Why I'm going to let me NRA Membership Lapse

[jdonovan]

Just for grins I'd file a complaint with USPS inspectors.

Nothing says screw off like a guy with a badge and gun showing up to question them about their breach of federal law.

[meak99]

why not buy an NRA knife?

Pretty sure it'd be a cheap-o made-in-China knife that they send me unsolicited... you know, something with a massive profit margin.

[Tweaker]

I can't understand why something so completely benign and insignificant as this type of marketing would cause someone to be distracted from the fight for our freedoms.

I am a life member and when I have called about crap like this, they say just keep it and don't pay for it have a nice day. A nigative becomes a positive.

[cyras21]

I can't understand why something so completely benign and insignificant as this type of marketing would cause someone to be distracted from the fight for our freedoms.

I am a life member and when I have called about crap like this, they say just keep it and don't pay for it have a nice day. A nigative becomes a positive.

The NRA does as little as they can to keep themselves relevant as well as needed.

[seeknulfind]

why not buy an NRA knife?

Pretty sure it'd be a cheap-o made-in-China knife that they send me unsolicited... you know, something with a massive profit margin.

If whatever the NRA offers is not something you would by anyway then don't buy it.

My point remains: the marketing arm of the NRA should ADD dollars to the cause. This is a GOOD thing, IF the marketing is done profitably. The higher the profits, the better, IF they aren't selling junk. Let's look at this another way...

From time to time one group or another tries to raise money by sending kids out to sell stuff. Most of the time the stuff is of the "shoddy, Made in China" variety. My wife and I refuse to waste money on this junk. IF we feel the cause is worthy, we sometimes make a small donation. Thus the entire amount goes towards the cause. But I will guarantee you, any such organization will NOT return with any offer that costs them money.

Now back to the NRA. If they offer junk, then by all means, refuse to buy it. If they send you something you did not ask for, then do what you want with it. They know the law and the score and they will never require you to pay for it. If this type of marketing starts costing them money, they'll stop. Meanwhile enjoy the free stuff they send. It's simply part of the cost of doing business to them.

Andy

[zephyp]

Im not a big fan of the way the NRA is behaving these days either but would you all like to see them completely taken over by socialists...could be the trend if gun owners abandon them out of "dissatisfaction" over trivial things like this...so if you disagree, then IMHO you are cutting off your nose, tossing out the baby with the bathwater, and after shooting one foot taking aim at the other...

[Kreutz]

Im not a big fan of the way the NRA is behaving these days either but would you all like to see them completely taken over by socialists...could be the trend if gun owners abandon them out of "dissatisfaction" over trivial things like this...so if you disagree, then IMHO you are cutting off your nose, tossing out the baby with the bathwater, and after shooting one foot taking aim at the other...

Did someone at work play a prank on you by etching "SOCIALIST" into your glasses? Because you sure do seem to see 'em everywhere!

In any event, the NRA blows the big one because its designed to enrich a few people at the expense of a whole lot of them (capitalism in action? )

Its been around for ages but seems to lobby harder to get at my bank account than it does to get gun laws repealed. Sometimes it helps write those gun laws ( NFA of 1934 and GCA of 1968 being the biggest).


In any event, fraudulent practices like billing people for unsolicited crap isn't really "trivial". And they're still responsible even if they're using a contracted third party.


http://www.potowmack.org/feldman.html

"The National Rifle Association has been in support of workable, enforceable
gun control legislation since its very inception in 1871."

— NRA Executive Vice President Franklin L. Orth
NRA's American Rifleman Magazine, March 1968, P. 22

Unfortunately for American gun owners, the nation and the NRA itself, this major lobbying group has become intoxicated with money and privilege. The leadership has lost sight of its mission. Safeguarding the rights of gun owners has become secondary to keeping the fundraising machinery well greased and the group's senior staff handsomely compensated.

I know, because I once worked for it.

In 1984, I landed my dream job as Northeast regional representative of the NRA. I was a young lawyer, keen on politics and the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. This post promised to indulge both passions, and for a time it did. But soon enough, I was watching with growing dismay as the NRA morphed from a reasonable, responsible voice of sportsmen and firearms owners into a giant money machine that provides more benefits to its insiders than to its 3 million-plus members.

Take the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, now pending before the Supreme Court. It was the libertarian Cato Institute, not the NRA, that took up the plight of D.C. residents who seek firearms for personal protection. Before the case reached the high court, the NRA did its best to derail it. Why? Because the District gun ban is one of the reddest flags the organization could wave to inflame its membership. If the NRA were to "solve" the D.C. gun-ban problem, it would lose some powerful talking points for getting the check-writing machinery rolling. Now that the case looks like a winner, the association has climbed aboard the bandwagon and will be asking for "emergency" donations to defray its legal costs.

H arlon B. Carter, who created the modern NRA in the 1970s, earned about $70,000 a year (about $200,000 in today's dollars) as executive vice president and was driven to meetings in the company Chevrolet. Wayne LaPierre, who currently sits upon the executive vice president throne, pocketed about $950,000 in 2005. The parking lot at the association's twin-glass-towered headquarters off Interstate 66 in Virginia is filled with shiny new BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes.

What's unseemly about the stratospheric six-figure salaries flowing into NRA leadership wallets is that the cash comes from hundreds of thousands of members who are hard pressed to write $35 annual membership renewal checks or send an extra $10 or $20 to the NRA Political Victory Fund to protect their guns.

Then there's the question of the millions paid to outside lobbyists (including an ex-employee and personal friend of LaPierre's). And the millions more doled out to LaPierre's friends at the Mercury Group ad agency. Who knows how much cash, thanks to the NRA, has found its way to the company that arranges the association's travel tours, allows members to buy a home through NRA real estate brokers, finance it via an NRA mortgage, save with NRA banking services, take out NRA insurance, get laser eye surgery and shoes resoled by an NRA-affiliated vendor, then pay for everything with an NRA credit card. The association claims it was only coincidence, but LaPierre's wife happened to be the vice president for marketing for the firm that set up that bonanza of member-discount services.

The media and anti-gun politicians make a mistake by engaging with the NRA, penning inflammatory headlines, threatening to crush the organization and salt the earth beneath its headquarters. They are just reminding the NRA faithful that they're surrounded by enemies who threaten to batter down their doors and snatch their firearms. And all it results in is the constant "ka-ching" of cash rolling into NRA coffers.

Underlined emphasis mine, sound familiar?

[Jakeiscrazy]

That must have been sent out by some quite young marketing person that doesn't keep up with marketing history or federal law.
About 40 years ago (~the 1970s IIRC) it was made illegal to MAKE anyone pay for an unsolicited product mailed/shipped to them.
Anything that you receive like that you can consider a gift as far as the law is concerned.

That used to be a very common scam.

I have that from a couple different people now. Anyone know the laws name? Google searches came up with nothing. I would like to have the law on had to cite to them when I give them a call on Monday.

I swear! My Google Fu is GREAT today! First try I searched for "unrequested product mail gift" and got a hit on the USPS site.

https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/inve ... Fraud.aspx

Thanks!

[zombiekiller57]

I'm glad I saw this the other day. I came home from work tonight to find the DVD in my mailbox. I took out my pen and scribbled "Return To Sender" and stuck it back in. What a waste of money. Who is doing the marketing for them?

[Reverenddel]

As we all know, if you've read my previous rants on the NRA, I'm not their biggest fan...

BUT...

At the NATIONAL level? I like having THEM as the target for the gun control lobby, BECAUSE they're an INFLATED BALLOON TARGET!

THE GOA, 2ndF, and others do a BETTER job! Plus? The NRA takes credit for LOCAL GunRightsOrg's good work. I've SEEN them do it in the Rifleman with the VCDL!

BUT... AGAIN! They're a target that if it gets hit? (shrugs) Whatever...

[Kreutz]

As we all know, if you've read my previous rants on the NRA, I'm not their biggest fan...

BUT...

At the NATIONAL level? I like having THEM as the target for the gun control lobby, BECAUSE they're an INFLATED BALLOON TARGET!

THE GOA, 2ndF, and others do a BETTER job! Plus? The NRA takes credit for LOCAL GunRightsOrg's good work. I've SEEN them do it in the Rifleman with the VCDL!

BUT... AGAIN! They're a target that if it gets hit? (shrugs) Whatever...

This thread has reminded me I need to get off my ass and join GOA, so, it did some good.

[zephyp]

Did someone at work play a prank on you by etching "SOCIALIST" into your glasses? Because you sure do seem to see 'em everywhere!

As a matter of fact they scratched socialist, marxist, communist along with a few other things...ironic that the very same government who trained me to fight these things now exudes them at every turn...

And in case you havent been paying attention they are all around us trying to take over our precious country...my glasses may be scratched but yours are completed blacked out...

[graybeard321]

I am a life member of the NRA, I do not always agree with everything they do, I just overlook their faults, they have done alot for our second ammendment rights in the past and as long as we continue to support them they will do more good things in the future. If we quit supporting groups like the NRA, then Comrade Obama and his group of czars have won.

[Reverenddel]

"done alot for our second ammendment rights in the past "

PAST! CORRECT!

What irritates me grey is the fact that they're no longer doing ANYTHING themselves, but depending on gun owners who are ACTIVE members of OTHER gun rights organizations DOING something, then writing in their articles "NRA MEMBERS did X-Y-Z"

Um. NO Wayne YOU, and your ILK, need to do MORE! I'm tired of paying for "scare tactic" marketing, and "junk gifts" I would like a mean, lean, ACTIVE NRA like in the 80's, and 90's, and in truth? They let quite a bit slip by them in the past! The 89' Importation Ban, the 92' AWB, the 99' "parts laws for sporting firearms".

GOA, 2nd, and VCDL have done MORE in my membership of the past 10 years, than the NRA has done in the past 30 of my membership.

Again, I'll keep them as the "balloon target", but they don't do a damned thing in my opinion but ask for money, and rest on their laurels.