. I keep getting confused, so is the NRA the tool of the gun companies (which you’d think, not for nothing is the NSSF’s mission statement, but what the hey) or are they the bullies who force S&W to toe the NRA line through threats of boycotts?

    Can’t the antis make up their mind?

  8. Are we sure that it was Giffords who got shot in the head and not this guy? Who, by the way, looks a lot like Uncle Fester.

  9. “Guns fly off the shelves after tragedies because LaPierre and the gun manufacturers he represents exploit people’s fears.”

    Yeah, like there’s no fear fomented by the fascist disarmers on the other side. Di in a Fire admitted she was working on her disarmament legislation for a year. It would never have seen the light of day if there hadn’t been a made-to-order massacre.

  10. Yeah! Like that Obama – always flapping his lips about gun bans and confiscatory regulations! He’s just doing it to scare people and make a buck!

    Oh wait…

  11. Mark,
    Guns fly off the shelves after tragedies because people like me know that people like you may use the event to remove my rights.

    People in business also tend to get rich when a whole lot of their product is sold. That isn’t exclusive to firearms, and it’s not a problem, it’s a market.

  12. I’m sure the NRA paid Cuomo to say “confiscation is not off the table” and compelled Feinstein to introduce a new assault weapons ban that banned all transfers, including inheritance. And it had to be the NRA that wrote the SAFE Act, which has stiffer penalties for an overloaded magazine than actually killing someone. All to whip up gun owner paranoia and sell guns.

  13. I don’t care about his opinion of the NRA. The fact is that after Sandy Hook, a tragedy to be sure, we have no new federal anti gun laws. That’s what I pay the NRA for. To protect my rights against those that would infringe on them even tho I have never fired a shot on a school property.

    Kelly wants to blame me for what happened at Sandy Hook and to his wife. And heartless pols are using him to get their agenda thru which has nothing to do with protecting the innocent.

    So, let WLP become a millionair. Like a good lawyer, if he protects my rights he’s worth it. Can the NRA stand some improvement, sure it can. But bottom line, no new federal anti gun laws.

    • I’ve fired guns on school property.

      At a school event. In Калифорния, no less.

      Ahhh… the ’70s…

  14. I freakin’ love the NRA for the simple reason that it makes all the gun grabbers writhe like the snakes they are. As long as the NRA causes the progressives to lose sleep at night and stomp their feet in hissy fits it will continue to get my money.

    It’s comical watching all the gun grabbers go red in the face shouting about the NRA and acting as if its the Evil Empire.

    • Unfortunately, the current leadership – while generally alright about maintenance – isn’t all that great about outreach.

      Many antis can be educated and brought into the fold, but you have to respect them as people and understand how they came to be who they are.

      I’ve brought a few ’round; it CAN be done, and should.

      The best preachers are reformed sinners, and the best advocates are reformed antis.

  15. Y’know, I am an actual rocket scientist. As such, I can argue the finer points of spacecraft design with him.

    Pity he can’t return the favor with regard to firearms… :[

  16. Reality check #2: As the veep of one of the largest organizations in the country, Wayne makes a fraction of what he could make as a veep of any other body with even half as many members. And he actually works for it.

  17. exploit people’s fears?
    Aurora
    AWB
    exploit people’s fears?
    V-Tec
    Mag limits
    exploit people’s fears?
    Sandy Hook
    Psych Exams
    exploit people’s fears!
    Who wrote the book?

  18. First I came to the conclusion that the bills being pushed were a stepping stone to confiscation and an infringement on the 2A. Second just because some of us support the idea of background checks doesn’t mean we support the gun grabbers garbage.

  19. I believe that background checks would help the gun manufacturers. It could force customers into dealers brick and mortar shops and they would be exposed to new and shiny guns.

  21. What a shameless lap dog #ss whipe this guy has become to the grabber crowd.

    The grabbers move to confiscate oops I mean heavily regulate guns and establish more complete federal owner data bases oops I mean background checks which are conveniently also capable of identifying firearms owners. The grabbers and their political stooges make clear statements that this is just the beginning, and we have jurisdictions such as CA serving as a model for how to incrementally move from regulation to draconian regulation to confiscation; how would anyone including both gun owners and gun related organizations like the NRA respond to that kind of political atmosphere. Of course they are going to push back – hard. That takes a lot of effort and MONEY; especially when the grabbers have Bloomberg’s BILLIONS at their disposal.

    Cause —> effect. That shouldn’t be rocket science – especially for a former astronaut.

  22. “Guns fly off the shelves after tragedies because LaPierre and the gun manufacturers he represents exploit people’s fears.”

    …and then anti’s like Feinstein and Bloomberg confirm those fears.

    • …and Chicago and other Democrat politicians also confirm those fears.

      And of course folks are going to ramp up purchases and hoard firearms in anticipation of government promoted firearm scarcity. Long time human tradition just like what happens when a hurricane is anticipated to hit landfall. Stock up!

  23. Oh look, yet another grifter of the taxpayer’s money telling us little people what he thinks. That’s so cute.

  25. Mark Kelly “met” Gabby Giffords in China, in 2003….

    At the time, he was married to Amelia Victoria Babis…..

    Mark Kelly DIVORCED Amelia in 2004….

    What does that tell you?

  26. “Mark Kelly is a Statist puppet with the Obama administration’s hand on his strings masquerading as a gun violence prevention advocate,” I told readers in the comments section.

    • Add the word “stupid” before the word ‘puppet’ and “ornament” after and you have the perfect definition of a putz.

      And that is how he should be forever referred to. Marginalize him just as he is trying to marginalize the NRA and other gun owners and 2A proponents.

  27. I thought he was supposed to be “donating” more AR’s to the local police department? I guess speaking about that he knows not of won out, Randy

  28. Getting a letter from the NRA or whoever saying “X, Y and Z want to take your guns” is nothing compared to seeing X, Y and Z on TV day after day saying they want to take my guns.

    And what’s with all these people raking in the corporate Bloomberg dollars trying to make the NRA look evil by connecting it to corporate dollars?

    Stark raving mad lunatics who dont hear the word coming out of their own mouths.

    • “And what’s with all these people raking in the corporate Bloomberg dollars trying to make the NRA look evil by connecting it to corporate dollars?”

      This is probably what gets me the most.

      Someone really needs to air an ad portraying Bloomberg as a megalomanical bastard throwing his money around to back the “evil” gun control lobby.

  30. and every time Mark Kelley opens his mouth, my eyes glaze over, and I believe ever stupid word out of his mouth.

      • In the early morning hours of September 26, 1933, Machine Gun Kelly was caught by the FBI sleeping in the home of a friend, J.C. Tichenor, at 1408 Raynor, Memphis, TN. That home still stands and is now an urban child care operation. So you will forgive me when I quote Mr. Kelly, “Wha-waa-waa!”.

  32. I wonder if this guy has ever talked to someone who has bought a gun during a panic? I have heard anyone say “Because the NRA email scared me!” Is he saying Feinstein’s press conferences were not widely distributed?

  34. Good to see this AR buyer but hater a groaning over his loss last week. This man is such a hypocrite and looser, I wouldn’t even bother posting this bums rants.

  36. Did he just figure out how lobbyist work?

    The NRA represents every firearm owner, much like the American Teachers Union represents… wait for it…. Teachers.

    Of course the NRA receives money from manufacturers, thats how you affect policy change.
    The NRA receives money from it’s members, and last I checked memberships grew at a rate of 10K per day (at it’s peak) in the months following Sandy Hook. Those memberships have dues paid by… wait for it… Citizens. That is how we lobby. We pay our dues, we pool our money, we engage congress, the senate, and policy makers, and we push for policies that favor the majority.

    What is so god damn shocking about this? This guy is a tool.

    Seriously. Did he just figure this out?

    • Given the other way gun owners could communicate their desires, these morons should be grateful for the NRA.

  37. I’ve been a life member for over 20 yrs. No one has ever surveyed me. I doubt he’s a member, so he should STFU!

  39. Mark, you should also take a look how the liberals exploit gun tragedies. How they wrongfully used Sandy Hook.

  40. I really wish NASA would get its funding restored so this guy could go back there and shut the hell up about things he knows absolutely nothing about.

  41. Remember back when astronauts were synonymous with “American hero?”

    Nowhere is safe from the progressive scourge.

  42. Note to Marky Mark: The NRA did not shoot your woman, a deranged killer did. Period! Fix the mental health issue ya jack-oph

  43. More proof that the only firm requirement to fly a military jet is to able to operate the go lever and have a big ego/mouth.

  44. Mark “The Professional Husband” Kelly clearly sees a politcal future for himself. He should be ridiculed at every opportunity. And made to account for every penny sent to their anti-gun group.

  45. so its okay for billionaire bloomberg to push for disarmament?

    if you agree with it, it is “principle”. When you disagree, its about “the money”.

    pot meet kettle.

  47. The moment someone uses the words “common sense” when speaking about firearms legislation, you just know they are suffering from a rectal/oral inversion.

  49. He says “Everybody in the gun lobby gets rich…”. I’m a life member of the NRA. So I’m a part of the gun lobby and guess what… I’m not rich. What a prick!

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