Why does the NRA not have a progressive Pro-Gun keynote speaker?

[VoteProgressive]

Many here who are pro-NRA and pro-CCW tend to point out how open minded the NRA is and are not against the progressive cause. They endorse Dems, etc. I disagree with that and here is the reason. Here is a list of the last five NRA keynote speakers:

2011 - Mike Huckabee
2010 - Sarah Palin
2009 - Oliver North
2008 - Glen Beck
2007 - John Bolton

the list of minor speakers is even more right wing nuts.

Now, if you REALLY wanted to get democratic support and really were a politically open group, why would you pick this list of offensive GOP people? Glen Beck? That is who you pick to open up the group to progressive members? If this group is not a political right wing group, why do they pick speakers that 100% offends the left? Do they really want pro-gun liberal dems to attend the meeting? I do not know a real progressive who would attend and watch Sarah Palin speak. I would find it insulting.

I am not an anti-gun liberal. I am an anti-right wing nut liberal. But the NRA has almost 100% tied themselves to the GOP and the extreme right of the GOP.

Who has thought of attending the meetings but cannot stand the right wing leaning of the whole event? Many I assume.

Face it, if they had a liberal, but pro-Gun keynote speaker, they would have a membership uprising on their hands. So, instead of taking the brave step of doing that, they choose to continue to insult and offend progressive NRA members by picking some extreme right wing GOP speakers.

It will be interesting to see the responses to this post. I have not insulted any gun owners. I have not attacked the right to carry guns or attacked the 2nd amendment. Lets see how this goes.

[tabasco]

1. Because they are a radical right-wing group moreso than a gun rights group

[VoteProgressive]

3. I tend to agree. And they could change that easily.

[AnOhioan]

8. +1

[Taitertots]

2. Who should they have selected? Name one person who could take up this challenge n/t

[dsc]

4. bernie sanders

[CreekDog]

11. uh no

Voted NO on decreasing gun waiting period from 3 days to 1.
Vote to pass a bill requiring anyone who purchases a gun at a gun show to go through an instant background check which must be completed within 24 hours .

Rated F by the NRA, indicating a pro-gun control voting record.
Sanders scores F by NRA on pro-gun rights policies

http://www.ontheissues.org/domestic/Bernie_Sanders_Gun_Control.htm

by the way, the NRA isn't just an anti-gun control organization, they are a gun marketing organization.

[geckosfeet]

16. Uh, Vermont has some of the most open gun laws in the northeast.

Supporting sensible regulation is much more sane that supporting no regulation.

Read more: Gun laws in the United States (by state)

Vermont has very few gun control laws. Gun dealers are required to keep a record of all handgun sales. It is illegal to carry a gun on school property or in a courthouse. State law preempts local governments from regulating the possession, ownership, transfer, carrying, registration or licensing of firearms.

The term "Vermont Carry" is widely used by gun rights advocates to refer to allowing citizens to carry a firearm concealed or openly without any sort of permit requirement, however this term is being replaced by the term "Constitutional Carry". Vermont law does not distinguish between residents and non-residents of the state; both have the same right to carry while in Vermont.

The Vermont Constitution of 1775, dating well before the Bill of Rights to a time when Vermont was an independent republic, guarantees certain freedoms and rights to the citizens: "That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State — and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power."

Why wouldn't we want to hear him speak?

[CreekDog]

18. i agree

i just disagreed that Bernie was liberal enough on guns for the NRA.

the NRA has tried to get the tooth fairy to leave a gun under kids' pillows after they lose a tooth.

[geckosfeet]

19. Well of course - present NRA leadership is far out of step with mainstream gun owners.

[friendly_iconoclast]

33. Really? I'd be interested in hearing why you believe this to be so.

[geckosfeet]

49. I believe that they are far to right leaning. And far too militant. This may appeal

to some gun owners, but I don't think that they appeals to the majority of gun owners, and I KNOW they don't appeal to liberal gun owners.

I mean for christ's sake. Anyone who panders to the NRA is qualified to be a guest speaker? Some of those past speakers are borderline dolts. Huckabee is possibly the most intelligent out of the bunch but the one thing that they all have in common is that they pander unmercifully.

Bernie Sanders on the other hand, (IMO) is arguably, a genius. He has been in politics in a state with some of the most open gun laws and lowest rates of gun crime in the country. I think that he might have some useful observations around gun legislation and gun control. But them's dirty words to the NRA.

[Taitertots]

12. A Senator from a tiny state with little national interest surrounding him

Why would they select him?

[Kennah]

48. I believe Zell Miller spoke in 2002 ...

... however the OP said progressive.

[VoteProgressive]

6. I see lots of posts here how the NRA endorses many Dems. I will let them respond.

[Taitertots]

9. Answer the question yourself or admit that you don't have an answer n/t

[VoteProgressive]

10. Nice try, do you know there is a list on the NRA site of Dems they have supported...

in every election.

Look at that list and pick any Democratic name. And invite them to speak at the meeting.

Quit trying to argue when I am not going to.

[Taitertots]

13. Ok, you should have no problem producing someone n/t

[VoteProgressive]

14. Jim Webb. Know him? Now your turn.

[Taitertots]

20. Is he popular nationally?

No, he is a regional figure, barely recognizable outside Virginia.

[VoteProgressive]

22. I think he would be a good starting point.

[Taitertots]

24. Non-sense, he has no national name or face recognition and is wildly divisive on a number of issues

[VoteProgressive]

25. Yes, and Mike Huckabee and Glenn Beck are not......

you do not get it or care. Thanks for making my point.

[Taitertots]

27. Why don't you come up with someone or just admit that you are wrong

As opposed to continuous obfuscation and irrelevant derailing.

[VoteProgressive]

28. How is Webb any different than Palin. I would like a well thought out reply. Not just you sounding..

mad and upset I called out the NRA!

[Taitertots]

30. Almost no one knows who he is and even less people care

As much as I disagree with her politics, Sarah Palin is significantly more well known and popular than Jim Webb.

[VoteProgressive]

31. So earlier it was "decisive" now it is "not well known". And they could easily....

have him be a secondary speaker like fucking Ted Nugent or Michael Reagan.

It amazes me you cannot even admit that part of the reason is that Webb would piss off the crowd. Your 100% blind defense of their lack of pro-gun democratic speakers proves your bias better than I even could have.

I am a NRA member and think they are wrong on this issue and so should any progressive.

[Taitertots]

32. Non-sense, I clearly stated his lack of recognizability as a problem

before commenting on the DIVISIVE nature of his views. The only thing blinding is your intellectual dishonesty.

[VoteProgressive]

35. So, you DISAGREE that the NRA is avoiding liberal speakers? Wow, I'll add you to the .....

too biased to discuss anything with.

[msongs]

fear of a black president? nt

[onehandle]

5. Because their right-wing base would stop writing them checks. nt

[Jmaxfie1]

51. I think you nailed it.

I'm a pro-gun liberal and would love to see the NRA embrace more Democrats. It could only help get the NRA's message out to have members of both parties speak. I, however, agree that I think they are scarred that their mostly Conservative base would either contribute less money or bolt to a more right-leaning org like the Gun Owners of America.

[Arctic Dave]

7. Exactly. Saying different just exposes them for the morons they are.

The nra is nothing more then a perpetual fundraising machine for the right so they can fleece the "gubmints gonna take my gunz" idiots.

And before all the gun idolators get their collective undies buched up, yes, I'm an owner of several guns.

[geckosfeet]

15. And I will NOT support them with a membership until there is a fundamental shift in their politics.

I am a gun owner and held my nose and joined GOAL because it has a local component. But the NRA is far too aligned with national RW positions.

I DO not think they would have a membership uprising if they started to lean liberal. I think their membership would increase. They would attract many liberal gun owners. They may lose a few RWers, but I find that a reasonable trade off.

But I tend to agree with your basic premise - based on their political positioning, goals and behavior, the NRA is essentially a RW organization.

[VoteProgressive]

17. I am with you and have written Ron Schmeits......

but of course received no reply.

I think their is a group of NRA leaders that would rather quit than support any liberal cause.

But I agree with you they would get more members.

[aikoaiko]

40. I respect your position, but I joined because their bias. I'm in year 3 of 5 for voting privileges

I waffled back and forth, but I decided to try to make change from within.

Once I am a voting member, my priority issue is to get them to stop the hyperbolic fear mongering that comes of the NRA ILA. For example, when they went after Obama in the election, they distorted some of his views. And those distortions weren't necessary. The truth was damning enough.

[gejohnston]

21. my conspiracy theory

Don Kates would be the perfect liberal to do the job. Read "What's the Matter with Kansas" and connect the dots.
I don't know about a membership uprising, but with any luck it would blow up a destructive paradigm that keeps the rank and file supporting the very tyrants they fear. Point out that Brady and their new mouthpiece Helmke are Republicans and that JFK was an NRA life member, watch their heads explode. Control the perception, guns won't matter. While the current NRA leadership is busy lining their pockets with membership money instead of supporting the cause, they get these lunatics give speeches about evil gun grabbing leftists. The frightened give their money to the GOP who will break unions and privatize their towns in MI. Their worst (and Brady's) nightmare will come true when one of Snyder's viceroys decides to replace the police with Blackwater who will confiscate guns like they did in New Orleans. How would this be Brady's nightmare? They would be associated with the modern East India Tea Company's goon squad and the Pinkertons.

Really want to watch NRA rank and file freak out? point this out to them:
Much of their enemy are conservative as well. The Brady's are still Republicans, Nelson Shields was also pretty right of center corporate CEO, and the former San Jose police chief Joe McNamara is now working at the Hoover Institute. Mayor Bloomburg (an admitted plutocrat) is the most modern example.

[VoteProgressive]

26. Thanks for the informative and non-angry post.

[jwirr]

23. Because the leadership of the NRA is not progressive regardless

what their members are. It's kind of like having Walker as the governor of Wisconsin.

[oneshooter]

29. Could it be because of the support for the

"Assault Weapons ban" as a plank in the platform of the DNC? If they dropped that it is possible that the NRA would conceder a Democrat as a speaker .

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[friendly_iconoclast]

34. +1 And *that* is why you will not see a Democrat anytime soon

[VoteProgressive]

36. So that is the only reason? Really? You believe that?

[friendly_iconoclast]

38. No, not the only reason. No Democrat of sufficient stature has gone against the platform.

As X_digger describes in post #37

[one-eyed fat man]

53. It is a plank, and a lying one at that

http://obama.3cdn.net/84b2062fc4a5114715_ftxamv9ot.pdf

Text"As a long-time resident and elected official of Chicago, Barack Obama has seen the impact of fully automatic weapons in the hands of criminals. Thus, Senator Obama supports making permanent the expired federal Assault Weapon Ban."

Read that again, "FULLY AUTOMATIC WEAPONS in the hands of criminals" are a problem he proposes to solve by banning guns that are not fully automatic and not in the hands of criminals.

That the President's choice for Director of the ATF is one who famously and deliberately staged an outrageously deceptive "demonstration" where machine guns were used to create dramatic footage to mislead a TV news audience. While the reporter is talking about semi-automatic weapons it is Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office of the ATF, Andrew Traver who hands her a machine gun.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/station/as-seen-on/Warzone_Weapons_Assault_City_Streets_Chicago.html

If you pay attention to the clip, the depth of the deception should be more apparent. At one point, an ATF agent is shown firing controlled bursts in to a vest clad mannequin. Contrast his technique to the reporter's. She is dangerously set up to shoot like she has seen on TV or the movies precisely because the minimal control would give the dramatic footage of bullets randomly striking all over the range and backstop.

The politics of the fight come to this: The TV footage of machine guns firing while talking about semi automatic firearms is not accidental. It is not from confusion, it is not from ineptitude. It is deliberate. The clear intent is to mislead the public to draw incorrect conclusions. It is bait and switch in its most reprehensible form. After laying the groundwork in low key the past two years, along comes the "perfect tragedy" to exploit.

Now, if someone were to come to you after you caught them in transparent fabrications, clear deceptions, how much stock would you place in their veracity? With over seventy years of anti-gun history going back to Homer Cummings, FDR's Attorney General, the Party irrevocably hitched its fortunes to gun control. The culmination of that effort came in 1993 with the Assault Weapons Ban. It rammed it down the throats of an electorate that paid them back in 1994. It will take more than the President saying, "We've learned our lesson," for a lot of gun owners to trust the Party.

[X_Digger]

37. Name a democratic politician / commentator who's embraced the RKBA cause..

They rarely make it higher than the US House, or their respective state legislatures if they're a politician.

That's your answer.

[MyrnaLoy]

39. Sure thing

"Now, like the majority of Americans, I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. And the courts have settled that as the law of the land. In this country, we have a strong tradition of gun ownership that's handed from generation to generation. Hunting and shooting are part of our national heritage. And, in fact, my administration has not curtailed the rights of gun owners - it has expanded them, including allowing people to carry their guns in national parks and wildlife refuges." President Obama

I believe he is well known across the nation. You're move.

[X_Digger]

41. *bzzt*..

Renewing the AWB was on change.gov and whitehouse.gov.

See my criteria above. Giving lip service to the RKBA does not qualify.

eta: lol, it's still there on change.gov--

http://change.gov/agenda/urbanpolicy_agenda/

Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.

You call that embracing the cause?!?

*snicker*

[MyrnaLoy]

42. Well

just keep embracing that right wing hate group then.

[X_Digger]

43. It's harder for a president than a congresscritter to demonstrate a changed attittude..

A congresscritter can sponsor / co-sponsor / vote on pro-gun legislation. Much easier to demonstrate commitment. Putting their votes where their mouth is.

President Obama has signed two bits of pro-gun legislation- one attached to comprehensive credit card reform, so I don't count that one.

Had he smacked down SoS Clinton on the re-import of those hoary old M1 Carbines and Garands from South Korea, that would have been a +1.



Got anyone else?

[Katya Mullethov]

56. But I love him Momma !!

He don't mean none of that .

Now get offa me , yer crushin' my cigarettes .

[Atypical Liberal]

44. Because the majority of NRA members are conservatives.

Why does the NRA not have a progressive Pro-Gun keynote speaker?

It's quite simple. Most NRA members, and in fact most pro-firearm citizens, tend to be conservatives. That's the unfortunate truth. The NRA knows its membership, and so schedules speakers that are going to give a message that resonates with their membership. They don't want to drive away members, after all.

As a Democratic NRA member, it's something that has annoyed me for some time. I have contemplated writing and expressing my concerns, and I really should, but I have not because I figured my voice would not be heard as being so clearly in the minority. I deal with this because the NRA is the most effective protector of firearm rights that exists. Additionally, the NRA does support Democratic candidates, as in my last election they gave high marks to all my Democratic candidates except one, and three were the NRA-endorsed candidate.

Now, if you REALLY wanted to get democratic support and really were a politically open group, why would you pick this list of offensive GOP people?

Because they are not using NRA conventions as a way to get Democratic support. NRA conventions are rallying meetings of the faithful - so faithful they give the NRA money, and those faithful are mostly conservatives. They are not going to piss off the faithful.

Face it, if they had a liberal, but pro-Gun keynote speaker, they would have a membership uprising on their hands. So, instead of taking the brave step of doing that, they choose to continue to insult and offend progressive NRA members by picking some extreme right wing GOP speakers.

You are right. I'm going to write my letter right now.

[Euromutt]

50. I think you pretty much nailed it

And I say that as a (reluctant) NRA member.

[Jmaxfie1]

52. +1 n/t

[AzNick]

54. Yes but I believe Dems to represent about 40% of gun owners

Mostly because guys tend to be more conservatives and guys tend to own guns when less women do. And when a woman owns *a* gun, it is *a* gun, as in ONE.

As for NRA membership, I don't know.

I always email them or call them on their bullshit. Lately I emailed them calling LaPierre a chicken for refusing to do the job I pay him to do and sit down with Obama. Still no answer after a week.

[lawodevolution]

45. Any progressive pro gun people willing to be one?

[DWC]

46. Consider the probability

of a Nationally recognized, progressive politician publicly supporting gun rights on a National platform and then getting re-elected by his/her progressive base.

If invited to be the NRA's keynote speaker, I would think that politician's answer would not simply be NO but HELL NO!

Semper Fi,

[VoteProgressive]

47. I would like to see.

[PavePusher]

55. And so would many of us here.

But I am sure you've noticed that there are more than a few around here who would at the least have an attack of the vapours...

[jpak]

57. Because they are GOP-loving assholes

yup

[friendly_iconoclast]

58. Your keen observations and eloquent arguments are always welcome.

Where the hell were you?

[jpak]

59. Do you ever leave here?

:shrug:

[Abq_Sarah]

60. I see a couple of problems with this

How many well known pro-2nd amendment progressives are there on the national level?
How would their constituents react if they were a NRA keynote speaker?
Given the hostility towards the 2nd amendment in the party platform, why should we expect them to actively court Democrats?

[AtheistCrusader]

61. Probably because most progressives treat the NRA like the NRA just treated Obama.

Something slightly more vigorous than 'talk to the hand' or so.

A horrible mistake, for both parties.