Kurt Hofmann created this after I suggested that a phrase he used in tonight’s JPFO alert would make a perfect official NRA flag.
ADDED: Kent McManigal got inspired and made a pair of further refinements on his site. See ’em both?
In case you haven’t had a chance to notice, JPFO’s got some fine new writing talent. Kurt and Nicki Kenyon have been producing short & spicy articles just about every day of the week. I might get a word or two in myself, and maybe some others will, as well.
I think the snake should be de-fanged and blindfolded. Oh, and his rattles need to be over-sized. Or replaced with a baby rattle. Hmmm.
Here ya go.
Give it the face of a fuzzy mouse…. The rattle idea is cool too.
I didn’t renew my membership this year, though I remain an NRA instructor. Just wish some other outfit would put together a comprehensive training program so we could dump this outfit once and for all.
Oh, Kent, that’s funny! I’ll put a link to it in the main post.
MamaLiberty, I suspect we could have a fun contest coming up with variations for the “Official NRA Flag.”
I don’t think they should have anything to do with the freedom movement at all. I don’t think they should even be hinted at having anything at all to do with the freedom movement.
And I’m with MamaLiberty, if it weren’t for the fact that most training involves NRA instructors, I feel I would be much further along in my training.
I am a resigned life member of the NRA, if they were serious they would devote every dime to a scorched earth policy against all the Federal firearms laws, regimes and agencies from the 1934 NFA on forward but they are political, statist, insincere and a clear and present danger to firearms possession in the USSA.
Well, there are tons of firearms training options besides the NRA, ya know.
I’m curious; what gun orgs are freedom-lover approved? Obviously JPFO seems to be one…are there others?
TXCOMT
Gun Owners of America if you can dismiss the weird national boosterism and secret theocratic agendas.
Here in AZ, the AZCDL is a terrific org for fighting the hoplophobes.
Well, TXCOMT, I don’t think there’s any Freedomista Approval-Of-Gun-Groups Bureau. I certainly hope not!
My own take is that there are only two prominent national groups I’d personally avoid at all cost. One is the never-met-a-compromise-it-didn’t-like NRA. (But now watch Commentariat member LarryA speak up with a good defense and point out that my gripe is really only against the NRA-ILA.) The other is SAF/CCRKBA — which has done some good things, but whose loathsome, traitorous boss recently tried to shove universal background checks down our throats by getting behind the Manchin-Toomey-Schumer bill last year.
Said loathsome traitor has also dominated gun politics in Washington state for ages (again always on the side of, “Oh, let’s not ask for anything our opponents aren’t already willing to concede”). And he’s more interested in his hyper-lucrative direct-mail operation than in any principle whatsoever.
But that’s just me. To each his own.
Oh yeah. And of course there are all those silly astroturf groups the antis come up with every few years — the ones that always pretend to represent “sensible” gun owners and always just happen to endorse everything the antis agitate for. But then, they always go deservedly bust before anybody actually has to pay attention to them.
Bill Buppert — I agree on what the NRA ought to do. Or, if it’s not willing to go scorched-earth for gun rights, it ought at least to quit misrepresenting itself.
Also agree on AZCDL. Great group!
[Devil’s Advocacy]
I work with Texas State Rifle Association and the Texas Concealed Handgun Association on legislative affairs. We’ve made significant progress since we first started advocating for concealed carry in 1983. But it’s been through proposing solutions, negotiating, changing minds, and replacing legislators who couldn’t be changed.
I have seen other groups, for gun issues and other issues, try to punch change through the Texas legislature with confrontational and “scorched earth” tactics, and watched their efforts blow up in their faces.
In order to peacefully change your state laws you have to know how your state government works, and you have to work it. There is indeed a time for demonstrations and shows of strength. You need both.
(And I’ll be the first to agree that Texas and Connecticut are different situations.)
Like it or not, peaching revolution to the choir will only energize the choir.
Mr. Lake says, “These are the soccer moms, the guys who say I’ve never shot a gun but would like to try it and the people worried about their safety. How do we do that? Not by standing on stage screaming obscenities at Cuomo and certainly not at large rallies where people stand on stage, pound their chest and tell the attendees to prepare for war. That frightens the very people we want to attract to our side.”
We may not like his message, but we better listen to it. Ultimately our RKBA doesn’t depend on government, it depends on a majority of The People agreeing with and supporting us.
[/Devil’s Advocacy]
The NRA is one of the only conservative groups that actually wins court cases consistently. I didn’t see any libertarians get the Supreme Court to strike down a 30-year old ban in DC or Chicago.
The NRA is more like the patriots at Lexington and Concord- they’re organized, civil, legalistic, and more than willing to resist if necessary. Our ancestors had plans, networks, and organized themselves. What are you doing, outside of your immediate family? When you’re on the run and cut off from your prepper retreat by feds, what’s your back-up plan?
They say tone down the rhetoric, not the message. The NRA is where you will find the support you guys are overlooking and downplaying. How many of you are convincing the half-hearted and uncertain that you are the good guys? Just assuming they know is hubris.
The press will always portray us as a wild-eyed, frothy-mouthed mob of uncivilized, unsophisticated, anti-intellectual people. The NRA is refusing to play by their rules and showing people how normal we are. What are you guys doing along those lines? How are you getting the truth out to the masses and circumventing the press?
NRA country is where you’ll be hiding when it all goes down. When you run out of supplies and are hiding, you will rely on their generosity and protection. This is the pool of trained men and women where you’ll be recruiting from.
Just because the NRA isn’t as publicly aggressive as you doesn’t mean they’re pushovers. It just means they’re preparing in the quiet background, planning for the long-term.
Thanks for the comments, folks…as a Texas resident, I’ve been long overdue to join TSRA, so I appreciate the mention, LarryA. Time to mail a check!
As a Life Member of the NRA for 40 yrs now (since age 15) I’ve had plenty of reason to be dissapointed in the organization, and I haven’t given them money for a long, long, time.
But, I always wonder what the history would have been if something more than 10% of serious gun-owners had bothered to be members during the times that NRA supposedly abandoned them.
Even today, what 4 million, out of at least 40 million?
Perhaps if all the NRA detractors had ponied up some $’s and effort back in 86, or even 68 (obviously many of us, including myself weren’t even old enough to vote then) then the history might be far different.
Of course, today, the NRA is a little sclerotic, but maybe the real villian is our dads who let others fight the battle as they watched from the sidelines.
And today, if the NRA were 15-20 million strong maybe all the detractors could make it into the organization they want instead of the one they like to blame .
Why would anyone trust the NRA? They have been consistent gun prohibitionists from the beginning in 1871 (a Lincolnian Unionist was the first president in Burnside) and populated by Fudds whose understanding of the 2A is crippled at best and cynically manipulative at worst.
The NRA fellates the state at every turn.
“In the early 1920s, the National Revolver Association—the NRA’s handgun training counterpart—proposed model legislation for states that included requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon, adding five years to a prison sentence if a gun was used in a crime, and banning non-citizens from buying a handgun. They also proposed that gun dealers turn over sales records to police and created a one-day waiting period between buying a gun and getting it—two provisions that the NRA opposes today [no, they don’t, the NRA supports the NICS and waiting periods].”
See: http://www.alternet.org/suprising-unknown-history-nra
They helped draft the 1934 and 1938 gun control acts that put the Federal gun grabbers in business, refused to defend in US v Miller in 1939, supported the Ronald Reagan bedwetting in CA in 1967 against carry of weapons by black men, help draft the disastrous 1968 GCA and 1986 M-V Acts and then agreed with Bushevik I that an import ban on imported cosmetically offensive weapons was “prudent” and helped design the de facto registration scheme called the NICS check in a deal to reduce the waiting period from 7 to 5 days and remained mum on the travesties by the BATF throughout its storied corruption and murder sprees in Waco and Ruby Ridge and everything afterwards.
You never here talk at the NRA of disbanding the BATF or zeroing out ALL federal gun laws b/c then what would they do?
Cops are the existential threat to human liberty planet-wide and the NRA cop fetish is well known.
Bushevik II, the NRA’s candidate for the Offal Office, said he supported background checks and would sign the cosmetically offensive weapons ban in 2004 for renewal. Bushevik II also famously misidentified a .243 as a .248 in an interview. Maybe he had been low-crawl hunting with Kerry and got confused.
On and on…I wish the NRA would devote more energy to its wine club and other more harmless ventures than making weapons restriction and prohibition more palatable to the mandarins in DC while posing as something they are not.
The NRA will always be hand in hand with DC desires to lord over guns through control and registration schemes.
Spend your money elsewhere like at the reloading bench.
And never ever buy from a storefront gun seller and fill out the 4473 that is NRA approved.
“The E-4473 will help all firearms retailers, especially small independent retailers, by giving the federal firearms licensee an opportunity to reduce costs and further enhance compliance issues by eliminating — or at the very least reducing — innocent mistakes caused by human error,” said NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane.”
Much like all banks being non-funded IRS field offices, your local gun dealer is merely an affiliate of the BATF willing to surrender any information requested of every buyer of a firearm.
NRA approved of course.
Some good points, there, Bill, but the NSSF and NRA (bedfellows they may be) are two different orgs. Nobody hardly knows about the former, unless you attend the SHOT Show, nor realizes it’s headquartered in Newtown, Conn.
TXCOMT,
Thanks but there is no evidence whatsoever that the NRA is doing anything to oppose the use and continued de facto gun registry that the 4473 enables:
http://www.nraila.org/legislation/federal-legislation/2002/batf%E2%80%99s-form-4473-bungle.aspx?s=&st=&ps=
What happens to 4473 records?
“In summary, I think Andrew has made a valuable contribution to the state of knowledge of ATF misdeeds, as has the GOA. I think that the ATF would use any chance to violate the law to press its agenda (Fast and Furious is proof of principle). I don’t doubt that the ATF has attempted in the past to encroach on the sacred space of form 4473s. I don’t doubt that they will do it again if given half a chance. What I do doubt is that the ATF can pull off a national gun registry that has any credibility whatsoever without having us construct it for them.”
See: http://www.captainsjournal.com/2013/10/10/does-de-facto-gun-registration-exist-in-the-u-s/
I expect both the NRA and NSSF to do nothing about this. I have seen no legal; challenge emerge from the NRA/ILA to which I have flushed thousands of dollars until I woke up to what the NRA really is.
The more I read in this and other similar forums, the more I realize that we are our own worst enemies.
Does anybody know anything about the “National Association For Gun Rights?” http://www.nationalgunrights.org/ They seem O.K. on the surface, but that’s all I can tell.
The Ares Armor raid certainly suggests a de facto registration policy; here’s one link: http://soldiersystems.net/2014/03/16/batfe-raids-ares-armor/
Bill, Your comments are right on the money. JPFO has archived articles about the NRA support for gun control legislation, including an article from the American Rifleman (NRA’s signature magazine) in which the then NRA Executive Vice President proudly points to NRA history of support for legislation including the 1934 NFA. JPFO has more information about the NRA perfidy. Follow this link: http://jpfo.org/articles-assd02/nra-supported-nfa34.htm
I refuse to join NRA and as a result find myself unable to access a locat shooting range that requires NRA membership.
Yeah, they’re so bad, I consider them to be the Scientology of the gun world. Which if anybody knows, is a very bad thing to be.
TXCOMT, I’d be very interested to see your list of basic firearms training availble locally, across the country, all year long, at low or often no cost…
The NRA training program isn’t the best, and much could be done to improve it, but it is often the ONLY safety training available. Most people don’t have the time, resources and interest to go to any of the major training facilities, though some do after taking the basic class.
The day some other outfit announces the availability of a nationwide, recognized and at least adequate training program, I’ll be all over it. In the meantime, I’ll continue as an NRA certified handgun and self defense instructor because I have no viable alternative to offer my students.
I don’t have to be an NRA “member” to continue as an instructor. It just will cost me a lot more. And that’s what I’ve chosen to do.
I won’t speak to the NRA’s toadying to the government (others have covered that topic more than adequately), but I would like to add that the organization is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. The NRA simply will not endorse any political candidate who doesn’t have a “R” by his name, period. I personally know of situations where it has endorsed a Republican candidate with a dismal gun-rights records over a Libertarian candidate with an exemplary record who was also an NRA life member. I won’t have anything to do with them.
Mama, my original quote was:
“Well, there are tons of firearms training options besides the NRA, ya know.”
I never mentioned such options fit all the caveats you brought up in your reply. Also, I wasn’t slamming the NRA’s training efforts, especially since I’m a certified pistol instructor and have found it more than adequate.
As for no viable alternatives, I agree wholeheartedly. Unfortunately for us Texans, an NRA training certificate won’t get you a concealed permit, as you must take the Lone Star State’s course through a state-certified instructor.
mcridge, that’s ridiculous…a range that refuses your money unless you’re an NRA member? I’ve never heard of such a thing; is it a club-owned property, perhaps? If that’s the case, I’d be less surprised, but still…money’s money, especially in this day and age. Sad to hear!
TXCOMT — “mcridge, that’s ridiculous…a range that refuses your money unless you’re an NRA member? I’ve never heard of such a thing; is it a club-owned property, perhaps?”
Can’t answer for mcridge, but in my experience it’s common for gun clubs to boast of being “100% NRA” and to refuse memberships to those who won’t join the NRA. My dinky local gun club has that policy. The rest of us have no range access within an hour of here — though fortunately we’ve got a few well-known plinking quarries & such.
BREAKING: LaPierre steps down, Spika steps up as new NRA chief
http://www.guns.com/2014/04/01/breaking-lapierre-steps-spika-steps-new-nra-chief/
This may get interesting…
And TXCOMT… the NRA training used to be good to get a “permit” here in Wyoming. We just got rid of the permit. 🙂 Now anyone can “legally” carry openly or concealed, if they can own a gun anyway. My classes are still well attended.
Our gun club tried the 100% NRA thing for a little while. Even though the NRA is quite popular here generally, that just didn’t fly. I suspect that practice could be stopped most anywhere, if enough people put pressure on the club.
Wellll … I note the date on that NRA leadership-change announcement and I see at the bottom an official-looking April Fools emblem. So ….
To NRA defender Michael Gladius (who commented above). You’re entitled to believe in the NRA with a blind religious passion if you want to. That’s your business.
But copying the comment that you made on my personal blog and sending it to JPFO was a big, huge cheap shot.
The flag illustration was done by Kurt (as a private individual) after my joking remark. It was posted only here and I’m the only person who called it an “Official NRA Flag.” I did that as a private individual. It had nothing to do with JPFO, and you had a lot of bloody nerve trying to escalate the situation by taking your message to Kurt’s and my client.
Michael Gladius –
The NRA didn’t win Heller, and neither did it win McDonald. Robert A. Levy, a Senior Fellow at the LIBERTARIAN Cato Institute actually vetted the plaintiffs for Heller, started the case rolling, and was co-counsel for Alan Gura, who was lead counsel. Gura was also lead counsel on McDonald. Neither one was won by the NRA, so you can stop frothing at the mouth about it.
The NRA is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room, and they have some clout, but any organization that compromises our rights away while endorsing Virginia scum like Jack Rollison will not ever get my support.
This is the same Rollison who in a press release had the unmitigated gall to paint Gun Owners of America and the Virginia Citizens Defense League, who endorsed his opponent Jeff Frederick, as extremists. This is the same Jack Rollison who wanted to ban your right to self-defense in any restaurant that happens to sell liquor. At the time Jeff Frederick was actually an NRA member, while Rollison was not. And yet, the NRA backed him anyway. Much like they backed other questionable candidates all over the US.
So NRA can eat a big bag of dicks.