Newsweek did an article where they tried to dismiss the NRA based on the idea that the number of members is smaller than people believed. Not only was the article wildly, factually, inaccurate–a creation of pure wishful thinking if not deliberate disinformation–but, to be blunt, it really does not matter.
The anti-freedom Democrats (but I repeat myself) want to paint the NRA as the cause of opposition to their gun grabbing. If it’s the cause, if they can just defeat “the NRA” then they win. Only the NRA (and GOA and 2AF and other groups) isn’t cause, they’re effect of ordinary citizens who actually care about their rights, including RKBA. The NRA’s membership is modest on the national scale. Their political funding paltry compared to others. What they bring to the table is a lot of people who vote at least in part based on candidates’ support of RKBA–and the NRA helps, imperfectly perhaps but at least to some extent, to make people aware of where those Candidates stand on issues. In short, there are a lot of people–NRA members or not–who will vote based on those NRA ratings of politicians.
It’s not the money they offer to politicians that gives them their power. It’s not even the number of actual members. It’s the number of people who use them as a touchstone for whether or not a candidate is a “good” one to vote for on RKBA issues.
The NRA’s power comes from the fact that many people do support RKBA. But the anti-freedom Democrats (once again, I repeat myself) simply cannot wrap their heads around that so they try to convince themselves that it’s the other way around.
The very definition of “cart before the horse” in its original sense.
It’s easy to think there is a leadership to defeat if there IS a leadership – the way they tend to. It’s ‘safer’ and more comforting for them to think this because the alternative is much, much scarier.
At least that’s what I’ve come to observe.
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They have to have a reason that they lose elections. It can’t be that their candidates are poorly chosen or their platforms are unpopular, but must be an external factor. It wasn’t that long ago that many Democrats also received good marks from the NRA on firearms issues, but over the last few decades there has been a significant trend for the Democrats to not support RKBA.
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Indeed, they have effect and cause confused as you can ‘thank’ D. H. of FL for my recently joining the NRA.
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