The Shit Storm that is the NRA Today & How We Got Here

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Wayne's Brain: (I don't want to mock people's physical problems - the ones discussed can be very real). However if they were going on for quite a bit, the refusal to resign is problematic. From the OutdoorWire:

Friday afternoon, word of a filing by the LaPierre defense team that claims, among other things, that LaPierre’s medical condition has caused a “significant deterioration” of the physical size of his brain, mental fogginess, severe headaches, fatigue and eye pain that will “likely impact his abilities to testify for extended periods each day.”

In response, LaPierre’s defense counsel has asked the trial judge for a “reasonable accommodation” allowing LaPierre flexibility in testifying.

He is -or was- expected to begin what was originally anticipated to be lengthy testimony later this week.

A letter from LaPierre’s physician to the NRA’s Charles Cotton on January 3 was introduced in the motion. In that letter, the doctor says “Mr. LaPierre’s health as been slowly deteriorating these last few years. In August 2022, he had worsening headaches and and a CT Head was done, with demonstrated significant cerebral volume loss and chronic small vessel ischemic changes.”

Aging - hey, let's run for President of the USA!

[Duces Tecum]

I don’t think that’s the answer. I think the membership needs to wage the thankless, miserable ground game to reassert control over our association. it could be different.

The membership has generally been kissing a toad and wondering what's keeping the princess. The fact is there's never been a princess. It was all a lie. There is nothing that might incentivize the NRA to move towards becoming an effective gun rights organization, and there never has been. It is not in the NRA administration's interests to be such. If it ever happened that the 2nd Amendment was fully enforced (as in ". . . shall not be infringed.") the NRA and all similarly missioned groups would have nothing to dun members for. Donations would stop and the NRA would be out of business. The organization, and all who lap it's blood, would be a memory.

If the NRA was a stock, by this time a reasonable person would have taken his losses and moved on.

Cheerfully submitted,
Duces

[BillSWPA]

The membership has generally been kissing a toad and wondering what's keeping the princess. The fact is there's never been a princess. It was all a lie. There is nothing that might incentivize the NRA to move towards becoming an effective gun rights organization, and there never has been. It is not in the NRA administration's interests to be such. If it ever happened that the 2nd Amendment was fully enforced (as in ". . . shall not be infringed.") the NRA and all similarly missioned groups would have nothing to dun members for. Donations would stop and the NRA would be out of business. The organization, and all who lap it's blood, would be a memory.

If the NRA was a stock, by this time a reasonable person would have taken his losses and moved on.

Cheerfully submitted,
Duces

Even if we win a bunch of elections and get 9 conservative Supreme Court justices appointed, I do not ever see us getting to a point where there are no people trying and finding ways to restrict gun rights. Working themselves out of a job would be very unlikely.

[DDTSGM]

The membership has generally been kissing a toad and wondering what's keeping the princess. The fact is there's never been a princess. It was all a lie. There is nothing that might incentivize the NRA to move towards becoming an effective gun rights organization, and there never has been. It is not in the NRA administration's interests to be such. If it ever happened that the 2nd Amendment was fully enforced (as in ". . . shall not be infringed.") the NRA and all similarly missioned groups would have nothing to dun members for. Donations would stop and the NRA would be out of business. The organization, and all who lap it's blood, would be a memory.

If the NRA was a stock, by this time a reasonable person would have taken his losses and moved on.

Cheerfully submitted,
Duces

Wow! An epistle that advanced the view that prior to 1977, the NRA existed as a successful organization for hunters and sporting firearms users and perhaps enough of those members still exist to maintain a viable organization if it run by a non-greedy, non-self-absorbed board and staff, just disappeared when I hit submit.

I'm not willing to recreate it in it's entirety, so a one sentence synopsis as above.

[TDA]

Shooting sports are a hell of a lot more fun than running, but 50 million Americans were running in 2019. If we had 15% of the US population participating in any kind of shooting sport I think that people would have an entirely different baseline for conversations about guns. The NRA has great shooting programs and could devote more energy and money to trying to make that happen. If the leadership were registering their intern/mistresses for the world shooting championship and taking them on junkets to Indiana, even if they had no chance of winning, how much happier would we all be? They don't seem to love what I do though.

[Joe in PNG]

One of the more memorable passages in Hemingway's "Islands in the Stream*" has a Cuban politician noting that as long as they don't have an aqueduct, they can get money for an aqueduct. So there will never be an aqueduct. If one can get money, votes and influence for promising to fix a problem, there's no real incentive to fix the problem. Promises and excuses are more than enough to keep the dupes happy.




*later adapted into the hit song

[RoyGBiv]

I think the membership needs to wage the thankless, miserable ground game to reassert control over our association. it could be different.

Apologies for being light on details here but my recollection is that over the past 10-15 years, the bylaws have been modified such that removing WLP by a vote of the membership is unpossible... the only ways, I believe, that members can express their dissatisfaction are by letter writing (aka "pushing rope"), withholding contributions and failing to renew.

One of the more memorable passages in Hemingway's "Islands in the Stream*" has a Cuban politician noting that as long as they don't have an aqueduct, they can get money for an aqueduct. So there will never be an aqueduct. If one can get money, votes and influence for promising to fix a problem, there's no real incentive to fix the problem. Promises and excuses are more than enough to keep the dupes happy.

This is painfully correct... As we see with high-speed rail in California, as another example.

[TDA]

Apologies for being light on details here but my recollection is that over the past 10-15 years, the bylaws have been modified such that removing WLP by a vote of the membership is unpossible... the only ways, I believe, that members can express their dissatisfaction are by letter writing (aka "pushing rope"), withholding contributions and failing to renew.



This is painfully correct... As we see with high-speed rail in California, as another example.

If I recall correctly, yes, you need all 76 Trombones to do anything via board vote, and this expansion of the board was done on purpose to prevent such actions, but most nonprofit organizations exist in a state of more or less open internal warfare. It's not just the NRA.

[Stephanie B]

Wayne's Brain: (I don't want to mock people's physical problems - the ones discussed can be very real). However if they were going on for quite a bit, the refusal to resign is problematic. From the OutdoorWire:

I smell bullshit. Remember the one Mafia don who would feign senility by wearing a bathrobe to his trial?

[Totem Polar]

I smell bullshit. Remember the one Mafia don who would feign senility by wearing a bathrobe to his trial?

Yeah, that bit sounds like Corporal Max Klinger level bullshit. If he doesn’t have the juice to testify to save his own bacon, he most def shouldn't be tasked with saving gun culture 1.0 and 2.0’s bacon, either.