TheDC Exclusive: NRA spends $20 million this cycle

[nick]

The NRA did and continues to do one very important thing, the one without which most efforts would've been moot, provided they would even get started to begin with - it preserved the gun culture in America while working against rather bad odds. Some of the things people accuse them of stem from that - they've been fighting the good battle BEFORE Heller. Just a reminder, Heller is only 2 years old. The NRA has been fighting without RKBA being recognized as a personal right for decades. It minimized the damage (so we can now start from a better position), it prepared the ground, and, once again, it preserved the gun culture.

If I recall correctly, they also had a good reason for their initial opposition to Heller, until the judicial landscape changed.

Much of the work they do isn't as cool and visible, but discarding the HUGE amount of the good work they do is just shortsighted and rather petty, whether you disagree with some of the things they do or not.

Finally, this isn't an either/or situation. Diversity is one of the things that makes our movement strong. The NRA is the 800# gorilla working the legislature and scaring the politicians into being not entirely unreasonable. Groups like CGF some up with outside-the-box thinking and surprising moves that throw the antis off-balance. SAF and CGF sues the crap out of them (as does the NRA, as well). Groups like Pink Pistols work on the myth about gun ownership being just the fancy of overweight white guys (not sure what's wrong with being an overweight white guy, but apparently it's bad). So, there's a place for everybody, and trying to exclude some of the useful (that likely counts GOA/GOC out, although I don't mind being proven wrong on that count) pro-gun orgs makes all of us weaker.

[wildhawker]

Wash,

Gene, Brett, Brandon and many other CGx'ers are NRA members (all lifers I believe).

While some of us may ***** & moan about a certain national legal strategy here or there, it's kinda nice there's a big dog in the room, especially legislatively. There IS a reason we own Congress They do a HUGE amount of good, and we CGFers do not want to take away from that especially political aspect.

CA NRA team is doing as much as it can in CA against huge odds - but is unfortunately a bit quiet about it. Someday soon - I'm sure there'll be a venue - I'd love for you to have a chat "without spin" with our CA NRA boys, Paul Payne and Ed Worley and CA director Joel Friedman. There's a lot going on these great guys are helping with.

I'll also add that if NRA could double (and maintain at that level) its membership both in CA and nationally (and CRPA gets to 100K) we get to "go psycho", politically speaking, with the ATF offering free gunsmithing services to us and Alison coming over to wash & wax my gunsafe.

Concur with Bill; there will be some nits and disagreements, but numbers matter.

Trying going to a few Member's council meeting and see what is going on.

With all due respect, I'd rather let my wife pick a movie.

[campperrykid]

This:

probably? Besides..... all right you have differences with NRA.... do you have differences with SAF? If yes, what are they? If not - when have you donated last time?

SAF is a winner. And they work well with NRA.
There are , unfortunately , a couple of small , feeble and ineffective family business style organizations ...

Never mind ... I don't even want to get started.