Why

[RobertNashville]

Look at my profile block on the left. I have been a member of the NRA for several decades. I just get upset when other people start saying any of us have to belong to any organization.

As a Southern Conservative Independent, I am also tired of the arrogance and self righteousness of the Republican Party in believing that it is okay to put down Democrats but somehow sacrilegious to make remarks about Republicans. If you can accept remarks against Obama and Pelosi on these forums then you must learn to accept remarks about Rush and Sarah, if you are to really remain fair about it. None of the above are holy saints. I was a staunch Republican for 4 decades btw. Now, I just lay claim to being an American voter and I am more concerned with being a good American Citizen than I am about any party affiliations. I believe the U.S. Constitution still allows me to do that.

However, I do respect and defend your individual right to be upset at remarks about people you respect personally, as long as you allow others to do the same.

Maybe I missed it but I don't remember reading any post in this thread that said someone had to belong to the NRA. If it was said and I missed it then I could understand your prior statement; otherwise I 'm not quite sure that I do (not that it really matters all that much!).

To be blunt, except when a politician is specifically addressing a firearm related issue, I don't think this forum is the proper place for comments, good or bad about those politicians - and same for politics/political comments in general...except for where politics specifically touch firearm issues I see no reason to bring political comments into this forum, whether one is talking for or against Sara Palin or for/against Democrats, Republicans, Pelosi, Obama, etc.

The internet is replete with forums that are 100% geared to politics/political positions and that's probably where political comments belong...just my $0.02

[mikegideon]

While I very much disagree with the Sara Palin slight/put-down, I will concur that no one said anything about it being mandatory to belong to the NRA or any other organization.

All of us can belong or not belong to any organization we chose to...if someone doesn't want to belong to the NRA that's fine; I happen to belong to it and several other organizations because I chose to do so and because I believe that each of the organizations I belong to, despite their faults, can do more to support and protect my/out gun rights than I or anyone else can do alone.

My apologies. The NRA does more than enough to justify my support. I don't care if they're perfect.

[mikegideon]

Maybe I missed it but I don't remember reading any post in this thread that said someone had to belong to the NRA. If it was said and I missed it then I could understand your prior statement; otherwise I 'm not quite sure that I do (not that it really matters all that much!).

To be blunt, except when a politician is specifically addressing a firearm related issue, I don't think this forum is the proper place for comments, good or bad about those politicians - and same for politics/political comments in general...except for where politics specifically touch firearm issues I see no reason to bring political comments into this forum, whether one is talking for or against Sara Palin or for/against Democrats, Republicans, Pelosi, Obama, etc.

The internet is replete with forums that are 100% geared to politics/political positions and that's probably where political comments belong...just my $0.02

Too late. We banter about politics alot on this board, and nobody gets mad. The fights seem to center around open carry and gun safes

[Oh Shoot]

Everywhere I go, every interview I do, I basically say, 'If you're not a member of the NRA you're helping the enemy, which makes you the enemy.' Now, a lot of gentle souls across the land have their feelings hurt when I say that. but it's time to hurt some feelings because that statement is accurate. The top of the cultre war spear is our Right to Keep and Bear Arms."

- Ted Nugent, interview w/ NRA ILA's Chris Cox, in May American Rifleman

[Guest Joey]

I was going to start a thread about the letter below but there's no need since everyone is talking about pretty much the same issue here.

What makes this so bad is the Republican party and the NRA were facing the exact same issues 17 years ago when this was wrote. The writer of this piece, L. Neil Smith, credits Clinton's second term for the same issues the Republican party is struggling with today. So much for learning from your mistakes.

And for the record I'm a lifetime NRA member, though I don't really think of them as the end all/be all of anti gun control legislation efforts.

There are 65 million gun owners in America. Maybe 20 million of them are political about it, at least 5 million are single-issue voters. Now somewhere between that 5 and 20 million effectively sat the last election out -- that is, they didn't vote their issue -- because Clinton was clearly anti-gun, Perot was all over the map, and Bush was seen as having betrayed the very principle behind the Second Amendment. If I'm right about the numbers, this alone cost him the Presidency.

Adding insult to injury, William F. Buckley is said to have encouraged passage of the Brady Bill, George F. Will called for repeal of the Second Amendment months before former NBC News president Michael Gartner, and on <cite>Face the Nation,</cite> Jack Kemp just advocated a universal ban on semiauto weapons. In their magazines, at gun shows, on computer bulletin boards across the country, gun owners are asking themselves if there's anyone left in the Republican Party with any brains, integrity, or courage.

What makes it even more complicated is that the NRA is doing as bad a job leading the fight for the right to own and carry weapons as the Republicans are in the fight against socialism. Increasingly the NRA is seen (by its own members) as weak-kneed, eager to compromise -- they actually wrote many of the laws we suffer under today, including the Maryland handgun ban -- and committed to defensive strategies rooted in a conviction of eventual defeat.

Their embarrassingly submissive "Operation Crime Strike" and advocacy of computer background checks as an alternative to waiting-periods (when neither of these police-state preconditions on the exercise of a Constitutional right is acceptable) lend credence to a story that in the 30s they proposed a ban on a new, "excessively powerful gun with no conceivable civilian use", the .357 Magnum, in order to forestall laws that were passed instead. There's even an element within the NRA today that apparently wants all gun owners legally forced to join their organization.

...

The NRA need to be told publicly what they already know: that 75 years of bitter experience added to recent legal scholarship (Kates, Kleck, Levinson, et al.) demonstrate beyond doubt that there isn't a gun law in this country that complies with the Second Amendment; that every one of them must be repealed, nullified, or otherwise set aside; that compromise -- creating our own gun laws or phony programs to prove what good little citizens we are -- is not the way to do it.

Instead, the NRA must take the offensive. Pardon and restitution must be granted to anyone ever prosecuted under these unconstitutional laws. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms must be abolished (especially in light of current events in Waco) and prosecutors appointed to investigate the many crimes of its agents. Elected and appointed officials who attempt to contravene the Second Amendment must be prosecuted, fined, and jailed under civil rights and other laws already on the books.

The same message -- this is the main reason I'm writing -- must then be taken to Republicans. God knows they need it. I saw them on C-Span the other night, a pathetic rabble of drunks (like Dick Armey) scrabbling to regain equilibrium. If, instead of temporizing, they took the initiative on this issue -- if they offered to repeal all existing gun laws and whatever else passes in the next four years (rendering it a "dead letter" before the fact) -- it would guarantee Bill Clinton a place in history beside Jimmy Carter.

Letter to Wall Street Journal about Rush Limbaugh, by L. Neil Smith

Edited April 26, 2010 by Joey

[RobertNashville]

I don't disagree with the sentiments above but I have a question...

What have YOU done about it?

By "you" I referring to anyone and everyone reading this post because WE ARE RESPONSIBLE for what our politicians and lobbying groups do or don't do...we are responsible for who we vote for and what organizations we belong to...we are responsible for not running for office ourselves if we don't see candidates running with a brain and a spine.

I belong to many forums; some "gun related" and some not and I read post after post of people complaining about this or that...this gun law or that posted property which is all well and good but complaining doesn't do a damn thing to change anything.

How many of us have ever actually involved ourselves in the political process...how many of us belong to any "gun rights" organization (NRA or otherwise)...how many of us have ever picked up a phone and called our state or federal elected officials or written an email or donated a few dollars to the cause??????

I would suggest that we all need to look in the mirror and ask some of those questions and answer them honestly.

None of us can change things by ourselves but we also won't change anything by waiting for someone else to do it either.

[Guest TnRebel]

I belong to the NRA and GOA if they are willing to fight for my rights to own a gun then they get my money . The NRA " Eddie Eagle " program is starting to move forward again in our schools and that is a good thing.

[mikegideon]

I don't disagree with the sentiments above but I have a question...

What have YOU done about it?

By "you" I referring to anyone and everyone reading this post because WE ARE RESPONSIBLE for what our politicians and lobbying groups do or don't do...we are responsible for who we vote for and what organizations we belong to...we are responsible for not running for office ourselves if we don't see candidates running with a brain and a spine.

I belong to many forums; some "gun related" and some not and I read post after post of people complaining about this or that...this gun law or that posted property which is all well and good but complaining doesn't do a damn thing to change anything.

How many of us have ever actually involved ourselves in the political process...how many of us belong to any "gun rights" organization (NRA or otherwise)...how many of us have ever picked up a phone and called our state or federal elected officials or written an email or donated a few dollars to the cause??????

I would suggest that we all need to look in the mirror and ask some of those questions and answer them honestly.

None of us can change things by ourselves but we also won't change anything by waiting for someone else to do it either.

+1. If you don't do anything, it limits your bitchin' rights.