Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/11/29/lavish-living-at-the-nra-alien.html
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I think the organization should be disbanded for its role in laundering campaign money.
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I’ve said it before: any individual who pays membership dues or offers time and support to an industry lobbying group is a sucker unless he has a substantial equity stake in that industry. Always nice to see some of the marks finally waking up to the con, but anyone with a history of NRA membership is already on the sucker lists.
But enough of that. This is a gun topic, so it’s time for the ammosexuals to hold a wankfest over technical minutiae.
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What I will never understand is why if you own a gun you would you want pay to join a gun association. I mean I own a toaster and I don’t belong to the NTA.
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“We’re sorry, Congressman, but membership renewals are down, and we’re going to have to let you go . . .”
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Although, as Trump proves, plenty are not prepared to admit to it or change their behaviour even when they do.
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Hey, knife enthusiasts like to hold wankfests over technical minutiae too! This is a wankfest problem, not a gun problem!
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NRA seems to be turning into a psychotic right wing paramilitary organization.
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Most people know when they’re being grifted.
That may be true, but most people are loathe to admit that they have been grifted and would rather double down than admit that they were scammed. That’s not a partisan thing, it’s just human nature.
I think that’s why some number of folks are sticking with the NRA even though is is now much less an education or civil liberty organization than it is a propaganda arm of reactionary nationalists. Some folks. Others are just as happy with the direction the NRA is embracing and want more of it.
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Why wouldn’t membership be declining? Right now, with two new folks on SCOTUS, Heller and McDonald are in pretty good hands and there won’t be any new gun legislation through Congress or most any state. People support causes when they fear those causes they support are under assault. See, e.g., Ruger’s stock price under the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations.
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Not only that, but many marks get insulted and angry and double down when you point out they’re being victimised and exploited by a con artist. NRA rank-and-file members are a textbook example.
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Really? I’d say that’s a bad grifter, and right now it looks to be that NRA are a bunch of bad grifters.
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The NRA will make up for it just fine with Russian money.
http://www.samefacts.com/2018/07/everything-else/the-nra-and-the-gop-in-the-gunsights/
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My housemate’s dad used to be an NRA member. His membership did have perks: a nice glossy magazine, a sticker for his car, a card that I believe got him discounts at rifle ranges. But he “quit” when their constant pleas for donations (all in expensive, glossy, 4-color mailers) came more and more frequently and they became crazier and crazier with monthly paranoid ranting letters about immigrants and Mexicans and Democrats. I say “quit” because they just kept sending him stuff (and membership cards) for years after he died.
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I think the real issue here is that the firearms industry took a nose dive after Trump was elected. It stands to reason that massive corporate contributions would dry up in 2017 when the major manufacturers were having a hard time selling guns. And when there wasn’t a major election on the line, either.
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from: NRA Cuts More Operating Costs—and Lavishes Executives With Perks – Mother Jones
A Trace investigation into Powell’s business history published last month revealed a long trail of defaulted debts, including 20 lawsuits for more than $400,000 from unpaid vendors.
How downright Trumpian of Powell to stiff his vendors like that!
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There was a time when the NRA was much more concerned with conservation and education at the local level than it was with batshit political activism. They ran pretty good firearms safety classes for young people and did other safety stuff that was valuable, but of course now their nonsense so far outweighs any of this that you can’t reasonably point to it as a reason to continue membership.
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It has been since 1977, when an internal coup put a racist murderer in charge of the organisation.
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