imported post
I don't think any NRA member necessary agrees with every position the NRA takes. This is especially difficult for me, because I'm not a conservative, and every pro-gun organization assumes I am. Among many things some conservatives care about that I don't are drug use, other people's sex lives, religion, and the supposed denigration of American identity through the immigration of non-European people.
That said, I am an NRA member and have been a GOA member in the past. I belong to the NRA for one reason: They are effective, and they get people to vote. While the NRA is imperfect, it carries the biggest stick. I do not know if the NRA would have been as successful in sinking the careers of anti-gun politicians if they had taken more radical stances. The question then becomes, how do you feel about compromise?
Well, no one likes compromise - we all want to graft our vision for the world onto our political system. But one question the NRA asks is, what is the sustainability of the cause?
For example, the NRA hasn't, to my knowledge, attempted to normalize laws about automatic weapons. And they get guff for this, because some people consider this a sellout.
The other side of the coin is that if the NRA did take this position, I think their clout would be seriously diminished. As tentatively "pro-gun" as many in the "center" of this issue are (IOW who support in theory the right of people to own firearms but want background checks or waiting periods), I think you completely lose them - in fact, turn them into the opposition - if you have an organization going around advocating for the right of people to carry automatic weapons.
I think people would have more incentive to resist the NRA and I think the NRA would become marginal - as, sorry to say, GOA is (this is not a personal slag on GOA, but ask the average American if they've ever even heard of GOA). One thing about the NRA, is they are realists. The Constitution, as much as we all love it, is extremely pliable - conservatives should know, as some of them are involved in completely subverting it for things they don't believe in, whether it is the attempt to censor or ban pornography (First Amendment), detain people without trial (Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition), and so forth. The amount of 4th Amendment abuse tolerated by so called limited government Constitutionalists surrounding the War on Hippie Substances cannot be overstated, as is the penchant for undeclared wars (or "police actions" which is what they really are), which are proscribed by a Constitution which gives congress the power to declare war (which we have not done since WW2, I don't think - and how many taxpayer dollars have been forcibly re-allocated to foreign military adventures that have zero to do with the US's territorial sovereignty?)
The issue is that many or most gun owners see American civilization as a Constitutional one - government by, basically, a paper that enumerates rights. In reality we are a pluralistic Republic with strong Democratic civic mechanisms - that is to say, a lot hinges, as we all know, on who the majority of people bothering to vote, vote for. We see the obvious treachery involved in subverting the Constitution.
Whatever we may feel about the Constitution, it can simply be cast aside for political expediency. That's wrong, but that is reality. This is why there is a larger struggle which goes beyond just guns. However, I think that many on the Right, especially the particularly religious, would not entirely like what they get, if the US government began simply using the Constitution, exclusively, for the basis of its laws (we know the Left wouldn't).
I think the NRA's leadership analyzes the situation and figures out the best stances to take the maximize gun rights, and I think it does this fairly well. They are kind of to political lobbies what Wal-Mart is to retail; they have it down to a science.
My issue with non-compromisers is they are universally unwilling to take the logical next step - resistance to gun laws in terms of civil disobedience (a few here and there, but that's it). How many people who want automatics to become legal actually own them illicitly, or attempt to buy them on the black market? Not many or none, is my guess. As a public effort to legalize machine guns is bound to fail, and is bound to have a cost (people already think the gun lobby is too powerful), I find the NRA's methods to be politically efficient. In other words, I do not think we will ever get everything we want. I'm pretty sure private transfer of firearms will disappear within the next decade, whether we want it to or not. The Brady-manded background check is unlikely to go away as well, because I think the vast majority of citizens want that and majorities are, unfortunately, what counts.
Why? Money. Campaign contributions. Re-election.
The best possible thing we can all do is work on changing other people's attitudes - meaning other citizens - about guns. Unfortunately, this is something that, overall, gun owners are horrible at. This message board is, unfortunately, a demonstration of why. Even if people are open to be persuaded on the political issue, they are often appalled by the personalities and debate tactics of gun owners.
I know, because I've encountered it many times.
But it is the same with any political issue. The bulk of Conservatives I have known make horribly distorted strawmen out of the Left, stereotype liberals and attack those strawmen, which closes minds. (As a small example, consider the fact that many conservatives can't even quote a liberal without using a whiny, ridiculing voice - which is the same thing liberals do when they quote conservatives in an ignorant, dumb yokel accent).
Then there's the whole mangling of the English language, which just makes me think less of people who insist on doing it - "Repugnicans," "libtards," etc. I just assume someone who does this repeatedly is not very bright. I certainly don't (A great many conservatives also have no clue whatsoever what communism or socialism are. It's the substitute term they use for "yucky." It really is like listening to 5 year olds describe liver sometimes.)
The liberals of course do exactly the same thing. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that not only do the Left and Right have no understanding of one another, they have no desire to understand each other.
My own personal strategy is different, but largely my own politics allow me this - anyone is welcome at my table - from bubba rednecks to wild-eyed dope sucking anarchists. I may not convince them all, but so long as we can keep minds open, we can have a discussion, and I continue to feel that the pro-gun argument is the more rational and persuasive one, if you can get people to listen. Beyond my own personal agenda, which is gun rights, I really do feel if you stated the pro-gun and anti-gun arguments as mathematical proofs, the pro-gun one would compute and the anti-gun one would not. I feel the same way about the other "right" that means as much to me as the right to my life (which is the basis of the right to self defense) - and that is the First Amendment. And whether it's the Left trying to control hate speech or the Right trying to control the depiction of boobies, this is a personal crusade on my part.
I have changed the minds of at least a dozen people on the issue of guns - people you'd describe as liberals. As a matter of fact, if you read sites like reddit or digg, you will find that there are a surprising number of pro-gun liberals who are completely alienated from the pro-gun movement not because they're soft on guns - many oppose waiting periods, licensing requirements, etc. for the same reasons we do - but because they recoil in horror at the racism (latent and otherwise), homophobia, and affinity for war and at times flat-out authoritarianism that they sense among gun owners. Pro-gun liberals desperately need their own community. I get the political NRA magazine, America's First Freedom, and I find much of it beyond ludicrous. I don't need to be told how to think. I don't need sarcasm nor unflattering pictures of the NRA's political opponents with frowny faces in a bad moment, nor do I enjoy it. I find it manipulative and dishonest. I can think on my own. Just the facts, please. Because I believe most of the facts are on our side.
From my own point of view, I used to be a conservative so I just kind of tolerate these things with some annoyance. Ultimately I have to conclude that however repugnant or ignorant I may find the minds of certain conservatives (and I hope you conservatives will acknowledge that I have been very precise in saying "some conservatives" and not tarring you all with the same brush), they don't seem to have a problem with me owning a firearm, and therefore in some very rough sense support my personal sovereignty. And that counts for something with me. In the end, conservatives will drive me nuts but I will be armed on my own land.
Liberal fetishes on the other hand, well, their excesses worry me more, specifically because so many of them seek to disarm me, by which they intend to compel and force me to do things. The religious fervor of the Right ends at the barrel of my gun, but the collectivist fervor of the left, well, doesn't end anywhere, because if they have their way, we have no guns.
I intend to convince as many liberals as I can that they should reconsider the gun issue. I squirm whenever I hear some liberal talk about how abortion ought to be legal because you shouldn't legislate what a woman can do with her own body, or how drugs should be legal for the same reason, and also that you cannot possibly ever control drugs in any meaningful way because of the black market (same with back alley abortions). And yet, they will in the same breath argue that:
(1) You can control guns, even though they are durable items which in many cases can last hundreds of years, with > 300million in circulation (by some estimates) in the US. So you can't stop back alley abortions or drug trafficking, but magically you can stop guns. You own your life to the extent that you can abort a fetus or you own your life to the extent that you can shoot heroin, but you can't actually defend this life that you supposedly own? (The reverse is also true of anti-drug conservatives - you can shoot and kill because you own your life, but you can't smoke a joint? Abortion is a separate issue because conservatives - note my attempt to be honest about the intentions of conservatives - believe that the fetus is not part of a mother's body, but an independent sovereign life, and therefore abortion has nothing to do with "controlling one's own body." Still, the anti-sodomy, anti-porn, and anti-drug laws certain kinds of conservatives advocate are horribly hypocritical - these are nothing more than what conservatives claim to hate - the nanny state, big government, intervening in the private lives of citizens.)
(2) Bush is evil, the government is evil, cops are evil, the whole of the State is evil...but they ought to have a de facto monopoly on weapons? This makes sense in what universe? It is always funny hearing liberals posture as anti-authoritarians while supporting gun control in the same breath.
(At this point you libertarians out there are concluding I'm one of you. I sort of am, but not fully. But at a gun gathering, I will be sitting at your table, if you don't mind.)
Anyway all of this is relevant, because the NRA and groups like it are navigating the complex and infuriatingly irrational and inconsistent philosophies of voters and politicians. When I read a bunch of stuff the NRA puts out that I find ludicrous, I get cynical about it and tell myself that this gets people to send in money, and gets them to the polls.
And as one man with a gun, this is in my best interest.
I, too, am the NRA.
Incidentally, this is a rough spot to be in. Conservatives look at me suspiciously because I'm friendly with homosexuals, pagans, atheists, and <gasp> college-educated northeasterners. And liberals, well. I own guns and drive a pickup truck that gets bad mileage.
Not fun. But I try to be honest. I started out as a young Reaganite and arrived here through meeting people and experiencing life and re-thinking things. In the end it's less about the political prescription any ideology offers, but the way they sense the world works. And in my opinion, both conservatives and liberals have horribly distorted ideas of what drives the world.
But this is where we are. Like the old song goes, if you want to ride, you gotta ride it like you find it.
I am extremely wordy.