Why should I continue my NRA membership???

[Jon K 12]

Seriously, why bother. I already give my money to FPC and the SAF because they actually fight for the 2nd amendment in courts?

What exactly does the NRA do anymore? All I've seen is they treat themselves very well, and then scramble to say they are helping the FPC and SAF.

Am I wrong? Sitting on the fence in giving the NRA any more money.

[Sniper 6,370]

I didn't.... Was a member for many years, as far as I could see, they were useless... Why keep sending them money, so Wayne could buy more expensive Italian suits and go on nice trips.... I pay for "services rendered"....., sending me monthly requests for donations, but getting nothing in return, ain't a service I'm paying for..

[SmittyMHS 587]

45 minutes ago, Sniper said:

I didn't.... Was a member for many years, as far as I could see, they were useless... Why keep sending them money, so Wayne could buy more expensive Italian suits and go on nice trips.... I pay for "services rendered"....., sending me monthly requests for donations, but getting nothing in return, ain't a service I'm paying for..

Funny...I was just talking about this with my buddy lastnite. Same reason I give them nothing. I do however give to the LDF.

[Grapeshot 237]

I stopped sending them money years ago. Fortunately my range doesn't require NRA membership. Give your money to local organizations that actually do something for NJ gun owners.  

The NRA needs a serious house cleaning. If and when that happens I may reconsider, but until then Wayne can buy his own suits. 

[father-of-three 189]

Sadly, the bigger organizations get, the chance for complication, let one corruption, gets bigger too.

I don't think I would want to see them disappear though.  Vacuums aren't always filled by better entities.

[ESB 22]

Tell me about some of the other alternatives and why you like them. 

[Grapeshot 237]

I've been supporting CNJFO https://www.cnjfo.com/.  

I used to also send money to NJ2AS https://nj2as.org/,  but a few years back their tactics didn't seem to be accomplishing much. I believe things may be better now; maybe some one else here knows more. 

[father-of-three 189]

2 hours ago, Grapeshot said:

I've been supporting CNJFO https://www.cnjfo.com/.  

I used to also send money to NJ2AS https://nj2as.org/,  but a few years back their tactics didn't seem to be accomplishing much. I believe things may be better now; maybe some one else here knows more. 

Does nj2aS have an affiliation with the NRA?

[Golf battery 1,135]

I donate to cnjfo every year.  But. Although the nra seems to have gone askew.  They are the lobbyists at a federal level.  Just think about that.  

[15636215 320]

I have been a life member for 20 years or so. Really disgusted with the top level running it! Similar to US government! Top heavy and corrupt!!

[Underdog 1,586]

It sucks when your range requires a membership...

[Golf battery 1,135]

30 minutes ago, Underdog said:

It sucks when your range requires a membership...

Im not dismissing their stupidity.  But as i said.  They lobby on a federal level.  Remember all the hate they got for backing trump !!!   Email them your angst for all the bs and waste of our dues.  Its a private enterprise.  They have an obligation to change.  Or go outta business.  But they’re the best federal outreach we have right now.  State pro gun groups are exactly that.  States. Yes the nra sucks now.  It needs reform. Or we have nothing federally 

[Persona non grata 113]

I'm a life member of NRA, but I won't be giving them a cent until AT LEAST Wayne is gone. Even then, I'll still be very skeptical. I got my life membership because so many ranges require it, and right after Trump won they had a life membership "sale". I wish I had known better at that point, but at least they rolled my at-the-time current three year membership into the life membership to save a few more bucks.

Gun Owners of America and American Suppressor Association seem like much more prudent ways to spend my money these days.

14 hours ago, father-of-three said:

Does nj2aS have an affiliation with the NRA?

Not to my knowledge. ANJRPC is the NJ NRA affiliate, however.

[Jon K 12]

33 minutes ago, Persona non grata said:

I'm a life member of NRA, but I won't be giving them a cent until Wayne is gone. Even then, I'll still be skeptical. I got my life membership because so many ranges require it, and right after Trump won they had a life membership "sale". I wish I had known better at that point, but at least they rolled my at-the-time current three year membership into the life membership to save a few more bucks.

Gun Owners of America and American Suppressor Association seem like much more prudent ways to spend my money these days.

Not to my knowledge. ANJRPC is the NJ NRA affiliate, however.

Thanks all, a lot of what I'm feeling about the NRA about now. Sadly, its all we got right now, but I really don't see them doing a darn thing in NJ, and on the national level it's the FPC that i see the most, and they get most of my money, and i suppose will continue to get it. Think it's time to just pay by the drink so to speak, and give when I see an organization doing something. No more memberships, just donations to individual cases.

[1LtCAP 3,491]

The 1930s crime spree of the Prohibition era, which still summons images of outlaws outfitted with machine guns, prompted President Franklin Roosevelt to make gun control a feature of the New Deal. The NRA assisted Roosevelt in drafting the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1938 Gun Control Act, the first federal gun control laws. These laws placed heavy taxes and regulation requirements on firearms that were associated with crime, such as machine guns, sawed-off shotguns and silencers. Gun sellers and owners were required to register with the federal government and felons were banned from owning weapons. Not only was the legislation unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court in 1939, but Karl T. Frederick, the president of the NRA, testified before Congress stating, “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses."

 

On Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. He shot the president with an Italian military surplus rifle purchased from a NRA mail-order advertisement. NRA Executive Vice-President Franklin Orth agreed at a congressional hearing that mail-order sales should be banned stating, “We do think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States.” The NRA also supported California’s Mulford Act of 1967, which had banned carrying loaded weapons in public in response to the Black Panther Party’s impromptu march on the State Capitol to protest gun control legislation on May 2, 1967.

 

The summer riots of 1967 and assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 prompted Congress to reenact a version of the FDR-era gun control laws as the Gun Control Act of 1968. The act updated the law to include minimum age and serial number requirements, and extended the gun ban to include the mentally ill and drug addicts. In addition, it restricted the shipping of guns across state lines to collectors and federally licensed dealers and certain types of bullets could only be purchased with a show of ID. The NRA, however, blocked the most stringent part of the legislation, which mandated a national registry of all guns and a license for all gun carriers. In an interview in American Rifleman, Franklin Orth stated that despite portions of the law appearing “unduly restrictive, the measure as a whole appears to be one that the sportsmen of America can live with.”

 

 

[Sota 1,174]

I got my life membership back when it was on special for $300.

They haven't seen a dime since though.

So i'm not canceling my card.

[father-of-three 189]

1 hour ago, Persona non grata said:

I'm a life member of NRA, but I won't be giving them a cent until Wayne is gone. Even then, I'll still be skeptical. I got my life membership because so many ranges require it, and right after Trump won they had a life membership "sale". I wish I had known better at that point, but at least they rolled my at-the-time current three year membership into the life membership to save a few more bucks.

Gun Owners of America and American Suppressor Association seem like much more prudent ways to spend my money these days.

Not to my knowledge. ANJRPC is the NJ NRA affiliate, however.

Whoops.  I confused the two.

[WP22 1,558]

Maybe I’ll donate/become a member when they sue and successfully nullify the Hughes Amendment like they said they would. 

Until then they’ll be forever known as the gun rights organization that had their hands in every major piece of anti gun legislation. 

Not one red cent ever for these jackals.

[ESB 22]

What groups are actually fighting State and federal anti-2A laws or proposals?  

[raz-0 1,156]

On 1/22/2022 at 2:13 PM, ESB said:

Tell me about some of the other alternatives and why you like them. 

So first some background to aid in understanding.  When you join the NRA, you have contributed basically nothing to the legal and political fight for RKBA. That entity isn't legally allowed to do much in that arena. That falls to NRA-ILA, and if you want to donate money to he NRA to affect political change, you should be donating there. The main good the membership part of the NRA does is helping shooting ranges operate. Either via expert input on how to get one built, grants, or access to insurance. Regardless of which of those things you might be donating to, don't reactively donate. Go find the donate button and make a donation. If someone asked you first, it is pretty much guaranteed less of your dollars make it to where you want it to go. 

Outside of having run the organization so poorly as to put it at peril while mismanaging everyone's contributions, the NRA basically operates on the model of mitigating damage. You don't launch a lawsuit that might set bad precedent. You don't say no to legislation, you ride it into the ground trying to make it less bad. This has worked like shit.

So who else is worth donating to? 

Nationally, the two biggies are the second amendment foundation, and the firerarms policy coalition with gun owners of america stumbling in at third place. 

The SAF is pretty much focused only on court cases, and seems to be very, very conservative about the cases they initiate, but seems to be seem to be more productive in usefully joining onto suits that didn't originate with them that have some legs. They seem to largely be beating their head against the 9th circuit for a while though. So unless that is a longer term strategy I don't understand, I'm not terribly pleased with the performance in the last few years. 

Then there is FPC. They seem to be a bit light on lobbying, but appear to still engage in it. They also are a lot more aggressive in pursuing litigation. They may not have won us anything huge yet, but they also haven't screwed us yet. They seem to exercise some decent judgement about the cases they take and they seem to be willing to back multiple horses on a given issue rather than waiting for an ideal case/defendant. As time goes on, they don't seem to be stupid, and they seem to grasp that you can't make the shots you don't take. Also if you read their mission statement, it seems pretty sound and non partisan. 

GOA is more about lobbying and making headlines. They are brash and kind of annoying at times, but they get attention. It's hard to tell if they carry any weight lobbying or if they are just running around me-tooing everything and sending out press releases when the winds blow their way. They do seem to be shaping up to being the most agile in terms mustering coordinated group yelling at congress, so that's something in their favor. The major downside for them is that they are effectively owned by an individual, which isn't the best plan for a durable and robust organization. 

There are no real membership benefits to the above, and I suspect they don't ever remove anyone from the rolls kind of like the gun grabbers don't. I've also never gotten a membership renewal request from any of them. the SAF does seem to waste the most money on sending me junk mail. So I haven't bothered to renew my membership to any of them. My general strategy is that I have a budget for donating money for RKBA activism, and at a minimum they all get a Christmas gift of $25. I then make smaller additional donations throughout the year as rewards. If I see a lawsuit I like the looks of and it was launched by FPC, they get another donation. Same for SAF. GOA tends to not get media based donations from me, but occasionally earns some extra cash by getting me useful information fast on federal actions. 

Locally, we have had a ton of groups stumble through. Many of them absolutely awful and they go away. 

ANJRPC is the state NRA affiliate. The kindest thing I can say about them is I think they finally got the message that the gun owners of NJ weren't impressed by how they were doing things. They seem to have departed a bit from the mother ship's playbook of focusing on legislation and mitigating harm, and have joined in poking the bear to generate legal challenges. But there's a lot of bad blood between ANJRPC and NJ gunowners as for a very long period, there wasn't much evidence they existed outside of their association with a single gun range and official legal filings. 

Then there is NJ2AS, which as far as I can tell spearheaded the shift to organized legal challenges in NJ to try and make something actionable happen to challenge the law. It appears to consist largely of Alex, and his traffic accident underscores my concern about any group that is basically owned and operated by an individual. 

There also always seems to be a perpetual churn of the designated fudd group that only cares about guns and hunting. That seems to currently be the NJOA, but they can't even keep a website up at the moment it seems. While some of the more prominent ones in the past got big enough to generate proof that stupid people in larger groups are dangerous, I'm not sure that these groups aren't just shills for whomever. 

Then there is the CNJFO. Which seems to have come on the scene to promote community outreach and to try and get the various other organizations to play nice with each other. Their appearance seems to coincide with NJ2AS and ANJRPC starting to appear to have some strategies in common. 

Here I don't have a good answer. CNJFO got my money this last year, but that is in part because they are the newest face in town and I know some of the people involved. The rest of my state activism budget went to crowdfunding specific lawsuits. 

I always make sure my amazon smile is always pointing at something pro 2a, and make a point to donate at least the market rate for a case of ammo each year to a variety of groups. The NRA made it clear that not having a plan B is a shit plan. 

 

 

[ESB 22]

Thanks.  Spent some time on FPCAction.org - FPC Grassroots Army: Take Action! (firearmspolicy.org)

[1LtCAP 3,491]

On 1/23/2022 at 2:55 PM, WP22 said:

Maybe I’ll donate/become a member when they sue and successfully nullify the Hughes Amendment like they said they would. 

Until then they’ll be forever known as the gun rights organization that had their hands in every major piece of anti gun legislation. 

Not one red cent ever for these jackals.

and when they nullify the gun control acts of 1934 and 1968?

 

[gleninjersey 1,912]

One of my brother-inlaws was at a higer memember ship level than me.  I up my membership when on sale.  To be above him.  Then he ups his membership level to be above me.  It's a vicious cycle.

The BS that's going on with the NRA needs to end.  But they are the big dog at the hightest level.  They may not do the heavy lifting, but when a court case looks like it will be a win they put our money behind it to push it across the finish line.

And it pisses the antis off.  That alone is worth $25 a month.  When people ask me if I own a gun or if I'm an NRA member I just laugh.  "A" gun.....that's cute.  A yearly dues paying NRA member?   No, I'm a I'm a Life Patron Double Diamond level that you only know if presented with the secret hand shake and identiified by the "free" suede jacket.  And I'm upping my membership as soon as the next level goes on a "limited time only" sale after I buy my 17th firearm.  

I love the look their eyes when they either are in complete disgust or start telling me about their latest firearem purchase.........