[center]Who is the NRA?
Tanya K. Metaksa | FrontPageMagazine.com | January 15, 2002[/center]
[url]http://www.frontpagemag.com/columnists/metaksa/2002/metaksa01-14-02.htm[/url]
MANY WRITE vituperatively about the National Rifle Association (NRA), but when an editorial appears that is so blatantly ignorant about the organization and its 4 million members, it’s time to respond. The latest anti-NRA diatribe was composed by Terry Bass of Prescott, Arizona and published in the Prescott, Arizona Daily Courier and on its website.
Terry begins by saying that he and his best friend Jeff are both ardent Second Amendment supporters, but Jeff is an NRA member and Terry isn’t. He is not an NRA member because:
"I find, in trying to reconcile my other strongly held beliefs with the NRA, and their brand of Second Amendment supporters … that I can’t. I am not willing to sacrifice the environment, ally myself with those that would build a Wal-Mart in my favorite hiking spot, allow special interests to raid our treasury and control our government, mine the Grand Canyon, and trash the rest of our Constitution, just so I can own a gun."
What irresponsible hate mongering. NRA is not an organization that supports sacrificing the environment, mining the Grand Canyon, or building a Wal-Mart in anyone’s favorite hiking spot. It is an organization that has supported conservation both legislatively and financially long before today’s liberals and Terry were in diapers.
Just recently the NRA supported the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), which was opposed by many conservatives among its members. In support of CARA, the NRA chief lobbyist, James Jay Baker, wrote, "NRA has supported CARA since it was first introduced in 1998 by Congressman Don Young (R-Alaska). All national conservation and hunting organizations are on record in support of CARA." Where did Terry get his information?
Terry’s problem is that most politicians who agree with him on liberal issues disagree with him on gun rights; so he blames the NRA. "NRA-approved political candidates…are virtually all right-wing conservatives (often radically so…The NRA says they support these people based solely on their advocacy of the Second Amendment. Is it necessary, then to elect these right-wing ideologues, all in the name of protecting the Second Amendment? I think not."
Yes, Terry it is. For NRA to support politicians that try to destroy Second Amendment rights is foolhardy. NRA works with and supports those politicians that support firearms’ freedom no matter what their political or other affiliations.
Their support of any candidate is based only on his or her Second Amendment principles. They have over the past several decades worked with NRA Life Member Representative John Dingell of Michigan, a very liberal Democrat, as well as others whom Terry might support. Unfortunately, over the past several decades, the number of Democrats who support the Second Amendment has dwindled.