The NRA.....lets talk!

[WildBill]

If getting a person to handle and shoot a gun is done under the guise of "hunting is good for you" or "let's shoot some targets" I don't care. Once the person gets more comfortable with the whole idea of being around, handling and shooting firearms, they can be educated in the RKBA.

If your initial approach is the "guns are dangerous" position then you will fail. Their fear has already taught them that guns are dangerous.

Sorry WildBill, but I disagree with you 100% and I think the lack of success of the normal "guns are fun" tactic of "converting" especially women will support my position very effectively.

I see that as a major problem. You make a good argument, so I don't disagree with you 100%. Maybe if you disagreed with me 10% or 20% there would be more room to talk and come up with a plan.

I think that education supporting the RKBA should begin in grade school when children learn about the constitution. Unfortunately, the RKBA has become a political debate, and you know what happens when people discuss politics. If there were one simple answer, it would been resolved already.

In my youth, I took numerous NRA courses and participated in their markmanship programs. I have been an NRA life member since 1982. At that time I joined to mostly to support the sport. I looked forward to receiving my American Rifleman magazine to read articles about shooting, reloading and different guns, not about the politics. As politics took over my interest in the NRA declined. I was very naive thinking that the US Constitution protected my RKBA.

Over the years the focus of the NRA has changed toward politics and fundraising. I am very angry that the political climate has changed so that the focus has shifted from hobby shooting to politics and fundraising, but that is the nature of the beast. When you have relentless groups such as Brady, you must be more tenacious and well-funded to fight back effectively. You may not like them, but the NRA is your friend.

[flintknapper]

If getting a person to handle and shoot a gun is done under the guise of "hunting is good for you" or "let's shoot some targets" I don't care. Once the person gets more comfortable with the whole idea of being around, handling and shooting firearms, they can be educated in the RKBA.

If your initial approach is the "guns are dangerous" position then you will fail. Their fear has already taught them that guns are dangerous.

Sorry WildBill, but I disagree with you 100% and I think the lack of success of the normal "guns are fun" tactic of "converting" especially women will support my position very effectively.

I see that as a major problem. You make a good argument, so I don't disagree with you 100%. Maybe if you disagreed with me 10% or 20% there would be more room to talk.

I think that education supporting the RKBA should begin in grade school when children learn about the constitution. Unfortunately, the RKBA has become a political debate, and you know what happens when people discuss politics. If there were one simple answer, it would been resolved already.

In my youth, I took numerous NRA courses and participated in their markmanship programs. I have been an NRA life member since 1982. I joined to support mostly to support the sport. I looked forward to receiving my American Rifleman magazine to read articles about shooting, reloading and different guns, not about the politics. As politics took over my interest in the NRA declined. I was very naive thinking that the constitution protected my RKBA.

Over the years the focus of the NRA has changed toward politics and fundraising. I am very angry that the political climate has changed so that the focus has shifted from hobby shooting to politics and fundraising, but that is the nature of the beast. When you have relentless groups such as Brady, you must be more tenacious and well-funded to fight back effectively. You may not like them, but the NRA is your friend.

Well said Sir.

This has been my experience as well...and represents my position exactly.

[seamusTX]

You remind me of the big difference between the Brady's and the NRA / TSRA. The Bradys are a few activist who work hard and are financed by grants. The Bradys don't have the money nor the manpower we do. yet the media treats us as equals. What Are they doing right that we aren't?

1. They benefit from a rather thoughtless policy of the media. The media try to be objective (they aren't, but they think they're trying). They always want to present opposing points of view as if they had equal weight.

If I proposed some nutball proposition such as banning Christmas because Santa is an anagram of Satan (which has actually been done), and I had some money and clever strategists, they would put me across the table from a couple of historians and linguists who would try to explain why this was a kooky idea.

I'm not sure what is too kooky for the media. They give face time to all sorts of conspiracy theorists, radicals, and historical revisionists.

2. From the late 19th through the 20th century, this country had massive immigration from countries that did not have a tradition of firearms ownership. My family is in that group. The Irish Catholics could not legally own or use firearms. Those that did were poachers or revolutionaries.

3. At the same time, the U.S. became increasingly urban. Even people whose families had been here for generations stopped hunting and engaging in the shooting sports. Those activities just don't go along with living in an apartment and taking the streetcar to a job in a factory or office.

4. Use of firearms by lunatics and criminals became firmly embedded in the mind of the general public. This is rooted in historical facts: the James Gang, Bonny and Clyde, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, assassinations and assassination attempts, especially against the President, and more recently school shootings. It's a favorite topic of newspapers and TV shows.

This led to the public wanting Somebody to Do Something. Since it's impossible to predict or control the actions of lunatics and criminals, banning firearms started to sound like a good idea to many people.

5. Jim Brady is a sympathetic figure. He literally took a bullet for President Reagan. Sarah Brady has been remarkably energetic and persistent. I don't agree with her, but I have to admire her dedication to her cause.

Our side has had a few prominent supporters who should have been equally sympathetic, among them Marion Hammer and Suzanna Gratia Hupp. Both achieved progress in their day, but they seem to have retired from public life.

All of this adds up to a situation where we insist on our right to own and use scary things that go bang (which I firmly support), and the other side pleads to save the children. It's a very difficult debate to win. I wish I knew how, but I've run out of ideas.

- Jim

[jimlongley]

The Million Mom March fizzled down to the three-mom march or something like that. The "gun-control" movement consists of a handful of (unfortunately) senior legislators and a few fanatical propagandists who (unfortunately) get an audience in the press and on TV.

- Jim

You remind me of the big difference between the Brady's and the NRA / TSRA. The Bradys are a few activist who work hard and are financed by grants. The Bradys don't have the money nor the manpower we do. yet the media treats us as equals. What Are they doing right that we aren't? If we were as effective for our size as they are there wouldn't be a Brady bunch.

What they are doing "right" is dancing in the blood of crime victims while the gun rights organizations can't do much but be reactive. In the wake of every tragedy where some criminal decides to ignore the law and guns "innocents" down (as if there could be "guiltys") the brady bunch gets a great deal of media play by announcing that just one more gun law would have prevented this.

If the NRA and anyone else manages to get a word in edgewise, it frequently sounds divisive because it's a logical reaction during an emotional outpouring. Of course, considered in the cold light of logic, one more law, or a hundred or a thousand more, would not have prevented Virginia Tech, but try telling that to an overwrought mother whose child was just murdered in a ghastly fashion, in front of the TV cameras. It just doesn't play well in Peoria.

Not to put it in the wrong way, but we need more Suzanna Hupps. We need more people who recognize the right of it to come forward to correct the misapprehensions created by the bradys and their ilk, and we need for them to be able to access the "bully pulpit" of the media equally.

Another problem is that access to that bully pulpit. Emotion generates viewers, and listeners, and readers, logic and calculation is flat out boring, and training classes in the media get skipped over real quick unless the party to be trained is already interested, which is pretty much preaching to the choir.

How do we get more proactive?

Good question.

Eddie Eagle classes were a great approach, until the bradys started trumpeting that the NRA was indoctrinating a new generations of gun nuts. Now schools teach Eddie Eagle without the name and without the name brand recognition. When my step son came home with a "Stop! Don't Touch! Tell an Adult!" homework assignment, it sure looked a lot like the videos and booklets on my shelves, and a letter to the principal and school board elicited the response that those things were not copyrighted and were merely common sense. As if a school could teach common sense.

Every other training class suffers from the same brady bunch attacks.

Maybe someone else has a better idea, I think I'm too old for this, and too curmudgeonly.

[TxD]

All of this adds up to a situation where we are insisting on our right to own and use scary things that go bang (which I firmly support), and the other side pleads to save the children.

It's a very difficult debate to win. I wish I knew how, but I've run out of ideas.

- Jim

Jim.
All the points in your post are correct in defining the current situation and the circumstances that led us to this point.
I also agree with the 2 sentences from your post in the box above and would like to focus
on those.

We simply cannot stop the attacks by continually insisting on our rights because as you noted, the other side has effectively re framed the issue.
The issue in the public mind is not the right to own a gun. The issue is that guns are evil and
threaten our safety both inherently and through criminal acts. Also as noted in other posts
there are others who remain neutral for various reasons.

The aim of NRA and its members is to reach those who remain neutral and convert those who
see the gun as evil.

We must interview and listen to converts like "Nitrogen" and determine why they changed their views.
Here is some of what he had to say:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nitrogen: Hey, I was an anti-gunner until 1994, when I was "witnessed to."

Sure, quite a few liberal minded folks might never "see the light" but you'd be surprised how many people have liberal tendencies that see the gun issue the way most of us here do.

You're right about one thing, but I think its for the wrong reason. From personal experience, when I was an "anti" I really don't think it was due to intellectual laziness. I had never dealt with a gun, and to the ignorant, the Brady's arguments make sense. If you've never held or shot a gun, their arguments ring true; because of the way they are made. (Full of appeals to emotion, and other logical fallacies.)

I never shot a gun, never held one, and well, I honestly didn't care. "Sure, ban 'assault weapons' I don't have any, wouldn't shoot any and they look dangerous!"

Sure, there are plenty of idiots who will never change their minds about ANYTHING, but you'd be surprised how many people CAN be won over with logic.

Getting people to see your way of thinking is not only possible, but it's necessary; and it's our best means of survival.

I feel pretty strongly about this, because I myself saw the light. I cannot be the ONLY PERSON EVER who saw the light.
--------------
This campaign will not be won by fighters or debaters.
It will be will be won by salesman.

Everyone have a great holiday!!!

[seamusTX]

The aim of NRA and its members is to reach those who remain neutral and convert those who see the gun as evil.
We must interview and listen to converts like "Nitrogen" and determine why they changed their views.

Yes, and I'm repeating it because it can't be said too often: If you do nothing else to promote the RKBA, take someone shooting.

Everything in my upbringing, including my parents' attitudes, would have led me to being a lukewarm anti. But a neighbor taught me and my friends to shoot, and fortunately my parents allowed it.

This campaign will not be won by fighters or debaters.
It will be will be won by salesman.

Excellent point.

Somebody is running TV commercials with the tag line "take me fishing." They have gauzy photos of older men with kids in scenic outdoor settings. (OK, I looked it up. It's the Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation.)

I think we need something like that, or a grassroots effort with a similar goal (sorry, Mr.72).

- Jim

[bdickens]

I think I've said it before: more people think with their emotions than with logic. Therefore, we are not going to win using facts and logic. We will only win by using carefully crafted emotional appeals and by reframing the debate in our favor.

[Hos]

All good points. I too was quite anti gun growing up and in my 20's since I wasn't really around them besides some dove hunting. I still remember the serious media blitz against Glock in the 80's (I believe it was) and how plastic guns were the next thing for us to FEAR. That had an effect on me. I thought that Guns=crime and Guns therefore should be feared and a ban was ok. I was told how great Europe had it and they didn't have guns. For me the greatest hurdle was realizing that I can protect my family and others as a Christian. That I changed and did not interpret the "turn the other cheek" and other bible verses to mean that I can't protect with deadly force. Some denominations feel this way and some are quite the pacifists about it, e.g. Mennonites.

Of course, we now know Britain has a serious crime problem and no guns to stop the criminals or, dare I say, threaten their own government who feel criminals have more rights then home owners.
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kouri/060220" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I follow an RSS feed for the NRA and don't see too much about Britain, maybe some more PSA's would be helpful from them, or I may just miss it and they already speak about the dangers for Britain is the "what if" that is just too scary...

All that to say that I haven't become a NRA member yet due to a wife who is still warming up to the gun thing. She finally knows how guns help us to save lives but it took years of talking to her about it.

It'll take that kind of patience for us too with our friends and coworkers. To not be reactive but LISTEN to them and their fears and win them over with our tact and facts over time. They already fear guns so a shout match will only reinforce their fears. Back on page 2 or 3 someone mentioned it was like being a missionary, there's some truth to that.

It took 4 years of marriage before I bought a gun and now I'm getting a CHL so there's hope. I'll probably join next year if there's any money left after we build this home, ugh.

[mr.72]

For me the greatest hurdle was realizing that I can protect my family and others

Sorry for the quick snip.

But I would like to highlight this very important point. You see, many people who are ambivalent about guns and don't care a whit about hunting or having fun with firearms will feel the dedication to the safety of their family very deeply. This has nothing to do with the fear of guns, and taking people shooting is not going to inform them that they can use guns for defense. That's the point I think all of the NRA-friendly folks are missing.

I was never, ever afraid of guns. Never. Most of the people I know are not afraid of guns. They just don't care.

However, I became aware that my lack of ownership and understanding of guns could put my family at greater risk, and it was my responsibility to become equipped.

The whole "take someone shooting" or "guns are fun, let's go hunting" angle is totally misdirected for people like me.

I cannot eloquently put it into words, but I have a strong feeling that the NRA is missing their best opportunity to really change the discussion about guns because they are focused on guns as a sporting accessory and not as an essential tool of survival for modern society.

I don't know that adding more funding to an organization who is, in my opinion, completely misdirected is going to do anything but harm to the cause of the RKBA. I kind of put this like voting for John McCain. Yeah, maybe compromising our principles were the best way to avoid the other side winning... but we still have to compromise and every time we compromise we move the line that marks the "center" more and more to the left. Likewise every victory the NRA has the effect in the public eye of either bolstering the idea that guns are sports accessories, or that the wacko rednecks who want to start their own little militia have gotten a boost. Nowhere is the NRA viewed as an organization who promotes the ability of responsible, normal people to be equipped for the defense of themselves and their family, never mind their country which is the purpose of the 2nd Amendment to begin with.

So until the image of the NRA changes in the minds of those who are not members, I don't see the value in supporting it. Yeah maybe in reality, the NRA does support RKBA. But they also support a lot of things that don't help with RKBA and even, IMHO, some that hinder the advancement of the RKBA in America.

Public perception is that the Brady Campaign supports "common sense gun laws" that "protect children" and "keep guns and gun violence off the street". Public perception of the NRA is that they support hunters' rights to have hunting rifles and also that they support a bunch of kooks who are grown men pretending to be in their own private army, wearing camo clothes and running around in the woods doing drills with AR15s. I don't see how continuing to support an organization with such a poor public image is going to help. It's like the hidden underbelly of the NRA is the RKBA.

We need the NR(KBA)A.

Or something else.

But the NRA is just way to easy to beat up on in the public eye.

[John]

So then, if not the NRA, who?

[seamusTX]

... taking people shooting is not going to inform them that they can use guns for defense.

No one need to be told that firearms can be used for self-defense. Most four-year-olds know it. That's why kids play cops and robbers.

The misconceptions that we have to overcome are

• Guns are too dangerous for "civilians" to own.
• You're more likely to be killed by your own gun than to defend yourself with it.
• "Gun control" can stop criminals from obtaining weapons.
• Criminals are buying guns off the shelves at some imaginary self-serve gun stores.

When you take someone shooting, you teach that person that he or she, personally, can safely control this tremendous power.

(I've said that before, but I don't want it to be lost in the noise.)

You also have an opportunity to start educating the person about the reality of personal defensive firearms use, firearms law, and why laws restrict only the law-abiding, and do not stop criminals from doing anything that criminals want to do.

For the NRA or any other group to run ads that clobber unprepared people over the head about personal self-defense is not going to work, IMHO. People reject ideas that are frightening to them, like little kids closing their eyes and plugging their ears when they see something scary.

It is also impossible to run a campaign that reaches only a selected audience. It was at one time. But in the Internet-YouTube era, your opponents will expose your targeted message to the rest of the world in a damaging way (remember Sen. Obama's comments about bitter people clinging to guns and religion?)

P.S.: I have re-read the last week's worth of posts in this thread. I have repeated myself at least once on every point, and so have most other contributors. I have asked questions that have not been answered. I don't think any minds have been changed.

I'm through with this unless someone introduces a completely new issue.

- Jim

[Mike1951]

If the NRA not been fighting for the 2nd Amendment these many years, you could not have made the decision you made to protect your family.

Without the NRA, the entire country would already be at least as restrictive as CA, possibly much worse.

As far as other activities of the NRA, remember that until the 1960's, the NRA wasn't into politics. They existed to support a civilian shooting program and to provide training to police.

You choose not to support the NRA at the peril of every gun-loving American!

[WildBill]

I cannot eloquently put it into words, but I have a strong feeling that the NRA is missing their best opportunity to really change the discussion about guns because they are focused on guns as a sporting accessory and not as an essential tool of survival for modern society.

Yeah maybe in reality, the NRA does support RKBA. But they also support a lot of things that don't help with RKBA and even, IMHO, some that hinder the advancement of the RKBA in America.

The NRA may be missing "their best opportunity to change the discussion about guns", but you couldn't be more wrong about their committment to RKBA. As I have stated in previous posts. Without the NRA you would not have a CHL and we would not be having this discussion.

[mr.72]

The NRA may be missing "their best opportunity to change the discussion about guns", but you couldn't be more wrong about their committment to RKBA.

You know, I don't think I ever said they are not committed to the RKBA. I will have to go re-read my posts.

However, I do think I suggested that those people who are not already on board with the RKBA, who are not members of the NRA, do not likely have any idea that the NRA supports the RKBA. In fact most people likely don't have any idea that there is even a debate about RKBA.

So the insider's view is, yeah along with the dozen other things that the NRA does, they support the RKBA.

Outsider's view is, NRA is a bunch of hunters and kooks playing with guns that nobody really needs.

I'm not saying that the NRA doesn't support the RKBA. I am saying the NRA has an image problem that makes them not be the best choice to carry the RKBA flag. Maybe they are the only choice, but that does not make it a good choice.

[WildBill]

I'm not saying that the NRA doesn't support the RKBA. I am saying the NRA has an image problem that makes them not be the best choice to carry the RKBA flag. Maybe they are the only choice, but that does not make it a good choice.

Why don't you join the NRA so you can vote in the elections for directors who will support your vision of the new NR(KBA)A? Maybe you can run yourself.