The NRA Has Lost More Than a Million Members

[kpete]

The Reload: Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told attendees at the gun-rights group’s most recent board meeting that the organization is down to 4.3 million members… That represents a downturn of more than a million members since allegations of financial impropriety were leveled against LaPierre and other members of NRA leadership in 2019.

The NRA is now smaller than it has been since 2012 when internal documents show the group had 4 million members.

https://thereload.com/nra-has-lost-over-a-million-members-since-corruption-allegations-surfaced/
https://politicalwire.com/2023/02/10/the-nra-has-lost-more-than-a-million-members/

[Irish_Dem]

1. Good. But the damage is done. They did a good job for the PutinGOP.

Putin and the GOP funded the NRA to make the US a violent, murderous country.

[Lovie777]

2. Agreed...............

and extremely hateful sociopaths that want to destroy Democracy.

[Irish_Dem]

4. Yep. Make Americans loathe each other and give them guns.

And tell them democracy is bad. And overthrowing the gov't is good.

[2naSalit]

19. +1

[SoCalDavidS]

21. You Hit The Nail On It's Head

In America, guns are more important than human life.

[Irish_Dem]

26. Guns are sacred, people are worthless.

The US is a country which knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

[PatSeg]

33. Very well said

[judesedit]

41. So true and well said

[appalachiablue]

43. +2

[LastDemocratInSC]

7. From the Shining City on the Hill

to the equivalent of Somalia or Yemen where the people walk the streets with weapons of war slung over their shoulders and strapped to their hips.

[Irish_Dem]

9. Exactly. And they are making little assault rifles for children now.

So America arms its children.

All of this has been perfectly planned.

This is not accidental.

[3Hotdogs]

16. Wrong. the damage continues.

People, needlessly killed every day.

[Irish_Dem]

18. Yes but the point is that the NRA is no longer needed. It did its job perfectly.

It turned the US into a murdering, violent gun culture.

Where guns are sacred and people are worthless.

[3Hotdogs]

34. Summed up by "Joe, The Plumber." (Remember that asshole and his 15 minutes of fame?)

"Your dead kids don't trump my Constitutional rights."

That quote sums up the attitude of most of those assholes. That is what we are up against.

[Irish_Dem]

35. Exactly. Yes I remember him.

Dead American children mean nothing to them.
Yes that is what we are up against.

[Mad_Machine76]

39. You mean

His fifteen minutes of LAME?

[Amishman]

56. Not to mention many gunner shifted to other gun groups

Ones that are even more extreme.

Look at the lawsuits attacking gun safety laws over the past few years, it's not the NRA funding or leading most of them.

[Irish_Dem]

57. +1

[Bristlecone]

3. They stopped being a "members" organization long ago

It’s instead turned into a perverse, fetish organization that thrives by back channeling dark money from gun manufacturers and foreign adversaries into our political system.

The extravagance in spending can only be reconciled with the fore knowledge and impunity of corruption; pure hubris in knowing their funds are unlimited and effectively untraceable, and with likely more than 1/2 of the elected government in their pocket.

[RAB910]

5. It really doesn't matter, the NRA gets its power from the vast fortune the gun makers give them

[FSogol]

8. Gun makers and the Russians!

[RAB910]

14. Oops, forgot about Putin

[Buckeyeblue]

10. That's right. With just 4 million members they wouldn't have the influence that they do.

But the big money behind them, gun manufacturers and probably some conservative groups that like to use guns as a wedge issue, keep them propped up. And keep Wayne in his expensive suites.

[keithbvadu2]

22. Now it has become an industry owned shill for the sale of more guns and the enrichment of its leader

To the gun industry, dead children are merely collateral damage/acceptable losses for gun industry profits and political donations.

The NRA used to be for sportsmen, hunters and gun safety.

Now it has become an industry owned shill for the sale of more guns and the enrichment of its leaders.

[RAB910]

47. Very true

[KPN]

29. Not to mention Putin and his oligarchs.

[Tickle]

6. That is confusing

More people own guns than ever. I guess you can own a gun but not be a member ?

I don't' have a gun I always thought the two went hand in hand

[Lovie777]

11. Mid 40% of gun owners of the world are from........

The United States of America, and to my understanding most are not a member of the NRA.

[Joe Cool]

13. The percentage of Americans owning a gun has steadily declined over time.

There might be more Americans than ever who own a gun due to the population being bigger than ever but the percentage of Americans who own a gun has been dropping over time. So, there are now more Americans who have never owned a gun than at any point in history as another way of looking at things.

[Crowman2009]

36. Then there are the whackadoodles who own an entire basement-full of guns.

They need to be under observation since they are most likely to be potential mass shooters.

[Joe Cool]

12. The NRA has always inflated its true membership numbers

There might be 4.3 million members on paper, which is less than 1.5% of the American population, but there aren't 4.3 million members in reality. At guns shows, entry fees in the past have often included a lifetime membership to the NRA. Those who attend the gun show automatically become NRA members but never pay another cent to the organization. There are other examples of how the NRA inflates its actual membership numbers. The percentage of true NRA members is probably a lot less than 1% of the American populace. Finally, once an NRA members, always an NRA member. The NRA never deletes anyone who joins at any point from its rolls.

[DENVERPOPS]

51. And,

Don't forget the huge number of members of Russia's NRA...........

Russia's NRA members are composed of a few Russian Oligarchs who simply sent hundreds and hundreds of millions to the NRA "headquarters" to distribute among Republican candidates here in America......

It was a phony way of laundering ton's of Putin's oligarchs money into our political system....ie the Republican Party....

[IronLionZion]

15. They need to lose their influence over politicians

a small group of extremists are blocking any meaningful legislation to address mass shootings.

[TheRickles]

17. Several stats could put this in better context:

What % of Americans own guns - now and, say, 30 years ago?
What % of American guns owners are NRA members - now and, say, 30 years ago?

[fescuerescue]

20. That's 25% less power than what they had during the Obama administration

Where they had 5 million members.

At this rate, they will be down to zero by the mid 2030s.

[JohnnyRingo]

23. LaPierre stated membership at 4 million 3 years ago.

I remember it distinctly, and the media questioned how 4 million voters could be such a powerful lobby as to hold sway over the entire US legislative body.
Presented with this conundrum, LaPierre amended his statement to 4 million families.

Still, the AARP has almost 20 million members, so why do we have to pay so much for our meds? Shouldn't we have discounts to everything from movies to groceries?

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

40. The NRA's power, besides money

Is that they can motivate a large number of single issue voters. They can motivate voters who would otherwise sit out of an election. A large majority of gun rights supporters are single minded in their voting. You could present them a candidate who would support 99% of everything they love, but if they are antigun, then they will instantly support the the progun candidate despite being against everything else they like. AARP and other groups might have bigger membership rolls, but their members are not focused on one single issue that essentially controls their vote. Also, even though their membership is shrinking, the number of people who will listen to what they say and follow their voting recommendations haven't. The NRA's reach is beyond its membership. They may have only 4 million members, but 40 million gun owners will still listen to them and their voting recommendations.

[kevink077]

24. Good

Hopefully they will be gone for good

[keithbvadu2]

25. NRA dues and solicitations

NRA dues and solicitations
comment from a blog (DU I think)

I had a coworker who was a big time gun owner who kept a gun in every room in the house just in case someone broke in (lots of problems with that idea, may be worth a blog article someday, but that’s what he did). He even went so far as to start buying more guns for each room after a school shooting, like home invasion and mass shooting are correlated somehow. He had let his NRA membership lapse and refused to renew it because he got tired of nonstop requests for donations. To him all the membership did was give the NRA to badger him for more money with phone calls, and direct mailings. If the
organization is as strapped for cash as it appears, those solicitations may have gone way over the top and people are simply tired of being badgered for money and are choosing to let their membership to lapse.

[The Jungle 1]

27. Repeal the 2nd Amendment.

This needs to be our battle cry.

[SoCalDavidS]

31. That Is Sooooooo Unrealistic

We can’t even ban assault weapons.

Do you have any idea what it would take to repeal an amendment?

[The Jungle 1]

37. I am not saying it will happen.

I believe the political act of going for it would bring people to the table.
That said a lot of people insisted we would never change Roe! I know I did.
Many people said prohibition would never happen.
Many people said prohibition would never be repealed.
Women only got the right to vote in 1920. That was a long hard battle that many said would never happen. 1920 was the same year prohibition passed.
We did ban assault weapons! So we can do that.
If the magically shrinking republican tent continues to shrink where will we be in 10 years? I see no sign the right is going to change their tune and I see no migration to their point of view. Demographics are not the friend of repukes.

REPEAL THE 2nd We need to think big. The NRA membership is down 1 million members to just over 4.3 million total.

[gratuitous]

46. If not repeal, reinterpret the Second Amendment

We just had an object lesson in how "settled law" can be unsettled by shameless demagogues, as the Supreme Court turned women into second class citizens, unable to make their own health care decisions.

Will it take 50 years to bring the "well-regulated" primacy of the Second Amendment language to the fore? Maybe, but I think it will take less time than that.

[MissMillie]

28. Decrease in membership is indeed about financial impropriety--not about the guns

There's still plenty of gun lovers, they're just not willing to give LaPierre their money. (And they shouldn't, obviously.)

[Straw Man]

59. Bingo.

Decrease in membership is indeed about financial impropriety--not about the guns

There's still plenty of gun lovers, they're just not willing to give LaPierre their money. (And they shouldn't, obviously.)

There is a growing consensus that Wayne Lapierre and others in the NRA leadership are more interested in feathering their own nests than in defending the rights of gun owners. Some of those leaving the NRA are moving over to groups than are even more hardline and politically active, like GOA (Gun Owners of America).

[Historic NY]

30. How many Russians...

sane people leaving?

[underpants]

32. I have family who hunt and they've been DONE with the NRA for a while

I think it was around Columbine when they said the NRA has just gone too far.

[niyad]

38. So wayne was accused of financial misdealings, huge numbers, and he is STILL

head of putin's little group of loyalists?

[thenelm1]

54. Pretty amazing isn't it? That guy's "sell by" date expired 20 years ago...

[Scalded Nun]

42. Sure would be nice enough to see them shrink down to where they can be drowned in a bathtub

[lindysalsagal]

44. No idea, but my hunch might be more about the mass shootings than the malfeasance

But I have no way of verifying that.

[Chainfire]

45. Yet, the NRA still get what it wants...Not because of the number of members, but because of how much

money is made on guns, ammo and accessories. Florida is about to become the 26th state to have "Constitutional Carry." There just aren't enough guns on the streets yet. In the near future the stories will be headed, "Armed Florida Man..."

https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/constitutional-carry-gun-bill-moves-in-florida-legislature/

[Edwcraig]

48. The NRA is an Anti-American Organization of seditious traitors. . .

advocating that a well armed anti-democratic minority that disagrees with the will of the majority has the right to use the force of arms against any and all legal representatives of that majority to disobey any laws they disagree with.

PS. They are funded by anti-democratic entities such as Russia.

[Aristus]

49. The article blames 'financial impropriety'.

I would have thought they had just all shot each other.

[Blue Owl]

50. The cold rain of pain falls mainly on Wayne

[SYFROYH]

52. I think they lost a lot of left leaning indies and Democrats due to Trump.

I never heard much grumbling about the excessive spending.

[Emile]

53. Hopefully the downward spiral continues

until it is forever gone!

[Skittles]

55. they represent paranoid gun humping ASSHOLES

THAT'S ALL THEY REPRESENT

[republianmushroom]

58. thoughts and prayers but...

When you lose another 4 million the world will be a better place.