Should I join the NRA?

[Crimefree]

Quite a read, this thread.

I just joined recently and this is only my second post (the first was in a thread about defining conservatism, which segues to this thread
for me a bit).

Welcome hope you enjoy it and it is a good opportunity to learn from some who have heard it all before.

I joined the NRA a long time ago, decades ago, but let the membership expire due to what I consider very unreasonable policies coming
from that organisation.

Nothing wrong with that the NRA has a history of selling out members rights.

I do feel that the NRA is protecting my gun ownership and carrying rights. If it were not for them the CC laws around the country would
probably not have come about (not sure of that). I like the CC laws (concealed carry laws) because I'm a law abiding citizen and I feel
that those laws separate me out from creeps/criminals who also carry and who I must defend myself against.

OK tell me what the NRA did t get those laws passed? I think you will find that this was almost entirely grass roots people making a noise in the media and pushing others to join in and support. Raising public awareness is nothing the NRA did. You cannott get such laws by making a good case, buying politicians or asking. Losing a hell of a lot of popularity and votes will motivate any politician.

But the NRA won't make a statement about all this, except to say that no laws are needed I sure disagree with that. We need registration
and the ability to trace weapons (and ammo!) from their use at a crime scene all the way to the makers. We have the technology to have
the manufacturers include a unique identifier on each bullet, cheaply. That should be done. .

Never ever heard the NRA say that.

Registration to work requires what?

Registered.
User uses their registered firearm
User leaves firearm at the scene of the crime with finger prints or DNA User must be the dumbest criminal in the world and as far as I know no crime has ever been solved by the information in a registry any where in the world as the only source.

What use is a registry?

The same goes for bullets. Ever heard of reloading?

Of what use will this number be?

The 2nd amendment is fine, but I feel that gun ownership and public carrying should be a high privilege not a "right." I feel that the NRA
is ideological to a fault about this, and just wants everyone to have guns. Imagine the chaos if cars and trucks were treated that way and
we had no training and licensing for their use. It's bad enough now with thousands of injuries and deaths per year, imagine if driving
had no training, licensing and registration at all. It would be total mayhem

.

I have no idea any firearm organisation wants everybody to have guns. That is just silly but right up gun controls alley of lies.

The sign of irresponsible owners is accidental deaths. Go look it up. Firearm accidental deaths. Tell me how much lower you want it.

The NRA needs to rethink this and apply some common sense.

What the NRA needs to do is stop gun control indoctrinating firearm owners at the very least. That is just creating the enemy within.

 

[Crimefree]

I too am a firearms owner. I must be picking on myself.
Joe

That you may well be but you are first and foremost a gun control advocate. Nobody ever accused gun control advocates as being able to cogitate.

 

[alienmarbles]

Hello CrimeFree, thank you for the welcome. You seem informed about all this. Let me try to respond.

The NRA seems to have a scorched earth attitude about gun laws: no guns laws seems to be their goal. They fight tooth and nail
to keep laws off the books. If that's not the case, then they're being misquoted and lied about in the media, and their literature is
being misrepresented.

The stuff about encoding every bullet (the slug itself, not the casing, but maybe both, at least the slug) seems a good step to catch
the bad guys and exonerate the good guys. "Registering" is a bad word nowdays, but could help immensly. The bullets and the
firearms. Reloaders would be protected just as much as otc buyers by using their ammo responsibly and legally.

"Wants everybody to have guns" is hyperbole on my part.. I'm just saying that the NRA won't even smooth the way for background
checks and machine gun restrictions.. states have to fight for those laws.

I have disagreement conversations often with fellow gun owners and CC permit holders. Most consider the permits and ownership
of guns as a constitutional right, screw the laws etc. I consider it an earned privilege similar to licenses people have to get to dispense
medical info and drugs and to drive trucks, to use certain chemicals in their work .. education/training/licensing. Same should always
be true of firearms, imo.

 

[ProJoe]

That you may well be but you are first and foremost a gun control advocate. Nobody ever accused gun control advocates as being able to cogitate.

I am first and foremost an intelligent human being. I am not a "gun control" advocate. I don't really care either way.
Joe

 

[LetsGoBrandon]

I am a staunch 2nd Amendment advocate and after spending some time living in DC I recognize how restrictive gun laws are in some places. I don't agree with the NRA on everything. I personally have no problem with gun dealers being required to do background checks in order to ensure they aren't selling to someone on probation or parole. And I do hear criticisms that the NRA is more concerned with the desires of the gun manufacturers than its membership. But I also recognize that many of the liberties I do have in regards to gun rights are owed in large part to the pressure put on politicians by organizations like the NRA.

I am already a member of the ACLU and I feel joining the NRA would round things out nicely. What do you think? Any better alternatives to the NRA?

I would recommend that you join the NRA. There is an alternative...Gun Owners of America, however it is the NRA that has the influence in the states and in Washington DC.

 

[LetsGoBrandon]

I am a life member of the NRA and a higher level member of the SAF. GOA is also a decent group as is Jews for the Preservation of the 2nd Amendment (they have changed names a couple times)

I tell people to join the NRA even though its less than perfect because it has the biggest voice and it does lots of good in training areas. as senator friend of mine noted, if half the gun owners in the USA joined the NRA, Chuck Schumer would be calling Wayne LaPierre asking for his consent or advice on any bill that might remotely impact firearms owners.

I am also a life member of the NRA. Without the 2'nd amendment, the 1'st amendment would not likely survive. And I agree. The NRA does alot of good in firearms training. They also push enforcement of existing laws as well as fixing the revolving door criminal justice system.

 

[LetsGoBrandon]

What the gun control disease lacks is a capable opposition. Virtually all opposition to gun control is at the unorganised grass roots level. People like us who see how wrong it is to toss our rights to safety, self-defence and freedom on the trash pile for a promise of non-existent government aid.

Which person here is willing to subcontract their safety and that of their family to government?

I wish the NRA did actually put pressure on politicians. Instead they cannot deliver a single vote, threaten any politicians or political parties position or popularity. You cannot buy politicians with campaign funds. You cannot persuade a politician that it is the right thing to do in the face of that politician losing power, popularity or votes. All of these trump money. The NRA is currently politically stupid and probably advised by idiots who believe all sorts of formal rubbish that politics is complicated.

I disagree. The NRA does very much deliver votes. Perhaps you do not notice it only because you are not a member. The NRA grades virtually every national and many state politicians on their support or lack of support of the right to bear arms. They very much deliver the vote to pro-second amendment candidates and have caused many politicians who were against the 2nd amendment to lose their seats in congress. Democrat president Bill Clinton made that point after his party was shellacked in the 1994 midterm congressional elections which occurred not long after the passage of the Brady Bill".

 

[LetsGoBrandon]

I became a life member of the NRA in 2008 when Hillary ran for POTUS the first time.

Bill's crime bill was a massive infringement on the 2nd Amendment in the name of a feel good, ineffective law that did nothing to alter crime.

The slimy politicians who voted for it got booted when their term was up.

Think the NRA wasn't a major factor in that outcome then I have a bridge to sell you...cheap.

And as many may have noticed, Obama held back on pushing gun control very aggressively until he was safely elected to his second term.

 

[LetsGoBrandon]

Sure, join the nra if you want to be dominated by a bunch of thugs who want to tell you how you should live and how you should vote and only want your money.
Joe

I am a life member and therefore have not paid any dues since the early 1990s. I have received no edicts from them telling me how I should live. I joined because they are a very powerful voice lobbying to protect my constitutional right to bear arms. Nothing thuggish about the organization.

 

[LetsGoBrandon]

That's funny. I wondered why they left you out of the loop. When I was an nra member, I got lots of phone calls pressuring me to vote for certain candidates and tons of literature mailed to me pressuring me to vote for certain candidates. If you receive one of their magazines then you have been told. I was really turned off by the nra when I saw Wayne LaP on a late night tv ad for the nra holding up a Remington 1100 shotgun while calling it a pump gun. He doesn't know one gun from another. He doesn't care anything about you or about guns. He is just another scum bag lawyer only interested in taking your money so that he can buy more $4000 suits.
Joe

Based on my own experiance, I doubt your claims. I have been a life member since the early 1990s and over all that time, I have received may two phone calls from them. And I have never been pressured to vote for a specific candidate or against a specific candidate. They simply make sure the members know where the candidates stand on the 2nd amendment. And I thank them for that.

 

[TurtleDude]

So why are you now picking on gays? My life partner and I are both offended.
Joe

no-just the ones who are anti gun mainly because they think the NRA and its members are hostile to gays. And its true that the NRA often supports politicians who are not big fans of the homosexual political agenda because those same politicians are pro gun. But I see some hysterical attacks on gun owners by gays for that reason. I don't vote for a politician because he is anti gay. But if my choice is between a pro gun candidate and a gun banner, I will always vote for the pro gun politician because that is my main political issue.

 

[ProJoe]

no-just the ones who are anti gun mainly because they think the NRA and its members are hostile to gays. And its true that the NRA often supports politicians who are not big fans of the homosexual political agenda because those same politicians are pro gun. But I see some hysterical attacks on gun owners by gays for that reason. I don't vote for a politician because he is anti gay. But if my choice is between a pro gun candidate and a gun banner, I will always vote for the pro gun politician because that is my main political issue.

The fact that you even brought up the subject of gays and intertwined it into the subject of the nra proves you are a homophobe. If you weren't, you never would have brought it up.
Joe

 

[TurtleDude]

The fact that you even brought up the subject of gays and intertwined it into the subject of the nra proves you are a homophobe. If you weren't, you never would have brought it up.
Joe

not at all and my history on this board is over ten years and I have not attacked gays or gay rights. I do have a very dim view of gays who attack gun owners because gays perceive (even rightly so) that the NRA supports politicians who may be anti gay because some pro gun politicians oppose gay rights. I don't oppose gay rights but I am tough on gays who are anti gun for the reasons I have stated.

are your somewhat extreme (based on a poll where you want to impose punitive taxes on gun buyers, ammo buys, ban semi auto rifles, ban normal capacity magazines) views the product of

1) an honest and studied belief all the restrictions you want to heap on gun owners will substantive reduce crime or

2) you think by pushing this crap (and it is crap as crime control) somehow gets you even with people who aren't tolerant to the fact that you are a gay man?

 

[ProJoe]

not at all and my history on this board is over ten years and I have not attacked gays or gay rights. I do have a very dim view of gays who attack gun owners because gays perceive (even rightly so) that the NRA supports politicians who may be anti gay because some pro gun politicians oppose gay rights. I don't oppose gay rights but I am tough on gays who are anti gun for the reasons I have stated.

are your somewhat extreme (based on a poll where you want to impose punitive taxes on gun buyers, ammo buys, ban semi auto rifles, ban normal capacity magazines) views the product of

1) an honest and studied belief all the restrictions you want to heap on gun owners will substantive reduce crime or

2) you think by pushing this crap (and it is crap as crime control) somehow gets you even with people who aren't tolerant to the fact that you are a gay man?

OK then, fair enough, but you shouldn't attack gays now.
Joe

 

[TurtleDude]

OK then, fair enough, but you shouldn't attack gays now.
Joe

I don't attack people for being gay. I don't care what one's sexuality is. I really don't. I dated a bi woman once-we are still close friends-she's on her honeymoon with her wife as we speak. My IL suite mate in Law school was openly gay. Never had a problem with him whatsoever nor he with me. My best teacher and coach in HS was gay-sadly he killed himself when he was forced out. I guess since the first gays I really knew were people I liked and respected, I never had any issues with them and was immune to claims other made denigrating them, and since I am not religious, I don't find the bible thumpers attacks to have any merit.

but I will go after gays who are gun bashers especially if the gun bashing is based on the reasons I have stated before