Gun Rights Organizations – Page 17 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Open Carry Texas Revises Its Protocols

Good on Open Carry Texas for setting things right. You can find the statement here:

For all further open carry walks with long guns, we are adopting the following unified protocol and general policy to best ensure meeting our respective legislative mission to legalize open carry:

Always notify local law enforcement prior to the walk, especially the day of.

Carry Flags and signs during your walk to increase awareness.

Carry the long gun on a sling, not held.

Do not go into corporate businesses without prior permission, preferably not at all.

If asked to leave, do so quietly and do not make it a problem.

Do not post pics publicly if you do get permission and are able to OC in a cooperate business.

Do not go into businesses with TABC signs posted with a long gun (Ever).

If at all possible, keep to local small businesses that are 2A friendly.

I think if people follow these new guidelines, we won’t have any problems form here on out. I still question the value of the overall tactic, but I’m mostly concerned about stopping the bleeding, and I think this should accomplish that. Now hopefully people will listen.

I’d also note that any time I offer criticism of other gun rights advocates or groups, there’s always one or two people who try to argue that arguing with each other is counterproductive, and only helps the antis. I agree that can sometimes be the case with petty bickering, but in cases where tactics put theÂ image of the movement is at risk, and our opponents become energized and emboldened, I think it’s important to speak out. This shows that speaking out can work. Shame is a powerful motivator.

Hat Tip to Bob Owens, who notes this probably won’t be good news for Shannon Watts.

NRA “Freestyle” Attempt to Reach Younger Gun Owners

There’s been quite a bit of press attention over NRA’s new attempt to reach younger gun owners with “NRA Freestyle.” It turns out, I’m not too far off the target audience, except that I have a sense of civic duty and am actually engaged on the issue – something that doesn’t apply to the vast majority of the demographic they are targeting.

I’m technically a millennial and a woman. Only, unlike many people in my “generation,” I don’t believe the world exists to entertain me and I actually participate with the community around me. However, if you define me down by age and, to a lesser degree, gender, then I am close to who they want to reach.

So, with all the hubbub surrounding this, what’s my take? It’s ultimately, “eh.”

First, there’s the practical issue of the technology to access it. When I tried to access videos through the website, relying on Ackerman McQueen’s video system, it was completely unwatchable. The videos kept skipping as badly as an old, dirty record. I checked my internet connection, and it definitely was not on this end. I gave up in frustration. Only after things are posted to YouTube are they even accessible. So that’s a problem, and one that I’m sure NRA is paying extra for.

But, let’s face it, the content, when accessible by YouTube, is more important. So, let me start with my take on the show that is getting the most attention – Noir.

As others have noted, some of the attacks coming from the media and general left outlets are actually pretty racist. One piece compared Colion Noir using a stage/screen name to a porn actor, while never making such assertions about the many fairer skinned entertainers who use them, such as Brady Campaign celebrity supporters Anthony Dominick Benedetto and Eilleen Regina Edwards. When they have to resort to launching race-based attacks, I think that’s generally a good sign for our side. In fact, he had a little fun responding to pieces and how belittling they were to him as an individual capable of making informed decisions and living his life as he chooses on the second episode, which I think is a good thing.

But, that doesn’t mean I’m in love with the show. Colion Noir clearly built a following of gun people, many of whom trended much younger, on his own even before NRA ever reached out to him. He’s a bit more natural in the role, but his co-host is rather forced. Until her clearly scripted lines in the first episode, everything about her body language and facial expressions screamed discomfort. Sure, she successfully delivered her “pop culture” lines about topics like Lululemon (that I had to explain to Sebastian), and she does break up the action of just one man talking to a camera about a subject. It’s just that she doesn’t appear really comfortable with the gun topic in this format.

Here’s the thing that I would say about that. I am not a gun nut who can give you a detailed technical analysis of a favorite rifle. I am not the awesome font of gun knowledge that is a woman like Tam. I know that, and I don’t pretend to be that, so I’m perfectly comfortable in my level of involvement with and understanding of firearms. I freely admit that when I purchase a gun, the first thing that always pulls me in is when I think, “THAT’S SO PRETTY!” And, you know what? This method has worked for me and resulted in some guns that I really love, which is why I’m not afraid to own it. It is possible to not be a total gun nut, and be comfortable in your role in the gun community, and I think that’s what Amy Robbins is missing in these early episodes. I hope that will change.

There are several parts of the show that are a little awkward, specifically the segment on “Gun Pads” stands out on that front. It was just a clip show with cameras panning past guns and some airplanes. There was no context given, and it was entirely too long for nothing more than videos of guns in different places of a house and airplane hangar. If the same person owns those guns & airplanes, they are probably a pretty interesting person. Why not at least talk about them, even if they are a stereotype of old and white? If they have younger family members who share the passion for guns & planes, why not feature that family member as a spokesperson? I have an attention span longer than your average millennial, and I wanted to close it and watch something else.

While Reason criticizes the feature that reviews guns, they do seem to ignore that gun reviews and videos are some of the most popular features of any gun-related site or media venture no matter the age of their target audience. I suspect that they will never really say anything bad in any NRA Freestyle gun review, so it’s not a totall honest critique, but they can still highlight things they like about a gun without getting negative. Oh, and I might add that both Sebastian & I checked out the featured gun of the first episode at the NRA Annual Meeting and we both really liked the feel of it and because it would fit our carry/shooting lifestyle, which the Reason writer apparently believes to be a “cringe-inducing” feature in a gun review.

Funny enough, as a woman, the concept and content that appealed to me the most with NRA Freestyle is actually Dom Raso’s Media Lab that deconstructs and re-creates movie fight scenes. It has a clear purpose, and it’s fun. Given the body of work in all the big budget action movies that Hollywood has created, there’s really some potential to have some real fun critiquing movie fights and shoot outs.

Raso’s show kept a good pace in both episodes that have been released, and the fun he can have in the next episode (tomorrow) on “Dodging Full Auto” is something I’m actually looking forward to catching. The specific scene they will use as an example is from White House Down, a movie I haven’t seen. Though, let’s face it, with Roland Emmerich involved, I’m pretty sure I can sum it up as explosions, guns, and fights. The plot details aren’t important, and that’s why these things are purely entertainment.

This show has the most potential to reach a much broader audience. Everyone knows movies are fake, and everyone loves talking about how fake or unrealistic a scene was even as we chow down on our popcorn and pull the movie up on Netflix. Given the content, it’s also far more likely to be caught by people doing random searches for various movies who may be interested in the topic and also intrigued by the background NRA branding for something entertaining. It’s got the pop culture connections without being too over-the-top.

I guess my overall impressions with the two shows currently available is that Noir has potential, but if they continue try a little too hard to force the pop culture references, it risks coming off as the butchered version of Lelaina’s reality tv show from Reality Bites. (If I see floating faces on a pizza, I’m going to be very disturbed. For you youngsters responsible for Noir, that’s a Gen X movie reference – you know, the old people.) Media Lab needs a better name, but it has the best content, in my opinion. It flows a little more seamlessly right off the bat.

I think the best feature of both shows is that they don’t do a hard sell to connect with the organization. However, that also leaves me concerned about whether or not the target audience for the network will ever be told that they need to give enough of a shit about their guns to join NRA or join the actual grassroots movement instead of sitting around watching the videos all day.

The Real Grassroots of Gun Culture

In light of yesterday’s post from Sebastian about concerns over messaging from NRA, and combined with the effort I’ve noted from Mother Jones to try and divide and conquer, the left-wing magazine is now trying to promote the notion that NRA doesn’t really have much in the way of grassroots and that everyone is just a paid shill of the evil gun lobby.

Their argument is that the NRA News commentators are paid, so therefore they aren’t really the grassroots of the gun culture. There’s just one big glaring problem with their story: the evidence doesn’t support it. Sure, the NRA News team and the commentators themselves have confirmed they are paid now, but Mother Jones ignores the fact that these people only got picked up because they were already actively part of the grassroots gun culture.

For example, they say this about Colion Noir:

Team member Noir recently confirmed in the Los Angeles Times that he was approached by the NRA and agreed to a deal, but also declined to discuss his compensation.

It makes it sound like NRA went out and to just find a black guy and offer him money to spit out pro-gun talking points. What Mother Jones leaves out is that Noir was brought on as staff in March 2013, but he already built a successful Twitter/Facebook/YouTube/Instagram following long before that in 2011 (or 2012, in the case of Instagram). He was approached to come on as staff because he was particularly successful as part of the grassroots gun culture.

For another commentator, Billy Johnson, he came onto NRA’s radar because he decided to make a video about real gun violence statistics at the end of 2012. That single video has more than 1.2 million views. Think about that. A video about statistics posted during the holidays has pulled in more than 1.2 million views. Billy Johnson told followers that NRA News didn’t contact him until the summer of that year. In other words, they found him only because he was already successful as a grassroots commentator speaking to Second Amendment issues.

The other commentators have similar stories, but slightly different backgrounds in the grassroots gun culture. None of those pesky little facts about the history of involvement that each of these men and women had in the grassroots gun culture is ever mentioned, and I suspect that is on purpose. It wouldn’t help their cause to remind politicians that while these people are currently paid staff of NRA News, their backgrounds in the issue before they were paid represent hundreds of thousands of people all involved in promoting the Second Amendment and the shooting sports.

Of course, I would also say that NRA needs to remember this lesson as well. Sure, Ackerman McQueen may have put some of the better grassroots spokesmen on the payroll to roll out a few decent videos, but those spokesmen aren’t NRA’s power. NRA’s power lies in the millions who vote their gun rights, organize their shooting leagues, and bring the message of the Second Amendment to their family and friends. One reason I’m concerned that some in Fairfax may be forgetting this is because I only heard one speech that actually acknowledged this real power of our movement.

Even the Grassroots Seminar this year wasn’t promoted very much. It was left out of the event app, is nearly impossible to find on the Annual Meeting website and schedule, and was smaller as a result of the missed opportunities for promotion. An annual election volunteer coordinator event was cut this year, though Sebastian & I still reached out to Grassroots staff to have a chat on strategies and organizing in the movement. Granted, one factor in participation is likely a feeling of a little burnout because the movement has had to be “on” constantly for at least two years now, but NRA just needs to remember that a snazzy video channel and fancy posters don’t replace the rest of the field of grassroots activists.

Is NRA’s Messaging Getting too Doctrinaire Conservative?

I know I promised everyone some posts this weekend, but I had some beautiful-weather-induced writer’s block and just didn’t get it out. But now it’s been long enough since Annual Meeting that is now or never, and it’s time to address some remaining issues. I’ve been having a post running around in my head since I read this article by Charles C.W. Cooke in National Review talking about NRA possibly becoming a victim of its own success, but I haven’t been able to quite figure out how to pull all myÂ thoughts together. Â Cooke’s entire article is well worth your time, but allow me to quote the part that I wish to discuss in the remainder of this post:

The National Rifle Association is successful because it is popular, because its members are highly engaged, because it is defending a right that is enumerated in the nationâ€™s founding document and a tradition that is cherished by members of both major political parties, because its opponents routinely embarrass themselves with their hysteria and with their lack of rudimentary knowledge about the topic at hand, and, most of all, because it is a single-issue organization that maintains its focus. But this yearâ€™s conference was not particularly focused; indeed, at times it was almost indistinguishable from the Republican National Convention.

I’ve always given NRA a good bit of leeway when it comes to putting on Annual Meeting because they are constantly driven to bring more and more people out to the show in order to keep setting records, and a lot of people are drawn in by the speakers. Whatever the downsides to NRA’s strategy, it’s hard to argue that they are failing. Houston will be a tough number to top, but since I’ve been going to Annual Meeting, since about 2007 or so, the trend has been nothing but upwards. The first year I went, to St. Louis in 2007, the attendance number was a record, at 64,000 and change. If NRA drew that number today, all the media headlines would be how the organization is losing influence, and how it’s members are losing interest. So I understand the pressure to keep the message appealing to as large an audience as possible.

But there is taking it too far, and losing your focus. I get that NRA can’t really control what Sarah Palin is going to say when she gets up on stage, but can you tell me what it has to do with gun rights enough to retweet it from official NRA social media? I’m also concerned about Tam’s post, who notes:

Hey, you coming down to the show?” I asked the waiter at my local hipster in-town brewpub. I knew he liked guns; he’d just gotten his first AR-15 and often helped man a table at the big Indy 1500 fun shows.

“Nah,” he replied, “I’m not an NRA member. I’m pro gun, but I’m a liberal,” as though setting foot on the convention floor to look at Aimpoint scopes and the Magpul bus would be like signing on to support everything from the invasion of Iraq toÂ HJR-3.

But Tam isn’t the only one. There’s also Â this article in the TimesHerald-Record, that while a bit ignorant guns, and the gun issue, isn’t someone who I think is reflexively on the other side, because her son is a gun person:

And then stuff like last week’s big NRA annual meeting in Indianapolis and Sarah Palin’s speech about Mama Grizzlies and “clownish little kumbaya-humming, fairytale-inhaling liberals” and how we should baptize terrorists by water boarding and that gun-free zones in places like schools are “stupid on steroids.”

The crowd loved her. But I have to wonder how many people, and for how long, will continue to go for that sort of shtick. It always seems to me to be so angry, us-versus-them, and so suspicious of anything or anyone that doesn’t conform to a narrow definition of “American.”

If we’re going to have long term security for this issue, it needs to be bipartisan. I believe the Republican Party may enjoy some short-term success over the next several years, if only because of overreach by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. But over the long-term, if the Republicans do not adjust their own message to be more palatable to younger voters, demographics will turn to the Democratic Party into the dominant party. And then what? Any strategy for preserving gun rights has to recognize that there are a lot of gun people out there who are not doctrinaire conservatives, and even liberals. I’m always surprised by how many liberal gun owners read this site.

While I recognize that the gun issue can’t stand on its own, without being part of a broader coalition, I also recognize that if you lash yourself too strongly to one ship, you’re going to be SOL if it sinks. For starters, I think it’s time to recognize that Sarah Palin is washed up; she’s a has been. But that’s just for starters. There’s a lot of people very strongly associated with NRA who I think have diminishing utility as the face of the organization.

That said, there’s a lot NRA is doing right on this front, such as cultivating speakers and spokespeople for the organization that aren’t Wayne, and don’t fit most people’s stereotypes of NRA. See this video:

Not many stereotypes on parade there, and it’s a really well-done video. But just one problem; could someone explain to me what it has to do with the Second Amendment? This was NRA’s big video this year, and they were promoting the hell out of it. But I actually liked this one much better:

I fear NRA is lashing itself too strongly to a sinking ship (the GOP coalition as it is currently composed), and broadening its message too far beyond the Second Amendment. While this might help getting more doctrinaire conservatives on board, it’s not helping cultivate the next generation of NRA members, who are going to be far less conservative (in the sense we understand the term today) than those that came before them.

Preemptive Surrender is Never a Good Strategy

I really wish Alan Gottlieb would stop engaging in preemptive surrender on the background check issue:

From Gottliebâ€™s perspective, the Manchin-Toomey Amendment â€” which contained several pro-gun measures, including an outright ban on a national gun registry and background check exemptions for friends, neighbors, family members â€” was certainly the lesser of two evils, i.e. a compromised bill sponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), both A-rated NRA members, versus one written solely by the Schumer, Feinstein and other staunch pro-gun control supporters.

No it was not. The problem with Manchin-Toomey was several fold. First, it wasn’t very clear when you would or would not be subject to the background check requirements. Second, none of the measures, including the ban on the national registry, were worth spit. Who’s going to enforce it? Is Eric Holder going to prosecute himself for violating the prohibition? Some of the things offered up to us, like the FOPA travel enhancement would have actually stripped the FOPA travel provision entirely. Manchin-Toomey was a farce of a deal, which is why it needed to be killed.

Every time I think it’s time to forgive SAF, because I really do believe they are doing good work for the issue in the Courts, Alan Gottlieb opens his mouth again about Manchin-Toomey and I get pissed off all over again. This kind of thing doesn’t help, and it’s going to give the other side cover to shove something down our throats. Why do we want to bring this issue up again anyway? We won, they lost. If the momentum suddenly shifts, then we can assess the situation at the time. After all, there looked to me like there was a “break glass” provision in all this mess that no one paid attention to. So I think some people, at least, were thinking ahead. By offering to preemptively concede ground, the next time we’re in a tight spot, they are going to want ground we’re not willing to concede. It only puts us in a worse negotiation position.

Security Problems at NAGR?

Paul Lathrop, of the The Polite Society Podcast, and John Richardson of No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money, take a look at what appears to be a pretty serious privacy breach going on with NAGR. To make a long story short, it appears that there’s some kind of misconfiguration or mistake in forwarding web forms:

When asked if the rest of the emails looked like the email he provided to us he stated, â€œYes. Itâ€™s random questions from people who visited their â€œContact Usâ€ page, then forwarded by someone within their organization for follow-up or review. Some of them contain some very specific personal information, like the USPS worker who details which facility he works at in pursuit of an answer to a legal question.â€

I’d say that’s a pretty serious issue, and one that ought to be addressed rather thanÂ shrugged off. What’s even more disturbing is that in the comments, other people report getting similar e-mails, which means it’s not just going out to one person by mistake.

I am not a fan of NAGR, as anyone who’s been following this blog for some time would know, so I should get that bias out of the way first. I don’t encourage people to join and suggest gun owners have no dealings with them or any of Dudley Brown’s other organizations. This would seem to be yet another example of amateur hour.

Malloy to NRA: Support Obamacare!

Governor Malloy of Connecticut is such a tool:

“There are those who will say this is not a gun problem, it’s a mental health problem, and today I want to challenge that,” he said. “If it’s a mental-health problem, NRA, why aren’t you advocating for the ACA? Why aren’t you criticizing governors who will not allow Medicaid to be delivered to their citizens, with its mental-health component? NRA, if you’re serious about making America safer, you would join Connecticut, as we have had one of the most successful rollouts of the ACA, bringing mental-health treatment to tens of thousands of people who might not otherwise haveÂ it.”

NRA’s single issue only intersects mental health when it comes to prohibition for gun ownership. There are other groups out there that advocate for mental health generally, and that is not, nor should it be the National Rifle Association. Also, and Malloy knows this, the issue is adjudication which is almost always a state, rather than a federal matter, and this problem is not really one that can be solved at the federal level.

I’d love to be able to serve Malloy’s political career up on a platter at the next election, but I’m concerned that Connecticut has become one of those states where Democrats could hold rallies at the Capitol where they’d strangle live puppies and still would get re-elected.

David Keene on Smart Guns

David Keene recently appeared on Fox Business to discuss the topic of smart guns, and NRA’s opposition to Vivek Murthy’s nomination to the post of Surgeon General. Keene is a great spokesman for NRA and the issue, so I’m happy to see he’s still on the news circuit speaking on behalf of the organization. Obviously this was a friendly interview, but I’ve also seen Keene handle himself well in hostile interviews.

NRA Finally Getting Social Media?

I was interested to see NRA actually jumping in to an online comment thread and defending their record on certain issues when it was attacked. As short as a few years ago, NRA didn’t really have a very effective new media game, and one thing I always thought is that they needed to be more engaged with defending their record. There are always going to be haters, and haters gonna hate, but I think most people can be reasoned with. I am very pleased to see them jumping in here. The era of mass media isn’t over, but it’s getting there, and the more it gets there the more you depend on reaching individual people. That’s how you stay relevant.

NRA Board Elections

With about 3 weeks for ballots to be returned, we’re doing a bit of a late overview of who we’re voting for this year. Neither one of us is voting for more than 10 people. There’s no need to feel like you need to fill in 25 circles just because you can. Here are a few of the names who might otherwise be overlooked.

First up our ballots (which happen to be exactly the same, which isn’t normally the case – maybe because we’re both digital subscribers?) is William H Dailey. He’s chair of the Civil Rights Defense Fund which often funds cases that have the opportunity to set precedent. Even if the bigger court cases on carry are generating mixed results, the CRDF is often involved with cases that rarely make major headlines.

We also backed Dan Boren because he does show up to participate, and politically I think keeping moderate Democrats involved in the issue. Representing the Left Coast, we’re voting for Joel Friedman who we’ve mentioned before.

Coming back east, we also both voted for Patricia A Clark from Newtown, Connecticut. She’s very involved in the shooting sports side of the issue, and I think that’s particularly important in places like Connecticut right now. In the same column on our ballots, there’s Todd J Rathner from Arizona who is actively involved in state legislatures pushing bills for both gun and knife rights. At the very bottom of the column is Linda L Walker who has been very good at being accessible to many gun owners on the ground.

Finally, we both voted for Antonio Hernandez of Puerto Rico who currently serves as a non-board member on the Legal Affairs and Urban Affairs Committees and has pushed to promote a pro-gun culture there by establishing the first Friends dinner and getting the island’s state association authorization renewed. In addition, I also cast a vote for Allan D Cors for his work with the NRA Foundation, as well as his involvement with ILA. I’m a fan of board members who have been involved in multiple aspects of the organization.

As always, we’ll highlight the results of the votes at the Annual Meeting.