Qualified NRA Director Candidates Must Acknowledge Greatest Threat

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “By now voting-eligible NRA members should have received their election ballots for the 2020 National Rifle Association Board of Directors election in your monthly magazines,” AmmoLand Shooting Sports News reported Saturday. “NRA members must complete and return their ballots by on or before March 29th, 2020. Any votes returned after that date will not be opened or counted.”

More than one reader has asked me who I recommend. My response has always been I’ll support whoever satisfactorily answers my NRA BOD Questionnaire, an offshoot of a politician questionnaire I developed years ago. Since I’ve been asked, what follows are MY criteria. As always, feel free to use them or modify them as you see fit to determine who the candidates who best speak for you are. I would recommend that if you send them out to make note of who shines you on and then make that known and vote accordingly.

• Do you believe that the Constitution is the “supreme Law of the Land” and that the Bill of Rights acknowledges our birthrights?
• If so, should these rights be proactively protected from infringement by all levels of government?
• Please give some examples of gun laws you consider unconstitutional.
• Does the right to bear arms include the right for any peaceable citizen to carry them openly or concealed without a permit?
• Do you believe that Americans have a right to own, use and carry full-auto weapons of militia utility?
• Do you agree with current NRA management’s call to “enforce existing gun laws”?
• Do you support or oppose licensing requirements to own or carry firearms? Why?
• What specific gun laws will you work to get repealed?
• If elected to the NRA Board, will you back your words of support for firearms rights up with consistent actions? How?
• Do you agree with the way NRA assigns political ratings? If not, what would you change and why? Can you give an example of a politician you would have given a different rating to, what would it been and why?
• Do you disagree with any policies being promulgated by NRA management? What is your biggest area of dissent? Have you offered superior alternatives and worked with others to implement them?
• What reforms do you think are needed at NRA and why?
• If elected, how will you inform members of your performance and voting record? Will you let us know when you dissent and why?
• Do you agree that politicians should be held accountable in their NRA grades for immigration actions that undermine the Second Amendment? If “No,” and if falling back on the “single-issue” excuse, provide credible and testable evidence – not anecdotes and not just opinions – to show that will not happen.

This last one is the one that will prove the most controversial, with prominent voices advising it’s not relevant. To anyone who says that, have I got a challenge for you – one that so far, some have tried to talk around, redirect, or ignore and segue into non-sequiturs, but none have provided any proof to substantiate their opinion.

Look at what is happening now in Virginia. No less an enemy of the right to keep and bear arms than The New York Times crowed:

“Unlike three decades ago, the residents are often from other places, like India and Korea. And when they vote, it is often for Democrats … ‘Guns, that is the most pressing issue for me,’ said Vijay Katkuri, 38, a software engineer from southern India, explaining why he voted for a Democratic challenger in Tuesday’s elections.”

As just one prominent example, it makes no sense for NRA to give superlatives to Marco Rubio for what he does with one hand when what he does with the other undermines all of that in the long run. He betrays us on things like chain migration, unnecessary worker visas, refugee and asylum fraud, illegal immigration rewards, and a “path to citizenship” for illegals. To present him as our great friend in light of supporting a 70% Democrat influx is indefensible.

Of course, there are good immigrants and they don’t all lean Democrat. Hell, there are some great immigrants, people I strive to be worthy of knowing. There just aren’t enough of them overall to offset the tide of Third World huddled masses yearning to breathe free stuff. That’s because the vote-exploiting Democrats and labor-exploiting Republicans have not made the ability to assimilate to a Bill of Rights culture a priority. They haven’t even made it a consideration. And if you tried to make Constitutionally-compatible ideology a precondition to admittance, an activist federal judge would loudly strike it down — even though any government action that does not “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” would rightfully and clearly be condemned by the Founders as illegitimate.

Until that’s worked out, giving an “A” grade to any politician who wants to let them all in and put them on track to vote is flat-out suicidal. And until NRA acknowledges this, the inexorable slide to a Democrat supermajority where they can do whatever they want – including sidelining the Electoral College – will continue to the point of no return. Any director candidate who ignores that – and also ignores my challenge – won’t get my vote because I don’t think he deserves a place on the Board.

But as I said at the start, I hardly expect my input on this to make any difference at all. Some people asked and this is my answer.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.