“Our legislative arm and our desire to go into this, to the advocacy business, was really at the behest of a number of Democratic congressmen lead by John Dingell of Michigan, who said at that time, you can train all the hunters you want, you can issue all the instructions on safety and gun handling, and run all the competitions, and gun collector shows that you want, but if you don’t step up to the plate and defend these rights, none of that’s going to matter. And since then, we’ve done just that.” – NRA President David Keene in Gun Control and Gun Rights Advocates Are Ready to Continue Their Fight [via pbs.org]

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22 COMMENTS

  1. Every time I read or hear a civilian disarmament statist cry foul at the “evil NRA” stopping all this “common sense gun regulation”, I think to myself “That’s right you fascist idiot, push more fence sitters towards our side.”

  2. You know I point this out pretty often to NRA detractors, that though the NRA has been around for almost 150 years, it was only in the 1970s that they got involved in politics.

    They’ve made some missteps, and we’ve had to clean the house of Fudd board members, overall they’ve done tremendous things for gun rights. And their current stance is pretty much no compromise when it comes to the core gun rights. My only compliant with the NRA is that I wished they fought harder for NFA rights.

    • Well said. Of course credit also goes to the membership and the many other organizations that have joined our fight like the SAF, GOA, etc.

      • Yeah, Gottlieb has been a huge plus. Not. What a traitorous ba$tard. My bucks stay with the NRA. Life member here.

        • Uhhh, you do realize that Gottlieb’s SAF is what actually won Heller and McDonald SCOTUS cases, right? The NRA (at the time) had no problem with promoting the 2A, but they had little interest in financing lawsuits to restore lost 2A rights.

          I’m not knocking the NRA – everyone in my immediate family are life members. However we also need SAF (Gottlieb) and GOA (Pratt) to help us fight the anti-rights crowd.

          Last week on Gun Talk I heard Jim Sheppard (of Outdoor/Tactical Wire fame) and he put it this way- let’s all agree that we like ice cream and stop fighting about which flavor is the best. That pretty much sums it up…

    • And 4th Amendment privacy protection for gunowners a la opposition to PATRIOT Act provisions.

    • Yeah, people like to beat up the NRA but they’ll never be perfect and they can’t be all things to all people.

      While they hardly stood alone in the last battle over gun rights they are still the 800 lb. gorilla.

    • My complaint is they didn’t fight hard enough when attacked in the eighties and nineties, preferring instead to do-si-do with the enemy and appear harmless, and now we are virtually backing into a corner, and THEY MUST SHARE A LOT BLAME for that.

      You can’t bide your time and retreat and retreat, and THEN, when things are truly bleak, call on your members to fight to the death. IT DIDN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.

      But here we are, in the corner, and where is the spitting, snarling beast who wants to win, because losing is a reasonable facsimile of death?

  3. David has done so much for the NRA, he is truly “one of us” in every respect. No need to Photoshop him shooting unlike the POTUS at Camp David :^)

    Keene= Good for all gun enthusiasts.

    Time to stop all the MSM vilification of the NRA! Ask them was (fill in blank) in Chicago gangta shootings a member of NRA? How about the Senate…fix the real problems Feinstein et al! Nah, just STFU on second thought (second amendment thought???

  7. In my youth the dems were not so enamored of gun control. It’s only since the party has been hijacked by the extreme left that the gun hate started. The dems are working as a party to disarm the citizens. There are repubs that go for gun control as individuals. but it’s not the party policy.

    The NRA of my youth was geared towards hunters mostly. I went thru their hunter safety program at the local rod and gun club and then got my first hunting license. To my memory the NRA did not really getr all that active in politics until after the 68 gca. They’ve been at it ever since.

    And while I think the NRA, like the public service unions, has gotten too cozy with management I would rather have them in the fight than not.

    Saf made one misstep. I’m not ready to turn on them yet. They’ve done to much good to dump just yet. As individuals we need to keep up the pressure on our reps and vote every election. But we need to recognize that as individuals our voices are weaker than if we have an org backing us. Join the NRA and vote.

  8. Listen to what I say, I have seen and heard idiots
    for 23 years on the street talk bad about guns.
    It’s not the gun, it’s the right to have it!
    God bless the NRA!

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