Think The NRA Is Finished? Think Again.

Hey! Look what I just got! A beautiful, new hat from my good friend Wayne-o at the NRA. And when I get done writing and posting this column, I’ll send him back a little cash. Because, after all, what’s more important these days than protecting my freedom by protecting my guns?

Now you would think after all the sturm und drang surrounding the NRA over the past several years, that the last thing the boys in Fairfax would have time to worry about was sending me a hat. After all, between a bankruptcy filing that they couldn’t get straight, an investigation by the New York State AG which is still going on, the resignations by more Board members and the cancellation of the annual meeting due to Covid-19 concerns, isn’t that enough for any organization to have on its plate?

I’ll tell you what the NRA has on its plate. It has a lot of dough on its plate. And even though member dues and program fees dropped more than 30% from 2018 to 2019, in the latter year member revenues still went over $135 million and contributions at $108 million stayed the same. That’s total revenue of nearly $250 million in 2019, which ain’t chump change even in my little book.

Want to know what’s really going on with America’s ‘oldest civil rights organization?’ Take a look at their website where social events hosted by the NRA are found. Between now and year’s end, there will be ten banquets and get-togethers in Pennsylvania, five gatherings in Ohio, Maryland’s got a couple, Virginia lists four.

Know what else Gun-nut Nation is doing with the NRA? Going to gun shows, of which there were more than 100 shows this past weekend, with a bunch of shows in Florida, Colorado, five shows in Texas and a couple of gun shows in PA. And at every one of those shows, the first thing you’ll see when you walk in is a welcome banner from the NRA.

The best thing that ever happened to the NRA was Joe and Kamala’s election last year, believe it or not. How can Mile the Gun Guy™ say something that stupid? Say something that dumb? I’ll tell you why.

Because on the one hand, the NRA had no choice in 2016 but to hitch its wagon to the MAGA brand, because if Hillary had won the election and the Congress gone blue, there is no doubt in my mind that we would have seen a gun-control bill that would have been a copy of the bill that then-HUD Secretary Andy Cuomo wrote for Bill Clinton back in 1999 which would have left the gun industry, as Grandpa would say, ‘gestorben und fartig’ (read: good and dead.)

But glad-handing MAGA ended up costing the NRA more than the $30 million or so that it pumped into Trump’s Presidential campaign. It also cost the organization a loss of vision, a loss of identify and a loss of credibility with the average American, gun owner or not.

I couldn’t believe how stupid, reckless, and downright inflammatory the NRA messaging became when the group got into video and launched NRA-TV. I don’t know what was worse — Colion Noir prancing around his backyard with an AR-15, or Dana Loesch advising women to arm themselves and protect their families from the radical hordes.

This wasn’t the NRA that I joined back in 1955. This wasn’t the NRA that first and foremost promoted shooting sports, hunting and outdoor life. So, the organization always said something about 2nd-Amendment ‘rights.’ So what? Was that any different from the support for social security and Medicare promoted by the AARP?

But the NRA went overboard with Trump, in the same way that Trump went overboard with his hateful rhetoric about immigration, his phony claims about ‘building a wall,’ and his refusal to say anything negative about the Nazis in Charlottesville because, after all, they were just marching down the street exercising their 2nd-Amendment ‘rights.’

Maybe the Democrats will get some piecemeal gun-control law past Manchin and onto the Oval Office desk. Maybe a couple of more states will enact ERPO statutes or require that all gun transfers only go forward after a background check.

But this country has lived (and died) with its arsenal of privately-owned guns for more than two hundred years. And as long as some of these gun owners can get together at a weekend gun show or a banquet or a bar-b-que, the NRA will be around.

Maybe next year Wayne-o will send me a jacket with the Golden Eagles patch. Last year he sent me a Golden Eagles knife which I use to cut some chicken treats each night for Leonard the Cat. And believe me when I tell you that feeding Leonard the Cat some chicken treats is a lot more important than defending my guns and my freedoms from the ‘tyranny’ of the Deep State.