The National Rifle Association, the powerful lobbying group that has been a longtime nemesis of liberals, is facing mounting criticism from influential allies on the right and even from its own board over a series of recent moves they say are selfish, short-sighted and ultimately harmful to the conservative movement.

Critics cite a list of transgressions, from considering an endorsement of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), to endorsing moderate Republicans — and even Democrats — rather than their more-conservative challengers, to taking a cautious approach to Second Amendment court cases and President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees.

And they are especially angry about the group’s willingness to play ball with Democratic leaders on campaign finance legislation vigorously opposed by congressional Republicans, powerful business groups and nearly the entire conservative movement.

Republican congressional leaders have privately conveyed their unhappiness to NRA officials, but online conservative activists linked to the tea party movement have been vociferous in their criticism.

“The NRA is all about the NRA — helping their organization and not necessarily the cause,” said influential conservative blogger Erick Erickson, who has repeatedly taken to his blog RedState in recent weeks to urge conservatives to turn their backs on the NRA…

Har! Rightwingers believe that single issue organizations should kneel to all of their ideology.

Chris Cox, the NRA’s chief lobbyist, said the criticism ignores the reason the NRA is such a powerful brand: that it focuses on its core mission of advancing gun owners’ rights, rather than on trying to advance the goals of the conservative movement, writ large…

Technically, the NRA — a $300 million organization with unrivaled lobbying power, a massive member-services operation and an active political-action committee — is nonpartisan. It derives significant clout from its ties to conservative, pro-gun Democrats and in recent years has increased its contributions to Democrats as they retook Congress and then the White House.

Absolutely hilarious. These lockstep demagogues believe that anyone who agrees with one portion of their religion must obey all the other precepts in the rightwing catechism.

Refreshing to see the NRA find a touch of dedication to what was – after all – their original mandate.




  1. EvilPoliticians says:

    #31 – Angel H. Wong

    BIG difference. One is a parent. Responsible for teaching you the lessons of life. Prepare you for living life. When did the government take over that responsibility?

    Sharing? You should. Out of the kindness of your own heart at the level you support. Not legislated to you by some politician and their lobbyists/activists.

    By the way, you must have a better computer than I do. I need a politician to take it from you so I can have it. Why protest? Because you earned the money to buy it?

    And nice job segueing from gun rights to tax policy. Everyone that is for gun rights must be Republican? Check your facts again. And try better than that post for a connect the dots.

  2. Kevin Baker says:

    1) All the guns in Texas aren’t going to defeat the US military. Not even likely to defeat the National Guard. Dream on if you think your firearms protect you from “the government.”

    I think you neglect to understand just who it is that makes up the US Military, including the National Guard. These people are us, and the oath they swear is to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, not the people sitting in the Halls of Power.

    2) Putting the party of plutocracy back in charge ain’t gonna make anything better (unless you are in the top 1% wealthwise – and if you read this blog, you aren’t). The current crop disappoints, no doubt about it. Basically, we can’t get good government in America anymore. We can either bad, or worse.

    Obviously we’re on opposite sides of the aisle (and I’m not in the “top 1% wealthwise”), but we’re in agreement on this point. From my perspective our options seem to be castration vs. mega-wedgie every time I go to the polls. I want to vote for the best candidate, but that option is never on the ballot.

    3) No one’s coming to take your gun away.

    Yet. We’ve just fought a seventy-five year long battle through the Federal court system to make it that much harder for our ideological opponents to do so. You seem to forget that until the Heller decision two years ago, law-abiding residents of Washington, D.C. were – legally – denied the ability to posses a functioning firearm in their own homes. You forget (or didn’t realize) that until the McDonald decision of last month, those of us who live in the 9th Circuit (about 20% of the population of the country) had no individual right to arms, per that Court’s 1996 Hickman v. Block decision that declared that there was no individual right to arms.

    We watched what happened in the UK, and made it a point not to allow it to happen here.

    Oh, and while the NRA (eventually) helped it was the Second Amendment Foundation that brought those two lawsuits, and the SAF had to fight off the NRA in the Heller case.

    On another topic, there’s a corollary to Godwin’s Law that goes “As an online discussion on gun control grows longer, the probability of a comment concerning penis compensation approaches one.” It’s not about “manliness,” it’s about the rights of the individual. Oh, and “Bat”? There’s another one, Ravenwood’s Law: “As a discussion about guns grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Dodge City or the Wild West approaches one.” You cleverly scored a twofer! Want to go for the hat trick?

    And to you and everyone else – have you ever asked yourself why it was that throughout history – up through the 18th Century – the dominant form of government the world over was either hereditary monarchy or outright dictatorship? But by the end of the first quarter of the 20th Century the dominant form of government worldwide was some sort of democracy? And why that trend began in Britain?

  3. gator says:

    No one’s coming to take your gun away? Ask New Orleans.

  4. DirtCrashr says:

    Some people, and Politico in particular (but also Red State) tend to think that the R in NRA stands for Republican. It does not. Does the R in RNC stand for Rifle? No, there’s plenty of anti-gun Republicans around, believe it or not, or do a little research.
    In California for instance there’s a LOT of gun owners (it’s a huge gun-sales market despite every attempt to make it unfriendly and a non-market) and more Democrats than Republicans.
    There are even some Democrats (mostly in non-coastal areas) who don’t adhere to the party-line dogma that is issued by the CA Democrat Central Committee, and the NRA supports many off them – which is why there’s often a Democrat run-off against another Democrat, it’s the Sacramento Assembly Purity-Test cage-match in action.
    Also there are districts that are so thoroughly gerrymandered that there’s literally no Republican presence or challenger – it costs too much to loose too often – so Democrats fight a lopsided fight with Greens and Peace and Freedom Party and other fringe hippie groups – the nomenklatura that exists to make them look valid.
    The way some of you go off, reflexively, it makes me think maybe the D in Democrat stands for drugs. Or Dogma.

  5. Treat guns like cars?

    Okay.

    I can own as many as I want, of whatever horsepower (caliber), size (handgun or long gun) and function (manual to full auto). No bans on “evil, black cars” or “evil, black guns” (aka assault weapons). I only have to register and insure them to use them on public roads (lands). I am only taxed on them to support related elements (more public shooting ranges). If I commit a felony I don’t lose my right to own.

    That what you had in mind?

  6. bogbeagle says:

    Bat Masterson.

    You state that the might of the standing army will defeat any armed citizenry.

    Your argument has a fatal flaw … in that you do not need military superiority to win a war.

    A few hundred Irish men and women (@700 in total) brought the British government to the concessions table.

    In Afghanistan, the poorly-armed population is on the verge of sending home yet another army with its tail between its legs … despite all the Generals’ bluster to the contrary.

    And, have you forgotten Vietnam and even your own Revolution?

  7. staghounds says:

    Not only are the guns in Afghanistan keeping the U. S. Army busy, but just one man with a pistol did some awfully disproportionate damage to it at Fort Hood.

    I don’t believe for one minute that most of our service people would, today, participate in a mass house to house civilian disarmament, any more than they would participate in a mass kidnapping of Japanese Americans or Indians.

    But there are sitting legislators and executives who would, if they had the power, order that operation. But they don’t, or even suggest it. Yet.

    But a day may come when they make a majority.

    There are some truths that only a people numerous and armed can speak to power.

    I may never again need my jumper cables or flashlight. I may die never having used my fire extinguisher.

    But I’ll keep them handy, just in case.

  8. Jeff Dege says:

    I see someone has already mentioned Godwin’s law, so I might as well go for it.

    Despite common misperceptions, Hitler didn’t impose gun registration, the liberal Weimar Republic did that. That someone like Hitler would later take control of the government, and use the existing registry to seize guns from those he didn’t think should have them, is not something they would have ever expected. Germany was, after all, a liberal democracy.

    Registration doesn’t necessarily lead to confiscation, but it is a necessary precursor to confiscation. And disarming in the face of tyranny is the sort of mistake a people only gets to make once.

    So, if you want to discuss registration, start by explaining what guarantees you have in mind that will ensure that no future government, administration, junta, or cabal will ever be able to use the registry to disarm those for whom it considers firearms ownership to be undesirable. (And by “future”, I mean guarantees hundreds of years hence, not simply through the end of the next election cycle.)

    After you’ve convinced us that confiscation is off the table, we’ll be willing to sit down and listen to your explanations of the benefits of registration, and how they will be worth the cost.

    Pragmatically, registration is enormously expensive, and yields no meaningful social benefit. (Ref. how the billions spent in Canada has spent has resulted in the solution of zero crimes, and has reduced the rate of violent crime by absolutely nothing.) But the pragmatic discussion can only happen after the matters of fundamental principle have been addressed, and I’ve seen no one addressing them.

  9. Bat Chain Puller says:

    As is usually the case, the gun rights folks have the better facts and the logic and the controllers have the emotions and the insults. Both groups always have abundant hypothetical’s which shade from hysterical to plausible.

    Like the NRA, the gun rights folks usually run a tighter ship because this issue is really important to them and the controllers are sloppy because it’s just another one of the dozens of things they wish to control.

  10. Fiftycal says:

    It’s the National RIFLE Association, not the National REPUBLICAN Association. 4 words explain most of the situation. “Majority leader chucky schumer”. Most rabid anti-gun in Congress. Reid has kept anti-gun bills out of the process and gotten others put into law. Some people are trying to hijack the Tea Partys to adopt their religious superstition clauses of this or that. And they are the ones on TV News or blogs. But Tea Partiers want a balanced budget, lower taxes, an end to ridiculous porkbarrel spending and GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR LIVES!


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