As left-wing advocacy groups and its mainstream media allies continue their daily bombardment of the National Rifle Association (NRA), desperately seeking to make gun enthusiast groups a scapegoat for the Parkland high school massacre, it now appears their efforts have embarrassingly backfired, having only succeeded in dramatically boosting memberships in the NRA and pro-gun groups, according to Time (magazine).
Over the past two weeks, leftist organizations mounted an all-out assault on the NRA, terrorizing their corporate partners on social media who offer discounts for NRA members. We have seen this before; the tactic is part of a Democrat-led agenda, and for the most part, it worked, as major corporations across the entire United States were forced through public and internal pressures to sever their NRA relationship.
According to CNN, here are some of the companies that have distanced themselves from the NRA over the past few weeks:
-
Delta Air Lines: Delta said it’s ending discounted flights for NRA members. The airline said the decision reflected “the airline’s neutral status in the current debate over gun control.” Since then, Delta has faced a backlash from Georgia Republicans, who have responded by saying blocking a state tax break that would benefit the carrier.
-
Avis Budget Group: Avis and Budget Rent a Car, which are owned by Avis Budget Group (CAR), said that both brands will stop offering discounts on car rentals to NRA members beginning March 26.
-
First National Bank of Omaha: The bank said it will stop issuing an NRA-branded Visa card. A bank spokesperson said “customer feedback” prompted a review of its partnership with the NRA, and it chose not to renew its current contract.
-
MetLife: The insurance giant said it’s ending discounts on home and auto insurance for NRA members.
-
TrueCar: The car buying service said its partnership with the NRA would end February 28.
-
United Airlines: United will no longer offer discounts on flights to the NRA’s annual meeting.
Left-wing organizations claimed immediate success and indeed won the battle over the past few weeks. Time (magazine) indicates the war is far from over, as the NRA and gun rights groups across the country have seen a surge in new members.
Well, that was not supposed to happen...
This is not surprising said Time (magazine), who indicate “such increases happen whenever people feel their Second Amendment rights are under threat, and many groups reported similar surges after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.”
Here is an example:
“Wake up people and see what’s happening!!!!,” Charles Cotton, a member of the NRA Board of Directors, wrote on a message board, TexasCHLforum.com, a site described as “the focal point for Texas firearms information and discussions, earlier this week. “[Former New York Mayor Michael] Bloomberg and Hollywood are pouring money into this effort and the media is helping to the fullest extent. We’ve never had this level of opposition before, not ever. It’s a campaign of lies and distortion, but it’s very well funded and they are playing on the sympathy factor of kids getting killed. If you really want to make a difference, then start recruiting NRA members every single day.”
“The NRA better be 15 million strong soon, or this is only going to get worse,” Cotton, who did not respond to a request for comment from Time (magazine), added on the message board.
Over a dozen plus leaders from gun rights organizations and shooting associations in California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia told Time (magazine) their membership base has seen a dramatic increase since the February 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 killed and 16 wounded or injured.
According to Time (magazine), two sources familiar with the internals of the NRA, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said since the horrific shooting in Florida, memberships and donations have increased “more than usual.”
And two people familiar with the workings of the NRA, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss membership numbers, said that since the shooting the NRA has also seen more people than usual join, renew memberships or donate money as President Donald Trump and other Republican Party leaders have signaled an openness to gun control policies that are anathema to the powerful group. A spokesperson for the NRA, which says on its website that it has more than five million members, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“As soon as anti-gun attacks started coming in on Twitter, Facebook, and in the media, we began to hear from people who didn’t even own guns who wanted to join up or contribute out of solidarity in defense of the Second Amendment to the Constitution,” said Patrick Parsons, who heads the Georgia Gun Owners, an independent gun rights organization in Georgia. Parsons added the group’s membership, which he estimated at 13,000, had increased by 1,000 after the Florida shooting, and that he had been “working around the clock taking calls, answering emails from interested people, sending out new member packets.”
Time (magazine) also documented Dudley Brown, the president of the National Association for Gun Rights, which he estimates his entire organization could have “grown by 30%” since the February mass shooting in Florida.
Dudley Brown, the president of the National Association for Gun Rights, estimated his organization — which claims more than 4.5 million “members and supporters” on its website — estimated online membership applications at his organization could have grown by 30% over the last week, a number he expected to rise after Trump this week called for comprehensive gun reform legislation, including raising the age limit for buying certain weapons to 21. The Connecticut Citizens Defense League, which has a membership of almost 29,000 people, said it typically gets 15 or 20 applications a week, but received almost 200 in the last week.
Gun Owners of America, which says it has 1.5 million members, amassed “hundreds” of new members in the last week, according to an official at the organization familiar with membership numbers who spoke on condition of anonymity. The organization said it has seen it’s membership grow by thousands since the Las Vegas shooting last October. Don Turner, the President of the Nevada Firearms Coalition and NRA member, estimated membership renewals and requests had increased by 20 percent at his organization since Parkland, although this is an increase he said he did not witness after the shooting in Las Vegas.
Perhaps, the statement below is crucial in understanding why the NRA and gun rights groups are experiencing an influx of new members and support:
“Gun owners themselves weren’t being demonized [after Las Vegas]” Turner explained. “But after the Florida shooting, there was a definite push to demonize honest gun owners and to demonize the NRA. And I think that’s what’s provoked their response.”
Time (magazine) provides historical data and specifies that after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the NRA added nearly 100,000 new members in 18 days.
After the deadly 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, when the gun control debate also reached a fever pitch, the NRA said it had gained 100,000 members in 18 days; NRA executive Wayne LaPierre announced that May that the organization’s membership had reached 5 million, although that claim is impossible to independently verify since membership rolls and figures are not publicly released. NRA tax filings from 2013, published by ProPublica, show that in 2013, overall revenue increased by more than 35% from the previous year, with a nearly $10 million increase in contributions. Revenue from membership growth from 2012 to 2013 increased by nearly $70 million, and the percentage of membership dues contributing to total revenue growth increased from 42 percent to 50 percent, the tax filings show.
So far, experts who closely monitor gun rights groups said the NRA has remained quiet about its internal membership numbers after the Florida shooting, nevertheless, the unconfirmed surge in members demonstrates the grassroots mobilizing power that is still key to the NRA’s influence.
“It’s not just a gun lobby, it’s much bigger than that,” said Scott Melzer, a sociology professor at Albion Colege who has spent almost a decade researching the NRA and is the author of Gun Crusaders: The NRA’s Culture War.
“It relies on the support of a very large and activist membership base, and that base and that movement is connected to the broader conservative movement,” he added.
A gun rights activist, Cleta Mitchell, an NRA member and former Oklahoma state lawmaker who sat on the NRA’s board from 2002 to 2013, stated in an email to Time (magazine):
“You can rest assured that the NRA will not lose a single member as a result of this. “If anything, it should spur people to join the NRA as a means of demonstrating that we who believe in the Second Amendment will not be bullied by these left wing multi-billion dollar corporations.”
What left-wing advocacy groups and their mainstream media counterparts neglect to understand is that by thrusting the NRA to the center stage of the gun control debate, the leftist have given the second amendment supporters a way to fight back by providing further support to the gun rights group. Once again, the mainstream media has vastly underestimated the silent majority of Americans by humiliating millions of law-abiding gun owners.
Google Trends reveals the true state of how American’s feel about pro-gun groups:
Americans search term for “how to join the NRA” has exploded since the Parkland shooting and breached above its Sandy Hook highs in 2012:
Americans are frantically searching for ways on how to “donate to NRA.”
The search term “NRA membership” has reached new highs as well…
Contrary to the mainstream media’s narrative, the search term “support the NRA” has seen a parabolic since the Parkland shooting.
Comments
The more memberships the better.
Great!
Every time the Gun Grabbers trot out another cause to "Save the Children" (usu in the form of a 'school shooting') I go out and buy another box of ammo, gun, or gun accessory, or spare part.
Just like advertisers, these creeps don't seem to get the fact that their propaganda has the opposite effect on people like me.
In reply to The more the better. by FreeShitter
Gee, I wonder if the same good (((folks))) who run these false flags & hoaxes also own the gun corporations.....
It's all Punch & Judy. Those with power profit from both sides of the chaos & when your strings are pulled, you dance & call it virtue
In reply to Great! Death to Gun-Grabbers by Croesus
NRA supports RINO candidates. When back in 2008 they called me asking for donation, I told them I will donate if they endorse Ron Paul and the lady on the other end of the line started flipping out and hung up.
In reply to Gee, I wonder if the same… by house biscuit
GOA and JPFO are better organizations.
In reply to NRA supports RINO candidates… by Belrev
..just watch the anti-1st and 2nd Amendment Nazis see their revenues shrink.
..as well as the support of the other liberal Marxist institutional swamp denizens
In reply to GOA and JPFO are better… by e_goldstein
This is part of the left's "othering" campaign. They want to turn everybody who doesn't enthusiastically embrace their globalist agenda into a non-person. Non-persons are much easier to kill.
And, this is the reason you should never give up your guns.
Forward (over the cliff)!
In reply to ..just watch the anti-1st… by Manthong
Who cares about how many people join the NRA- do they have the votes?
In reply to This is part of the left's … by Bad Attitude
Owning a GUN is a double-edged sword.
In reply to Who cares about how many… by dasein211
Joined NAGR as a result of the article. Thanks for confirming they are number two compared to the other similar name that is number 3 or 4. Always thought this group did better work than NRA.
In reply to Owning a GUN is a double… by stizazz
PT yesterday, range time today
In reply to Joined NAGR as a result of… by RAT005
Votes don't matter: they're just Kabuki. Nobody has any proof that any vote they ever cast was actually counted.
In reply to Who cares about how many… by dasein211
I would have said that this was crazy a decade ago but every day brings us closer to it. Soon we may see South African style attacks on whites in the US.
In reply to This is part of the left's … by Bad Attitude
For the children.., who the hell are they trying to kid.
1700 partial birth abortions every year.., not a peep.
Chicago loses more kids every weekend.., not a whimper.
In reply to ..just watch the anti-1st… by Manthong
Black crime... accounts for about all the shit that's happening in America.
OOOHHHH!!! A RASCIST!!!!
Fuck that, about time to call a pig a pig.
In reply to For the children.., who the… by gmrpeabody
...or a spade a spade.
In reply to Black crime... accounts for… by Sudden Debt
Since the second amendment is an amendment to the constitution, not a original part of the constitution.
It could be possible to amend that amendment with a simple text where it is stated that everyone in the US can buy a gun, except certified lunatics and dangerous criminals.
There are 33 amendments to the constitution.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_Stat…
27 of them have been ratified.
In reply to ..just watch the anti-1st… by Manthong
It's possible, but not likely. And a properly ratified amendment has the same force of law as the Constitution.
In reply to Since the second amendment… by Griffin
Maybe if this issue is resolved, it might be clever to clarify what kind of people should be allowed to become lawmakers, excluding coma patients, mentally challenged, both semi and fully.
In reply to It's possible, but not… by StolenFuture
this is the type of person that looks down the barrel of their gun, just b'cuz...
In reply to Since the second amendment… by Griffin
The Bill of RIGHTS is NOT negotiable!
In reply to Since the second amendment… by Griffin
True, but the NRA still has the numbers and the clout, so even if you prefer the GOA and/or the JPFO you still need an NRA membership because they are seen by the general public as the spokesmen for gun owners and the 2nd.
Additionally, it is best that these organizations be seen to present a united front.
In reply to GOA and JPFO are better… by e_goldstein
Yeah. I joined after the Florida FF, even though I've got a lot more time (and money) for organizations like the 2nd amendment foundation, calguns, and the firearms policy coalition, because the NRA is the symbol.
In reply to True, but the NRA still has… by waspwench
The NRA is nothing but a cult of personality for Wayne LaPierre, they long since stopped being about the 2nd A. This is coming from an NRA member.
In reply to Yeah. I joined after the… by Socratic Dog
Correct...NO compromises!
In reply to GOA and JPFO are better… by e_goldstein
Very true but watch out for NAGR. It is the "Scientology" of gun rights groups.
In reply to GOA and JPFO are better… by e_goldstein
JPFO..... now thats fuckin funny....
In reply to GOA and JPFO are better… by e_goldstein
And now you support President “Stretch Face.”
LOL!!
In reply to NRA supports RINO candidates… by Belrev
better than president stretch culo
In reply to And now you support… by Simplifiedfrisbee
This is not the time to fuss about principles, The 2nd needs all the support we can give it. No matter if you have a beef with the NRA, just hold your nose and join. It is a way of standing up and being counted and that is what is most important right now.
In reply to NRA supports RINO candidates… by Belrev
They focus on votes in support of second amendment rights, I don’t expect them to go beyond that in their lobbying
In reply to NRA supports RINO candidates… by Belrev
Ding ding ding, http://mileswmathis.com/guru.pdf
That's where I find the humour
In reply to Gee, I wonder if the same… by house biscuit
Winner, winner, chicken dinner! This article is quoting Time magazine, for Pete's sake! It's a pump and dump to stem the red ink of bankruptcy. From 2/12/18, 2 days before the shooting.
"Firearm background checks declined faster in 2017 than in any year since 1998, when the FBI first began compiling the data."
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/beleaguered-gun-maker-remington-fi…
2/13/18
"The bankruptcy is a blow to the private-equity mogul Stephen Feinberg, who has been a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump. Feinberg’s firm, Cerberus Capital Management, acquired Remington in 2007 and subsequently saddled it with almost $1 billion in debt. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing will let Remington stay in business--while it works out a plan--to turn around the company and pay its creditors."
https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/13/gun-maker-remington-prepares-for-…
In reply to Gee, I wonder if the same… by house biscuit
Those mothers (Remington) bought Marlin about 10 years ago, and turned their fine lever-actions into junk. Then again, they also doubled the value of anything Marlin had previously made. A 1984 in .357 that cost $150 15 years ago now goes for $800 or more on Gunbroker.
In reply to Winner, winner, chicken… by daveO
Interesting theory Biscuit. Just like the MIC. They help foment wars and then the government has to float them billions in cash to keep it going. Could be true about gun companies. No evidence to support it yet.
In reply to Gee, I wonder if the same… by house biscuit
i re-upped and i dont really like to join anything. just because the bill of rights is not negotiable
In reply to Great! Death to Gun-Grabbers by Croesus
NRA membership is important, because they are the largest. Gun Owners of America keeps the heat on the NRA due to it's hardcore no compromise stance. To join both costs $50/yr. for basic memberships, a relatively small price to pay to battle Bloomberg and Soros billions.
In reply to i re-upped and i dont really… by stant
Seems like they have weaponized the children. The newest talking point is that old people have destroyed the world for the young. More division. Rich vs poor, women vs men, white vs all others, and now old vs young.
In reply to Great! Death to Gun-Grabbers by Croesus
The People have spoken...
In reply to The more the better. by FreeShitter
The Oscars coverage tonight sounds like it's going to be a multi hour free primetime telethon for pro 2nd Amendment groups.
The Libtards just don't get it...
In reply to The more the better. by FreeShitter
Let's just call it the Oscar Weinstein Show...
In reply to The Oscars coverage tonight… by Normalcy Bias
DO NOT WATCH THE OSCARS.
We need to cut off the money to these idiots. The only thing they care about is money. Hit them where it hurts. Boycott their films, don't click on stories about them in articles on the web, don't comment about them unless they are supporting conservative ideology, keep your kids away from buying stuff they endorse, etc. Starve the beast.
In reply to Let's just call it the Oscar… by espirit
Ahhh . . . this reminded me to contact my local gun club about my annual membership renewal. They've usually sent out the form by now, but I didn't get it.
I'm already an NRA Life Member and member of Gunowners of America (GOA)
In reply to The more the better. by FreeShitter
There's couldn't have been a better example of why to keep all your guns than the gross bungling and miss-handling by govt officials in the Florida shooting. We're supposed to let these ass clowns protect us????
In reply to The more the better. by FreeShitter
I re-oiled my Glock that I use for concealed carry. Now I'm ready.
Ready to what?
Post hollow rhetoric anonymously & feel like you have a real dick?
Give me a break
In reply to I re-oiled my Glock that I… by MrNoItAll
With 200 million americans owning 300 million guns, if USA has not had a revolution by now, it never will, because Americans have no courage to risk all their houses and cars and college for kids for the sake of Revolution, the great White Revolution.
In reply to Ready to what?… by house biscuit
Another way of saying that is 'stable society'. We have had a good one, no need for revolution.
There still isn't, quite. We gave the Republicans a chance to restore the Republic. If they don't take it, there will be a need.
In reply to With 200 million americans… by Belrev
Well the tipping point may be when the govt tries to take away the houses and cars and guns. The guns obviously being the first move. Which is why communist govts dont let their folks have guns.
In reply to Another way of saying that… by lew1024
Ready to shoot a commie buttfucker in the dick in self-defense?
In reply to Ready to what?… by house biscuit
Pagination