Colorado passes Gun Control Laws

[Lemur]

The NRA gets the vast majority of its money from manufacturers, not members. Hence its ability to sell cut-rate memberships for months on end. Hence its willingness to go against the will of its members, 74% of whom are in favor of universal background checks.

ICSD, if you think the NRA is working for you, you are deluded. You are one of the 90% of Americans and 74% of NRA members in favor of universal background checks. The fact that you're now reversing yourself on a slim talking point is ... revealing.

On the interesting side, I do believe the NRA and its boot-licking minions in the Republican party have overreached. This will have consequences.

-edit-

Doing a little more reading, looks like the relationship between the NRA and manufacturers is more complicated than I'm making it out to be. Nevertheless, the central point stands: The NRA does not represent its members, but rather a fringe-right extremist policy underwritten by manufacturers, not dues-paying members. Like Republican congressmen in gerrymandered states, the NRA only fears challenges from the right. The 90% of Americans who favor universal background checks are just background noise to these extremists. And talking-point parroting drama enthusiasts like ICSD are what Stalin would call "useful idiots."

The companies that make and market firearms might prefer a softer tone, but they rarely complain publicly about NRA fear mongering because it’s been so good for business. Corporate donations to the NRA, which together with its affiliates has annual revenue of $250 million, have risen during the past decade, a period when the organization has taken increasingly absolutist positions. Still, it’s not the industry that muscles the NRA.

“NRA leadership worries about two things above all else: perpetuating controversy to stimulate fundraising from individual members and protecting its right flank from the real crazies,” says Richard Feldman, author of a feisty 2007 memoir, Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist. Feldman has worked in various capacities for both the NRA and the industry. “The idea that the NRA follows orders from the gun companies is a joke,” he says. “If anything, it’s the other way around.” [...]

Gun companies defer to the NRA for two main reasons: First, there’s intimidation. The lobby group has incited potentially ruinous consumer boycotts against firearm makers that fail to follow the NRA line with sufficient zeal. Second, regardless of some executives’ concerns about civil discourse, gun companies benefit financially from the NRA’s hype. Alarms about imminent gun confiscation—an NRA staple, despite its implausibility—reliably send firearm owners back to retail counters. Sales are booming. Mossberg is running three shifts a day. “Demand,” Bartozzi says, “is very strong.”