Hello, I'm From the NRA and We Want Your Money.

I got a call a few days ago… it was a caller reading from a script telling me that LtCol Oliver North, the new President of the National Rifle Association, was asking for a donation which in return I would receive a heavy-duty NRA range bag. Call me cynical if you want, but I am pretty sure Oliver North doesn’t care or even know whether I am a member or not (I am) or that I would want an NRA range bag (I don’t). What I would like is an explanation as to why pro-gun legislation like the Hearing Protection Act and National Reciprocity did not go through in the last two years of Republican control of the Legislature and the Executive branches of our government. Yet they have money to create and promote their own version of the USCCA? They have money to create and promote an NRA Wine Club?!

I’m not saying the NRA doesn’t need donations, far from it. Not only am I a current member of the NRA; I am an NRA firearms instructor; I am a member of the Board for our local Friends of NRA; I used to be an NRA Golden Eagle… What bothers me is the lack of focus and accountability. We had a golden chance to roll back some of the myriad assaults on our 2nd Amendment rights for the first time in years and nothing happened. As the biggest pro-gun lobby in the nation the NRA must take a proportionate share of the blame for the inaction and complacency.

Barring a last minute miracle in the next few weeks of the remaining session, we are in for at least two years of sustained assaults on our firearms freedoms everywhere from the local to the national level. Our voices are not enough, action must be taken on the political field, in the courts, and most importantly- in the administration of the NRA.