NRA Members Pressuring Organization To Resist ChimpCo Energy Policies - WP

[hatrack]

SEATTLE -- After years of close association with the Republican Party and hard-nosed opposition to federal land-use regulation, the National Rifle Association is being pressured by its membership to distance itself from President Bush's energy policies that have opened more public land for oil and gas drilling and limited access to hunters and anglers. "The Bush administration has placed more emphasis on oil and gas than access rights for hunters," said Ronald L. Schmeits, second vice president of the NRA, a member of its board of directors and a bank president in Raton, N.M.

The new emphasis on the issue of access to public lands, which Schmeits said is at the "discussion" level among the NRA's directors, would represent a strategic shift for the NRA, whose leadership in Washington has long maintained that its 4 million members were not complaining or even asking questions about access to public lands. But, during the past six years, an increasing number of the country's 46 million hunters and anglers, including Republican-leaning shooting organizations such as the Boone and Crockett Club, have been grumbling about the Bush's administration fast-tracking of oil and gas drilling leases on public lands.

EDIT

This comes at a politically challenging time for what has long been one of the most feared lobbying groups in Washington. The NRA is increasingly being criticized as out of touch by some members of the Outdoor Writers Association of America. A new gun ownership group is trying to win the support of disaffected hunters. Also, there is some complaining within the gun industry that NRA policies might be bad for business. "The core, the dream, the passion that drives gun ownership is hunting and getting out on the wide open spaces," said a senior gun company executive who did not want to be quoted by name for fear of retribution from the NRA. "In the same way the Bush administration has overreached on Iraq, the NRA has overreached on gun rights. We are losing our grip on this green environmental thing."

(ED. - Yes, "this green environmental thing" - it's called the "biosphere". It's where the plants and animals live, asshat.

The NRA found new strength and increased membership with its battles against gun control during the Clinton era, while cementing ties with the Republican Party. An NRA official was videotaped boasting in 2000 that the association would open an office in the Bush White House. No such office opened, but close identification now with an unpopular president and a party that has lost control of Congress may be hurting the NRA.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/06/AR2007010601300.html

[Fovea]

1. Here is a place where triangulation

does not sell out core Democratic party principles.

Sport shooters, anglers, and hunters are being affected by this. More of these folks are in the center than one might suspect.

The more they self identify as eco-positive the closer they come to our party.

[tularetom]

2. good luck dumbasses

The NRA doesn't give a flying fuck about the wishes of the average gun owner or sportsman. They give even less of a fuck about preserving habitat. It's a lobbying organization for the firearms industry and as such is closely aligned with extractive industries like timber and mining. They're also in the repubs pocket and I wouldn't trust them not to turn over their membership rolls to the * administration if it was decided that citizen's ownership of firearms needed to be curtailed. What better way to find out who owned guns, eh? I'm a gun owner and sometime hunter and I say fuck the NRA.

[Parisle]

4. The NRA is due for some surprises

--- It is the Bush administration,.. far more than the most pacifist democrats,.. that wants guns OUT of the hands of ordinary citizens. If not for the 2nd Amendment, we would probably already be in a one-man dictatorship.

[havocmom]

3. People I know who joined NRA years ago and since hate direction it has gone

are telling me the organization is doing a LOT of calling asking for more $$ to lobby with.

I have friends who have not contributed to the NRA in DECADES, but the NRA considers ALL members as life-time members, so they don't stop trying to get more $$.

Perhaps the NRA will be worth considering again if enough 'life-time members' keep telling them to start being responsible again or no bucks. For too long, the NRA has been a tool and another high profile emotional trigger to divert attention from the real evils the GOP has been up to.

The lapsed membership being blunt to the fund raising phone calls will likely have an impact.

Ditto AARP. It was taken over by GOP/Insurance operatives and us gray warriors need to bitch slap the organization back to being a good citizen instead of a tool.

[jody]

5. AARP is anti-gun. Their position re “PERSONAL AND LEGAL RIGHTS” says,

PERSONAL AND LEGAL RIGHTS • 13

Congress should eliminate gaps in and strengthen enforcement of the Brady
Act and other federal gun laws.

States should enact legislation to eliminate gaps in and strengthen
enforcement of federal and state gun laws, particularly with regard to
possession by juveniles, convicted domestic abusers and those under
domestic violence restraining orders.

[havocmom]

6. Not talking about their gun position, but about the fact that they were taken over

buy pro-corporate neocon tools.

[jody]

7. IMO neocons fund groups on both sides of divisive issues to keep single issue

voters distracted while they pass laws with bipartisan support to enrich themselves.