U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- The NRA Foundation hosts fundraisers through Friends of NRA between 1,100 and 1,500 times a year. These draw around 250 people per event. This means the NRA Foundation physically sees about 5% of the total NRA’s membership once a year. While the $70 million raised every year goes to support youth and scout shooting sports and safety programs, women’s defense programs, programs for disabled veterans, and law enforcement. These meeting also act as a bell weather for the shooting community and the activism of the gun owning community.
Participation in up and the monies raised is up. WAY UP!
No other organization sees as many of its members in small groups the way the NRA does. National conventions are nice, but the ability to touch so many members is unique to the NRA and the NRA Foundation.
So what are the NRA members saying? They’re asking one question “How can we help?”.
I’ve said this before; gun owners only get politically active when their rights are threatened. 120,000,000 gun owners realize that our rights are at risk. Today and for this upcoming political cycle, our rights are under attack like never before.
40%+ of registered Democrats want the 2nd Amendment REPEALED! 80% want the banning and confiscation of all semi-automatic firearms. To be blunt I’m not sure they know what they’re being polled about, but the numbers are what they are.
The anti-Trump left thinks the NRA is responsible for DJT’s election, and so they attack the NRA. We’re called terrorists, and baby killers all in an attempt to marginalize the NRA … to silence our voice. All the rallies, the attacks on the NRA, and the name calling are not intended to save lives but to rally votes and to damage or destroy the NRA. They are intended to limit the ability for the NRA to help protect our rights.
A little perspective:
I would propose to you that Barack Obama’s statement that as a Constitutional Law Professor there were real limits to gun control soothed enough fears to let him become President.
I would propose to you that Hillary Clinton’s calls for the banning of all semi-automatics and gun confiscation angered enough gun owners that is cost her the Presidency.
11 Children die every day from texting while driving. That’s 2X the annual number of people killed by guns when drugs or gangs are not involved. That is like ten school shooting a week.
How come no one wants the age to own a cell-phone raised to 21?
The activist left is not about saving lives, they are about ending your rights so they can win elections.
Gun owners only become political when they’re attacked and when our rights are under assault. The anti-gun left called for the repeal of the 2A, and the confiscation of firearms. Will you stand up for your rights and create a red-wave or will you sit on your hands and let your guns be confiscated?
So what can you do?
Join the NRA, write your congressman (here is a link)
Stay informed and subscribe to the NRA-ILA newsletter. I have a link for that too!
We can turn the tide, smack these bastards so hard in the next election that they learn not to touch our rights. You in?
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 on AmmoLand Shooting Sports News.
Good article Don!
98% of All Mass Shootings Occur in Gun Free Zones, You Do The Math !
And the other 2% occurred in areas that were immediately adjacent TO “gun-free zones” (such as parking lots just outside the building). The conclusion is obvious, and undeniable.
I got an email from them last week telling be I needed to pay my membership or I would lose my valuable benefits and my magazine. My membership is not due until next month and I pay it on time. When it came to the election not to long ago I wrote to them and asked why I didn’t get a ballot. Never heard a peep from them but they sure have their hand out so they can pay the extravagant salaries. I pay and can’t vote, hum sounds like Marxism to me. So I have a few weeks to… Read more »
You must be a life member to vote. Can you imagine what could be done to the board if all those Democrats decided to join and put a few of their haters on the board. Sure, the organization would get a bundle of money but it would do no good with the enemy within the gates.
You DO NOT have to be a life member to vote. I am not a life member yet I receive the ballots. Voting is supposed to be open to all NRA members. I have no idea why Tomcat did not get a ballot, lost in the mail, changed address, who knows but you DO NOT have to be a life member.
Life members or members for 5 or more years are voting members. Members get the ballot as an insert in their NRA magazine.
@Tcat, Yeah, where is that Louie Trippie dude when he is needed to make an explanation. I did not see him at the convention either!
@ Wild Bill Trippie or anyone else in that organization. I have been a paying member for many years and have even bought memberships for my sons and son-in-law. I looked through several month’s magazines to see if I had missed it. I sent them a polite email with my member # on it and heard nothing until they came with their hand out. This outfit definitely needs a change of attitude. Members are the most valuable asset they have and they piss it away.
It is time to call on all parties to stop kicking the can down the road about school security, my suggestion is to get all of the security for all politician security details suspended until they do the maximum school security mandates. They have kicked this since 1999 Columbine and every one of them says it has to be politically correct, more gun control, and of coarse THE COST! What price do we put on our children there is no price that we should put on them! If the government can establish the T S A for Air Port Security… Read more »
the answer for “school security” is right in front of them, and stupid cheap to implement. Look to Ohio’s FASTER Saves Lives programme. Thousands of adults who are already at schools every day, who also have their Mother May I Cards to carry with them eveyrwhere they go their own chosen personal defenseive weapon, have volunteered to take extra training (supplied by volunteer instructors at mostly donated facilities, and now they can ALSO carry their handguns at school as well as everywhere else they go. FASTER had gone down and met with the school board folks at Broward County FL… Read more »
@Tio, maybe the public schools should exfiltrate themselves out of the gun free zones, and relocate to airports, court houses, and jewelry stores!
I AGREE 100%.
Joining the NRA should only be the first step for gun owners. Then GOA and JPFO at least ,both the latter have a no compromise stance as far as I can see. Let us know if it changes! The big money backing the communists in my state right now is flooding the airwaves with non stop devilrat commercials, sickening!! I vote in every election and am very vocal in opposing the communist party candidates. They go by many aliases nowadays! The primary one is democrat,DevilRat -that is!
So again time after time, rather than address the anti gun movement, gun owners squabble over wheatear they will or will not support the NRA. Although not perfect, and let’s face it no one person or organization is perfect, at least the are not the ones that are calling for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment. If they were not the tip of the spear, they would not be the target of those that want to disarm Americans. What gun owners should be and could be doing is supporting as many pro-gun organizations as they can. That’s the only way… Read more »
So, you only support the Constitution 85% of the time? The NRA support ERPO’s, do you? The NRA have supported anti-2nd Amendment laws in the past, that now, they’re asking money for them to fight against. No one else see a conflict of interest here? Incredible!
Freedom of speech is guaranteed by the constitution. So restricting someone from texting or talking may be a restriction to their rights. Driving is not a constitutional right. In my state it is called a privilege. Perhaps not allowing anyone to drive before they are 21 is the answer. And think of all the other accidents this could prevent.
Hoosier, I’m not sure you understand the actual meaning of “freedom of speech.” (In the instance you specified, courts have consistently held that texting while driving a car is a clear and very dangerous hazard to the public, which makes it fall under the category of speech that demonstrably causes definable harm, which can indeed be prosecuted.) The 1st Amendment applies only to the government(!), not to private citizens (and especially not to property or business owners). The 1st merely prevents the government from forcibly keeping your from voicing your opinions… but ONLY on public [or your own] property, and… Read more »
Via Reddit comes word that way back in the 90’s, incoming NRA president Oliver North supported the Clinton-era Assault Weapon Ban, and told Larry King that anyone who wanted to shoot an “assault weapon” should join the marines.
Just another point, if they were willing to sacrifice our rights in the past, why does anyone think they will not do it AGAIN in the future, or, present?
https://www.alloutdoor.com/2018/05/15/new-nra-president-oliver-north-supported-assault-weapons-ban-waco-raid/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=SumoMe&utm_campaign=sumome_share
Ok, I just gotta know…… when did the loyal royal blue of our beloved Ronbo Maximus get changed to commie stark raving red? Commie color has always been red. When and how did we get the red for those that love our country and freedom? The red wave was Lenin, stalin, pol pot, Castro, Chavez, Mao,…. if we cant get our representative color back, how can we get our country? As far as the NRA, I am a member, teach their classes, represent them as an rso, but the top needs changed. Everytime someone farts in their general direction, they… Read more »
I am an NRA lifer and have been for decades but I completely agree with you. I am also a Gun Owners of America lifer and an annual member of the National Association for Gun Rights, as well as other pro-gun rights and conservation organizations. Although I still support the NRA, I now throw a lot more the way of GoA and NAGR than the NRA. I figure NRA is serving a purpose as fodder to the lefties and “elite media” while leaving the real gun rights organizations unencumbered to keep working hard for our rights and ideals.
I will never join the NRA again until they prove to me they will never “compromise” again. The GOA is who I support. “No compromise” The NRA Supported and helped write the Unconstitutional NICS in the 90’s. They originally supported the “Gun Free Zone Act”. Here is what LaPierre said, on behalf of the NRA, when testifying on May 27, 1999, before the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee: “We think it’s reasonable to support the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act.” They helped put these schools in this situation.. Now, it seems they support these “ERPO’s / Extreme… Read more »
Your choice. I may not agree with every point or decision the NRA makes, but, for the most part, they stand up for what I believe. I belong to other similar organizations for the same reason I belong to the NRA. I would rather stand with them than with those who seek to take my rights away.
Sir, as I said, I am deeply supportive of the NRA and its founding goals. It has been twisted into another beltway lobbying scheme. I talked to a very close friend of Wayne’s several years ago. I told him then of the usc codes under colour of law, that he was not holding the Senate and Congress to every vote on guns or freedom, the same to me, but just those that were his pets. This was again, several yrs ago, and they started weighing votes for freedom closer. Now, Wayne sounds and is even starting to look like the… Read more »
Yeah, the GOA does a great job of bragging about how they never compromise, but then again, they never accomplish anything either. Unless you want to count convincing gullible gun owners who don’t understand politics NOT to join the NRA an accomplishment. There’s a reason the Lefties don’t march against the GOA: because GOA is ineffective, and hates the NRA every bit as much as the gun grabbers do.
“Constitutional Law Professor” my ass!!! That lying bastard [that his parents were not legally married is an unquestionably proven fact] Obama was never a Law Professor (Constitutional or otherwise). He only twice served as a visiting lecturer – speaking only on his specialty, the 14th Amendment – to the University of Illinois’ small adjunct campus in Chicago… not to the main campus. To consider that little bit of experience the equivalent of a Professorship, of any kind, is an outright lie.
Joe: This is now considered hate speech. It matters not that it is the TRUTH! Thank you for stating the TRUTH about 0b0z0!
Gun owners need to learn how to vote. The only way to
preserve our gun rights is to elect pro 2A candidates. Here in NJ with a million gun owners who apparently don’t vote have been keeping anti-gun politicians in power for decades.
I am a gun owner and I have voted in every election, national, state and local, since 1968 when I turned 21, My number one qualifier to vote for any candidate is their stance on gun control and firearms ownership/ the 2nd Amendment. 2nd priority is fiscal responsibility. Other qualifiers follow.
Phil in TX
Texting and driving should carry the same sentence as drunk driving.
I have been part of the red wave for years. Time to step up.
Joining the NRA only helps if they actively fight.
In the recent past, they have been passive.
Joining them does nothing to help combat the “left”.
That is the problem.