General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The important thing right now is that we not offend the nation's gun apologists [View all]branford
(4,462 posts)I simply looked it up a while ago in response to similar discussions. [I'm not a gun owner or member of the NRA]
You should also note that NRA membership is often provided free with certain firearm and related purchases, and even required as part of membership at certain shooting ranges and clubs, mostly because of generous insurance incentives and legal and other support.
The NRA and NRA-ILA are obviously related, influence one another, and share officers and personnel, but the separation is clear due to legal technicalities and tax rules for non-profits and PAC's. I would imagine if the NRA dues paying membership shifted their political priorities, so would the NRA-ILA, albeit slowly, but this would be a near insurmountable task given the very intentionally established roadblocks to such a strategy.
Further, the NRA is not nearly as omnipotent a people seem to suggest. They have about 5 million members, out of 80-100+ million legal gun owners in the USA. If sufficient numbers of gun owners and their supporters opposed most NRA positions, they would quickly become marginalized. The NRA is also not even responsible for some of the largest recent gun rights victories. For instance, the Second Amendment Foundation was almost exclusively responsible for the Heller and McDonald Supreme Court decisions.
Although I admittedly support gun rights with certain restrictions (largely in accordance with the actual Democratic Platform), I believe that making the NRA the boogeyman of the gun control movement is self-defeating and unproductive. It empowers them politically and helps with membership drives and fundraising, unnecessarily permits an easy excuse for legislative and judicial failures, and makes compromise on matters of real firearm safety all the more difficult.