It'd be one thing if they were only opposed by people for more gun control, but they aren't even really good at their core mission. All they do is simp for the GOP, even when doing so runs counter to their stated agenda.
The NRA is a marketing team for gun manufacturers, and what sells guns is fear of gun bans. The NRA does everything in their power to fuel those fears.
Pro and anti gun alike hate them. It’s mostly just boomers keeping them going.
They aren’t a gun rights organization. They aren’t even a manufacturer’s organization. They are Republican shills, first, last, and always.
I was finally convinced they had abandoned gun owners when they endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012. When a gun rights organization openly endorses the signer of a gun ban, there is something deeply wrong.
That was slightly before my time, but yes, they did endorse Reagan in 1980 and 1984, and Reagan had signed the Mulford Act 13 years earlier. The Mulford act wasn’t a gun ban per se; it prohibited carry of loaded firearms without a permit.
Reagan went on to support the Brady Bill and the 1994 AWB after his presidency. Reagan also banned carry in national parks. Clinton and 2 Bushes didn’t undo that mistake; Obama fixed it in his first month in office.
But I digress: the NRA has done far more for the Republican Party than it has done for gun rights.
the NRA has done far more for the Republican Party than it has done for gun rights
It's the same story with evangelical groups like Focus on the Family: They're just shills for Republicans, and are actively hurting their religion in the process.
Exactly. I belonged to the NRA way back when they were a safety and information organization. They began to sell high priced commemorative hunting guns, then commemorative military guns. Soon they started selling military style guns like the M1 Garand rifle and the M1 carbine. I quit. Their push continued into modern M16s while simultaneously pushing scare articles to convince people of dangers so great that they would need buy military style weapons. The NRA degenerated into a money and greed operation that became the opposite of its origins intent.
They’ve even wormed their way into schools. They have “Eddie the Eagle” that teaches elementary school kids gun safety. With NRA logos all over the place, of course. I was disgusted when my daughter brought the information home.
Absolutely kids should be taught gun safety. They just shouldn’t get it with a heaping helping of NRA.
I'd say it started with Harlan Carter. He was the one who decided that the NRA should be all about the profits of gun manufacturers, and not about safe and sane gun culture.
Gun culture is just a different and insane thing in the US. We have a bit of it in Canada and gun issues in the cities, but guns are highly regulated here, maybe too much in some specific aspects. I’m in favor of less restrictions for historical pieces similar to historical cars where you can apply for that status.
Where I’m from lots of people have guns but there’s not really a gun culture, they’re basically used for animal defense. Last incident I know of was a deliriously sick coyote getting in to a horse paddock in daylight.
The NRA changed American thinking from “guns are tools that we sometimes need for protection” to “GUNS ARE THE ONLY THING PROTECTING YOUR FAMILY AND YOUR FREEDOM!!!1!!!”.
You just know there’s so many Americans with guns who can’t wait to kill someone for the right reason in the most violent way, it’s like their fantasy.
I was listening to an American at a work outing once who got inspected at the Canadian border, and she was ranting about how they thought she had a gun and were checking everywhere. I’m sympathizing cause that sucks, then she’s like “but they never checked my purse where I kept my gun!” and it’s like fuck sakes woman, you certainly made your point…
The NRA had lost a lot of financial backing because when the main thing you endorse is being used to murder schoolchildren on a borderline industrial scale, of course sponsors and advertisers will want nothing to do with it.
They also got busted for money laundering and being a front for foreign oligarchs to fund US politicians… I’m guessing all those rubles drying up hits the bittom line, too.
I feel like one of the 7 pro gun people on all of Lemmy, I’d like to share some perspective about the NRA being a boogieman. They absolutely are not the boogiman that leftists and anti gunners think they are. They are a ridiculously bloated, corrupt, beuracracy, no different than our federal government. They are all optics. In fact I’d say their only job is to be the boogieman and absorb negative attention, to allow the real gun rights groups to get some work done.
They keep a public list of approved politicians and downgrade anyone who even mentions gun reform. That feels like more than just a bureaucracy; since they’re largely funded by weapons manufacturers, it seems more like an extremely influential lobby. And since what they’re lobbying for is “keep pretending that there’s no way to solve the deadly problem that kills more humans than any other thing you don’t do to yourself and literally every other developed nation has solved,” it seems like their job is to enforce the prioritization of gun manufacturers’ profits over lives.
But the damage it has done to the political landscape by pushing right wing agendas, fearmongering of every sort to get people to buy guns, and tying identity to gun ownership will live on far beyond the useful life of the NRA.
If they start going after 3D printers I might join them. I've got an unregistered gun maker sitting in the corner of my office, even though I mostly use it for printing figurines.
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