@Ron_C Thanks. I too feel honored to support several listed organizations.
@ucme Roger that. :-)
@SuperMouse Thanks for finding the list now that it’s been scrubbed from the NRA site.
@Pandora You’ve put your finger on it. The NRA used to be an advocacy group for gun owners and sports enthusiasts interested in hunting or target practice. By simply advocating for that constituency, they could fulfill their real purpose, which is to constantly push for more gun sales. They are, in truth, a trade association funded by and beholden to the gun and gun accessory industries.
What’s changed is who is buying guns. The curve of households having a gun has gone down in the USA over the last 20 years, but the curve of the number of guns owned by US citizens has risen consistently. That means that fewer and fewer people are buying guns. But those that are buying are building large caches of weapons, accessories and ammunition. The market is now fueled by paranoia. So to drive the market, the NRA now appeals to fear of the “Jack Booted Thugs” that are the nation’s law enforcers. La Pierre paints dystopian pictures of a Mad Max world to come where only the most massively armored among us will survive. The job is still to sell as many guns as possible for the real money men behind the NRA, the gun industry. But the changing market demographics have required the NRA to adopt the preaching of wold paranoia. Selling guns requires stoking the terror of the cowards who are convinced the UN has an army and black helicopters pour out of the New York UN Headquarters at night, ready at any moment to round up all the guns so we can be herded into FEMA reeducation camps.
@ragingloli Yeah, I took it that is what @Pandora meant. Let’s let her live… This time.
@SadieMartinPaul Indeed. As noted above, it’s no longer about the members. It’s all about the people who supply the real funding. And a utterly crazy NRA acts as a heat shield for the real corporate money behind the NRA.