By Don McDougal : Opinion
California – -(Ammoland.com)- Last week the Washington Post ran an editorial by a so claimed “gun owner” and constant anti-gun writer / troll, Matt Valentine, who hates the NRA and insists you should too. ( https://goo.gl/StQVXB )
What the opinion piece does not discuss is how all these gun owners, including this freedom hating hack, all benefit from the NRA and its policies.
Take your local shooting range for example.
Range Safety : Every range has range officers to keep you safe, they are NRA trained, the instructors are NRA trained and the safety courses all gun owners should take are NRA provided.
Paying For Your Range Visit: The ONLY reason you can use a credit card to pay for your range fees is the NRA helped block Obama sourced regulation, Operation Choke Point, that would have banned banks from keeping gun stores and gun ranges as clients.
Without the NRA, NO place to Shoot, No one to teach you how to be safe, and nowhere to buy a gun.
The NRA does a lot behind the scenes for non-members. It is more than just protecting your right to own a gun.
Like National School Shield, bet you never even heard of this have you?
The NRA works with schools and communities to share ideas and policies for school safety. The 2nd Amendment Foundation provides grants to fund these programs. Created after Sandy-Hook, this program actually makes our 55 million school children safer.
The left will tell you the NRA doesn’t care, I will tell you the only ones doing ANYTHING meaningful IS the NRA.
Eddie Eagle – Stop, Run Away, Tell an Adult. A simple message that helps reduce accidental shooting. Brought to you by the NRA to protect your children.
Range Insurance – In many states the ONLY available insurance for a gun range comes courtesy of the NRA. No insurance means no range and that means no place to shoot. Non-NRA people owe your ability to go to the range to this NRA insurance program.
Operation Choke Point – Banking and other financial institution have all been pushed to shun the shooting community, the NRA has help counter this effort by the Obama administration.
Part of the Obama era policies included pressuring insurance carriers to drop gun ranges and to assist community groups in forcing gun ranges to close by changing the zoning. So thank the NRA for keeping the range open.
Range Conservation – Many staffed shooting range and outdoor education centers are funded through grants from NRA Foundation gives. The NRA also teaches range design and range operations courses.
Refuse to Be A Victim – How to avoid being a victim is the core of course. Sometimes the best thing to do is avoid a situation where you can be hurt and to know how to avoid a conflict.
Gun Safety Training – 150,000 NRA certified instructors teach basic gun safety to new gun owners. In my last four classes only one was an NRA member. After the Pulse shooting the LBGTQ community turned to NRA instructors for help is staying safe. Few if any are members of the NRA.
Who trains the trainers? The NRA has training courses for police firearms instructors. By helping train our law enforcement everyone is safer and better served.
The NRA has a program to teach gun store staff how to identity potential suicide victims. Early intervention can and does save lives.
I can go on…
Friends of NRA – has provided over $600 million to youth programs and law enforcement.
Women on Target – has reached more than 1 million women.
These are just a handful of the programs and activities the NRA engages in that helps and support the shooting community as a whole, and America as a whole. Please note that NOT ONCE have I mentioned preserving your right to own a gun.
The NRA is not perfect, but 100 million gun owners agree that the 2nd Amendment gives us the right to own a gun. The NRA is our only national voice. We choose not to make an enemy of the good because it lacks perfection.
So Washington Post, go ahead, tell us we should all hate the NRA, and how your leftwing elitist policies should be the only ones we adhere to. You’re a fool, and 100+ million American gun owners agree with me on that. Well based on your editorial 99,999,999 can agree on that.
About Don McDougall:
Don McDougall is an NRA instructor and member of the Los Padres “Friends of the NRA” committee. If he’s not at the range you will find him setting the record straight with on gun issues and gun safety onAmmoLand Shooting Sports News.
First I will preface this with the disclosure that I am a long-time life member of the NRA. Albeit I would not join the NRA now knowing what I know. I woke up after decades of observation, self-education, information gathering and clear-headed assessment. There are no sacred bovines here. Amendment II does not ‘give’ the people the right to keep and bear arms, the right to self/family/community defense and also the right to offensive capability, all are essential and fundamental natural liberties. Amendment II merely enumerates and recognizes this pre-existing Liberty and places a clear and easily understood prohibition on… Read more »
This website has a good summary list of all 50 state’s Constitutions regarding our rights to keep and bear arms. It shows that most states laws are unconstitutional even viewed against their own Constitutions, regardless of our federal right to keep and bear arms.
https://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/const-ref-states.htm
Forty some years ago Neal Knox and others stood up to the classic target and trap shooters who were more concerned with a proper prone position and the shooting sports that did not use other than round black bullseyes. It was called the Cincinnati Revolt. The NRA began to drive the debate and legislation on the Second Amendment. It was important to select which battles to fight. The NRA isn’t perfect and since it is run by human beings, perfection is unlikely. It isn’t the only good organization. There are some bad organizations out there, financed by Soros and Bloomberg… Read more »
Eddie Eagle – Stop, Run Away, Tell an Adult. A simple message that helps reduce accidental shooting. Brought to you by the NRA to protect your children.”
STOP DON’T TOUCH LEAVE THE AREA and TELL AN ADULT. That’s the message,
I’ve been a NRA member since 1985 when I joined the army. The NRA is for the city folks more than the country folks who have a place to shoot and family members to teach them how to shoot safely. The NRA has school programs for the the kids that don’t have family members that are gun owners and not in the gun owners culture. Love or hate the NRA but they and the state gun rights groups are the only thing stopping the government from outlawing private gun ownership. Support your state gun groups or the NRA because they… Read more »
Without the NRA, NO place to Shoot, No one to teach you how to be safe, and nowhere to buy a gun. Not quite… yes, NRA have done much to make these things easier and more universally available. No place to shoot? My backyard, my friends’ backyards, plenty of public places. Nes, NRA have helped ease the regulatory pain of establishing these things. Absent NRA, they would still happen, smomehow. No one to teach you how to be safe? Nonsense. HOW was it done prior to NRA? Parents, friends, uncles, Granddads, friends…. there are many organisations and private clubs that… Read more »
If it weren’t for the NRA i’m pretty sure our right to bear arms would have been regulated into oblivion long ago – thank you NRA – I’m an endowment member for 10 years and hope the younger generations will continue to join the NRA and guard against erosion of the 2nd Amendment always
Your definition of hoplophobe is a little short and off-course. A full definition is “….is a political neologism coined by retired American military officer Jeff Cooper as a pejorative to describe an “irrational aversion to weapons.” It is also used to describe the “fear of firearms” or the “fear of armed citizens.” Hoplophobia is a political term and not a recognized medical phobia.” (Wikipedia)
I have been a member of the NRA since 1964 and have been an Endowment for 15 years. I fully support the NRA!
Proud NRA member (life) for 25 yrs. I hope another 25