I noticed Uncle linked to this piece in the Seattle PI. It’s worthwhile to remind everyone exactly who Richard Feldman is. As it mentions at the end of the article, Feldman “became too close to ‘the enemy’ and was sacked as a lobbyist.” Feldman was canned because he was more interested in cutting deals with anti-gunners, and seeking out media attention than he was fighting for gun rights.
Now, before anyone goes “But Sebastian, you always say that sometimes you have to make a deal?” That’s true, but there’s a difference between brokering a deal that makes something that would be really bad a bit less awful, which sometimes you have to do, and actively trying to make deals you don’t need to with the anti-gunners and hope they go away happy.  We all know that won’t work.  Feldman is the latter type.
It’s worthwhile to remember why he was forced to resign from his position at American Shooting Sport Council.  After a series of disastrous appeasements of the Clinton Administration, Feldman became an advocate for settling the lawsuits that were brought by various cities against the firearms industry instead of fighting them. Feldman poorly understood when it was smart to cut a deal, and when you should fight. NRA chose to fight, and the industry quickly got together on that and showed Feldman the door.
So it’s worthwhile to remember that Feldman has an axe to grind.
The NRA, he says, would love to see Hillary Clinton in the White House, because once again it would have an adversary in power. “In the endless struggle, it is always better to fight than to win,” he said last week. “For the NRA, losing is winning.”
And the NRA will spend large sums of money trying to defeat Hillary, just like they did Al Gore, even though Feldman also claims Al Gore would have been better for fund raising. If they are in it merely for the money, it would seem that they don’t know what’s good for them.
The gun issue ain’t going away folks, and there will never be a time when we can stop fighting and NRA can go back to being a shooting sports organization. I doubt highly that Chris Cox lies awake at night worrying he might be so successful that he’ll be out of a job.
Yeh but if you broker an unfavorable deal, and advocate settlement you can feather your own nest pretty good with the other side’s money…
If Feldman is Neville Chamberlain, who the heck is Winston Churchill?
(If anyone pops in and says Ron Paul, I shall smack them.)
There isn’t one. This is only going to be won by gun owners getting involved.
I believe Tom Gresham did an interview with him last weekend. I was only half listening, but I recall him bashing Wayne LaPierre for taking a large salary. I’m trying to check, but the archived show website isn’t up right now.
Wayne makes good money, for sure, but he’s effectively CEO of a rather large organization. The CEO of my company of 47 people makes half a mil a year. For the size of organization NRA is, I’m not sure Wayne’s salary is all that stratospheric.
At this time we are doing exactly what Mr. Feldman wants; drawing attention to his novel. Remember; “call me anything you want but spell my name right”. He has been personna non gratta with the gun owners and organizations of New York for at least 15 years and hiding out in the Downstate area but he did approach a pro 2nd Amendment group about 7 years ago looking for a job. He was, of course, turned down. He has an axe to grind.
Let Mr. Feldman continue to pedal his vitriolic book but don’t let it distract us from the job at hand..winning in 2008.
I agree, Tom. My interest was mostly in making sure the folks who keep highlighting his novel because it confirms a lot of things they want to believe about NRA know where he’s coming from. With that said, I don’t plan on saying anything more about him.
It is indeed unfortunate that time has to be spend dispelling misinformation from our own side.