The NRA is a wholly owned subsidiary of the gun industry

[hogwyld]

They are owned and bankrolled by the biggest names in gun manufacturing and gun accessories. Does anyone have any illusions that they actually care about the consequences of these slaughters? The only thing they are concerned with is the money.

[link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-sugarmann/nra-receives-millions-fro_b_848727.html|

[byeya]

1. The NRA is the conduit through which flows the advertising of the munitions makers and easy

slogans to ward off serious questions about gun availability in a civil society.

The cheap lifetime memberships are a clue: The postage for the NRA magazine fairly quickly eats up the lifetime membership dues but the firearms manufacturers want to keep their messages coming in order to sell more and more lethal armaments. They can afford it and they want names of buyers.

[hogwyld]

3. Yeah, but their obtuseness will be their downfall

Believe it or not, I was an NRA member in the 80's, but I grew up and matured. I left them in 1991. However, my Dad was a lifetime member, that is, up until last year. You can only give the people the middle finger for so long before they wake up.

[byeya]

11. When George H.W. Bush quit the NRA, publically, while he was president, it should have tipped

at least some of the members that the NRA was more than an advocate for the safe handling of firearms.

My father, a RWer and a skeet shooter, couldn't join because he saw through the crapola and was repelled by the anti-American tone of the magazine and news releases.

You're right: As e.e. cummings said: There is some shit I will not eat.

[Bonhomme Richard]

2. Am I delusional? Wasn't the focus of the NRA back in the....

60' and 70's primarily about gun safety, hunting, and target shooting? That's what I remember. It seems in the 80's they started a big shift toward fear induced gun ownership. Everything from that point on had the focus on self defense.
Maybe they did just decide to team up with the manufacturers to gin up sales and profits. If they did it has worked brilliantly much to the chagrin of the rest of the population.

[Fumesucker]

4. They had to gin up sales in order to maintain profitability

With a shrinking customer base the only way for them to sell more product was to sell more guns to already existing customers, they did that through a campaign of instilling fear in those customers.

[hogwyld]

5. I suspect the NRA and GOP

share similar demographic trends, which doesn't bode well for their long term future.

[hogwyld]

12. That USED to be their calling card

It has morphed into an exteme profit engine for the firearms industry since the '80's

[X_Digger]

6. Only problem with that theory..

4 million members, at let's say, $20 each. (Average is $30, but there are some student and senior citizen rates.)

That's $80 million per year.

Since 2005, that would be $560,000,000 - so the highest estimate of funds from gun industry corporate partners over that same period, $38.9M, represents 7% of the NRA's funding.

[hogwyld]

8. Yeah, but when the board of directors

is comprised of leaders of the gun industry, the course of the organization is set. Do you think Wayne LaPierre wipes his ass without consent from the gun industry?

[X_Digger]

9. That may be, but it's a completely different point than the OP.

The board of directors is a mile long (someone posted it recently, and there were congressmen, ex-football players, a radio DJ {or something similar}, as well as gun industry insiders.) I'd imagine that LePeu's opinions match up with the gun industry pretty often, yes, given the nature of the organization.

[Bonhomme Richard]

13. It makes me wonder just how much stock in the......

firearms industry Wayne owns.

[srican69]

7. and water is wet .. and sun rises ( roughly) in the east.. and republicans are either

clueless or evil.

[hogwyld]

10. The NRA used to be solely about gun safety marksmanship

It's evolved into a nutty wing of the GOP. They now are only interested in getting paid...