“There is a interesting idea floating around these days about how to kill the National Rifle Association,” playwright, director, actor, educator and left-leaning theater founder Robert Brustein [above] writes at huffingtonpost.com. “Join it!!!! For only $25 a year, you will not only receive a host of membership benefits and a subscription to three different gun magazines, but also — on the proviso that enough of us subscribe to this irresistible offer — the right to vote Wayne LaPierre out of office and ban firearms from the United States.” I’m not sure if this is satire or an actual, albeit fantastic plan from a desperate anti-gunner. We report. You deride. Here’s some more of Brustein’s anti-firearms fodder for readers who indulge in the aforementioned derision . . .
By constituting a voting majority of the NRA, we might even start a movement to abolish police weapons as well, a condition long observed in England, where, as a result, the murder rate has remained about 138 times less than that in the United States. Regarding the abolition of hunting rifles, that decision will depend entirely on your attitude towards killing animals. The clearest and most effective procedure, in my opinion, would be a universal abolition of any device requiring bullets.
Members of the NRA unite! You have nothing to lose but your powder burns.
No matter how you slice it, the idea that the NRA could be infiltrated by antis and dismembered from within is a lame joke. But I welcome Brustein’s honesty, even if it’s couched in comedy (we’re talking about the playwright who wrote Doctor Hippocrates is Out: Please Leave a Message).
We should never forget that there are those who would snuff out Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms in a New York minute. As Shakespeare’s King Henry VI warned us, “Who cannot steal a shape that means deceit?” [h/t andypantera69]
Is this the “Michael Moore strategy”?
It’s a typical leftist strategy and not one to be laughed at. “Use their own organizations and institutions against them” or something like that. Look up Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. Think of how many traditional American institutions don’t look so traditional anymore. Every wonder how and why they’ve changed over time?
Actually, since the radicals have finally become the man, it’s starting to become appropriate to adopt some of Alinsky’s tactics, like make them follow their own rules exactly and precisely.
Umm if I remember my NRA organization correctly, there is no popular voting of the President and Board. Just to preclude such an initiative. So go ahead, drop $25 times however many useful idiots you can convince into the NRA coffers. You’ll only be helping them out.
NRA Life Members vote for the Board. The Board in turn appoints all officers.
Life Membership is one-time $1,000, though sometimes there’s a deal or discount offered at the annual convention for $500 or so.
That’s kinda scary. How many lifters vote? Considering how much someone like a Bloomberg spends on advertising, ….. well, he does some to blow a lot of his own cash.
I vote every time.
So do I.
I never have. How do you figure out who to vote for? Most all sound the same.
Anyone who has been a member for 5 consecutive years may vote..not just life members. However, if you join for life or buy a 5 year membership you may vote immediately
That’s right about the five consecutive years. Forgot.
I didn’t know one could pay all at once and vote immediately, though. I wonder how many people take advantage of that, even if out of spite?
Some people will buy one share of a company’s stock, for example, just so they can attend the annual shareholders meeting and protest.
Seniors get a discount of $125 ($375) instead of the normal $500. There is also a payment plan. $25 every three months till paid in full. This also is valid for the senior plan.
Wait, what?
Intentional murder rate:
UK: 1.0
US: 4.7
(Source)
Do you even math, bro?
Only gun murders count…. or something!
/grabber derp
yeah, if we look at his numbers, I’m sure he was using murders by gun only to get that ratio. Well of course murders by guns are down if there aren’t any available, but the actual murder rate by all causes is not even a half order of magnitude different.
The total number of firearms related homicides is less in total than the US (and always has been), but the RATE of crimes involving firearms INCREASED dramatically since the hangdun ban went into effect.
The UK’s homicide rate isn’t even that low. That is the conviction rate. If they tracked murders the way the FBI does then the number is between 1.5 and 2.0.
Also true. But given that even 4.7 <<<<<< 138, I didn't see the need to pile on. 🙂
I bet it is even more than that. I don’t have time to go into it, but that is not the only way the British gov milks the numbers.
Yep, the amount of under-reporting is staggering. The Home Office has been accused of cooking the books to make themselves look better for years. If there’s evidence of foul play, but you can gather that it might have been a suicide, they record it as a suicide, until they can prove that it was a homicide. That’s where you get the jokes about a guy committing suicide by cutting off his own head.
During the troubled they weren’t counting deaths in the overall murder rate if they weren’t politically related. There were a lot of sectarian and intraethnic murders that didn’t make the press or the official count Northern Ireland probably had a Chicago like murder rate at the time.
What, and let facts get in the way of a good sound bite?
A theatrical moron. times less>/I>
Moron with his commoncore cyferin. Multiplication does not get you to less. You can be 110% sure of that.
Um, what?
Try 3 * 0.2. That’s multiplication, and you “get less”.
That doesn’t count.
Don’t forget that the murder rate was about .78 before the 90s gun laws came into effect. The murder rate didn’t drop, it went up! Great job UK!
#CommonSenseGunWin! #CriminalLivesMatter
Maybe he’s using the metric system.
Common Core, more like.
Not really any different than Rush’s Operation Chaos or thousands of other “infiltrate and cause havoc” ideas. Sometimes, I applaud them (such as telling people who have a problem with how a public company operates to buy shares and vote in mass as shareholders). Sometimes I roll my eyes. Rarely do I think they work.
Also, three subscriptions? I was only offered one (of my choice of three). And even then, it manages to be 75% advertising.
“Not really any different than Rush’s Operation Chaos or thousands of other “infiltrate and cause havoc” ideas.”
Bingo.
Think it through:
They gain control of the NRA and dis-member it, kill it, fire the staff and sell the real estate and hold a victory party.
What happens?
Our local Congress-critters and Senators get deluged with the ex-actual NRA members who let them know what’s up. Loudly. Daily.
It’s a terrorist tactic,. Fortunately the NRA can continue to carry out what they believe in without a majority backing. You know, like Obama does except the NRA doesn’t have that pesky U.S. Constition.
It always amazes me how far off the mark the gun grabbers are interpreting the NRA and it’s membership.
It’s a very member driven organization where if the NRA started supporting gun restrictions, the members would leave. The gun grabbers for some reason think it’s the NRA driving the message and if it weren’t for Wayne LaPierre et al, then NRA members would support their “reasonable” “common sense” gun control initiatives.
Because the leftist world view is top down they believe everything cones from the top to the drooling mindless masses. They don’t get that it’s actually bottom up control for the NRA. While they don’t always get it right, they are much more responsive to the members than the federal government.
Exactly. Burstein has bought into the myth that either gun owners are sheeple who do whatever LaPierre tells us or that only the NRA is responsible for fighting gun restrictions — instead of, you know, the voters.
Go waste your money, everyone. While you’re at it, try the wine club and visit the NRA’s excellent indoor range.
It’s actually just the opposite. LaPierre, et al., go out of their way to make the organization appear to be more ‘moderate’ than many (most?) members want them to be.
That’s just my own 30+ year Benefactor Life Member’s ‘not so humble opinion’.
You should stay away from The Huffington Post, nothing good is ever posted there. It is a website for sheeple.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Sound advice and particularly useful to keep in mind during a divorce. Its why I as a man was able to keep all my income, the house and the kids and only gave up a part of my retirement and half of savings.
That’s why I nick-named them the ‘Huffing and Puffington Post’.
I’m surprised they haven’t infiltrated the NRA yet. They’ve infiltrated many other organizations and rotted them from inside.
They did that with the school system, very successfully.
McCarthy was right.
Yes, he was right. The mass media (leftists that they are) worked against him, of course. He had a short temper and a bit of a drinking problem. And they used those things against him to discredit what he had to say. There really were communists (and socialists) in mass media and the government; only in hindsight has that become obvious.
There really were and ARE communists (and socialists) in mass media and the government; ,obviously.
From ‘Communist Goals (1963) Congressional Record–Appendix, pp. A34-A35 January 10, 1963’
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
Also:
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
See more at: http://rense.com/general32/americ.htm
Somehow I don’t see folks with his level of intelligence and commitment managing to join and stay in for five years to vote, and even then they would discover that the nominations are already done and there aren’t gonna be any anti gun choices on an NRA ballot! On top of that if they actually read the publication they select there is a significant possibility of them or someone else in their house actually changing sides. Oops, that certainly isn’t what he wants.
Yes, please send the NRA billions of dollars just so you can vote out Wayne, like he’s some sort of maniacal despot drunk on power and unilaterally responsible for all gun crime state side. I am sure the guy that replaces him will have both the will and desire to single handedly repeal the second amendment, since apparently the NRA is now officially the fourth branch of government.
I think this is the best idea I have ever read in huffpo….. for us.
That’s the part which got me, I have been a Life member for 20-odd years, and they never informed me that they had the authority to outlaw firearms in the U.S.! Can you imagine? It is difficult to even imagine a person so stupid.
If this guy is left-LEANING, then what the heck constitutes a full-on leftist with both feet firmly planted in statism? Your last name has to be Stalin or Mao to be more left-wing than this wingnut.
I’m pretty sure both Stalin and Mao were totally cool with police having guns. So… he’s actually to the left of them even.
Next time I let some wet turd dictate to me about my personal security, or their personal security insecurities and frailties, SOMEBODY JUST F-ING KILL ME.
Until then this dude and HUFFPOO can go choke themselves.
BWahhahhaaahaaaa!
That is some of the funniest stuff I have read in a good while!
You said that was from the Huff-Poo? Wow! When HuffPoo is funnier than Cracked you know you have entered into some sort of bizzaro-world.
Welcome… To the Twilight Zone. 🙂
I always figured the constant $25 member fee deal with a free gift and other perks where simply a numbers game. Even If they only broke even or took a little loss on them the big donors and the donate a few times a year members would make up for it. It’s more heavy hitting for Mr. NRA Lobbyist to say this is what our organization and its 20 million members are going to get vs this is what our 2 million members would like.
The $25 member fee could be profitable if they didn’t spend $50 on postage asking me for more money…
Step up to the plate and get your life membership and they will stop sending you direct mail.
I prefer to support multiple organizations. If I plunked a grand into an NRA life membership, then I wouldn’t have money to give to SAF, RWVA, GOA, TSRA, etc.
No they won’t. At least they didn’t in my case.
That’s not automatic — you have to ask. It can be done on the website somewhere, or you can call.
No, they do not.
NRA membership was the only junk-mailing list I paid to be on. :/
During the past 20+ years I have moved from Life member up to Benefactor, and the direct mail has stayed around 3 deliveries a week, I used to get several phone calls a month, until I dropped the line (not for that reason). If your direct mail stopped, celebrate but don’t publicize, they may start again! Of course, I do donate to ILA, so I’m asking for it, I guess.
For anti’s gun control is nothing more than a conversation akin to clubbing baby seals are bad…right….yes it’s bad, while continuing to sip a pumpkin frappa two pump something latte. Traveling across the country via a truck camper, I marvel for the people of the gun. More than a conversation, its woven into their core, their culture and their conscience. It molds and shapes them with values of good citizenship and is the strength of a people who show no aversion to discord or discomfort. Far from being a religious man, I will drop a knee and thank their God for who they are.
Hey, maybe this could work in reverse! We could all join Everytown for Gun Confiscation and vote out Bloomberg and… oh, wait, it won’t work because it’s a stupid plan.
Their plan has a better chance since the membership of the NRA actually gives the members some say in the organization, whereas the membership of mda or any other gun control org means nothing and even if every single member of mda suddenly woke up and said ‘we love guns!’ Bloomberg would just block them all on Facebook and start over.
Democratic elections in a Bloomberg organization.. BWAHAHAHAAAA!! As if he’d ever allow that..
I’m sure all those dues-paying members of Everytown For Gun Safety would pony up the $25.
Why not? That’s what expense reports at work are for.
There’s only one fact that you need to remember whenever someone deploys such comparisons between the U.S. and (insert country here). There is no, and there has never been, a country on this planet that is in any way, a suitable comparison to the U.S.
The long bus is the new short bus, because the liberals filled up the short bus to overflowing.
I imagine him “penning” this article next to his snack jar filled with lead paint chips. People this dumb are not naturally occurring.
Swamping organizations with new members hostile to its purpose only works if you have more supporters than it has members. It has been successful in a few tiny villages. It won’t work with the NRA which has over 5 million members.
And has no chance of working at all unless they ponied up for life memberships.
Then…
Step 1: infiltrate the NRA as life members!
Step 2: vote in our own people!
Step 3: discredit, disband and dismember it!
Step 4: declare all “life members” mentally unstable and enemies of the state!
Oh, wait…
It would also fail because it would piss off a lot of people who aren’t members but say the NRA speaks for them. If this derp could get a million people to join the NRA, the backlash would likely add two million actual supporters. So Wayne would be able to speak of eight million members!
Isn’t voting limited to life memberships and up? That costs a whole lot more than $25.
No. As long as you’ve been a member for 5 consecutive years you may vote.
IIRC, Brustein wrote “Loonie Tunes.” It was his autobiography.
“…the right to vote Wayne LaPierre out of office and ban firearms from the United States.”
Wait the NRA is a legislative branch of the federal goverment? https://youtu.be/Gf_kjwOSjGI?t=43
/sarc
Even if they do infiltrate the NRA, even if they shut it down, that doesn’t change the hearts of millions of gun owners. Nor does it change the laws. Who cares.
It also does not affect the terminal ballistics of my rifle. They’d do well to remember that!
You forget, most libs won’t spend $25 on any cause, since most don’t have jobs.
And, it would be $25 more than what the members of Moms Need Some Action pay in dues.
I’ll even give them a link to join at a discount (got it with my last Ruger) http://www.nra.org/ruger
Guessing a few (not close enough to make any sort of difference) may at least join and give the NRA a few bucks to work with for next year’s election…THANKS LIBS!!
Your NRA membership dues go towards everything the organization does…EXCEPT political!
That is purely handled by NRA Institute for Legislative Action (https://www.nraila.org); and dues cannot go there…only donations (https://www.nraila.org/donate).
Interesting reading:
“Do Assault Weapons Sales Pay NRA Salaries?”
http://www.factcheck.org/2013/01/do-assault-weapons-sales-pay-nra-salaries/
Johnny, Johnny, what will we do with you? NRA-ILA lobbies for changes in laws, political meddling is by the Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF), a distinct entity from both NRA and NRA-ILA. All donations/membership fees are supposed to be kept separate, and I trust them. Important to me because I support NRA-ILA (as well as SAF, GOA, and others), but will select political candidates to receive my money myself, I consider more positions than the NRA does.
“as a result, the murder rate has remained about 138 times less than that in the United States.”
This is quite a leap. I imagine it has much more to do with the current surveillance culture, the historical willingness to acquiesce to the demands of a Parliament that enjoys parliamentary supremacy, and the historical conflict that has only in recent times subsided, the struggle between Parliament and Crown – as opposed to government v. people.
That’s just my 2 pence though.
Is it just me or are they now arguing that the NRA represents it’s members?
“playwright, director, actor, educator and left-leaning theater founder Robert Brustein”
“playwright, director, actor, educator and left-leaning theater founder, (demonstrated) POS,
D – A – N – G – E – R – O – U – S [that’s what they’re calling you and your guns, throw it back at them]
(presumed) CACK-SACKER, Robert Brustein”
there fixed ya.
Join up azzwholes! If you wreck the NRA we’ll all just join alternate orgs.-a bunch of us think ole’ Wayne is about done loser…
Many agree with you about Wayne LaPierre, and it’s particularly strong because he gets over 900K per year for his “NRA activities.” The NRA needs a major revamping, that’s for sure. But that’s part of the point in the article: by joining, actual gun owners could force through that revamping for the good of all.
The “I don’t like the NRA” mantra is, in reality, just shallow thinking. It’s time the average gun owner woke up to power politics and started playing a little hard ball in the name of gun rights and the right to self defense.
It is what it is: I’m not going to let that paralyze me or be cause for opting out of a very important matter. No one joins the Marine Corps because they think the Corps if perfect – they join because it’s the most effective combat organization we have. They join the USMC because it’s the best of the best. And so too can the NRA become the best of the best.
“Don’t let the ideal be the enemy of the effective.” Great advice for all.
Join the NRA. Also join the SAF and GOA, but definitely join the NRA. No tool is perfect, but they are by far the most powerful and effective tool at our disposal.
Thank you, Ethan. So many don’t seem to realize that working with what you’ve got is the American Way.
You summed it up perfectly with, “Don’t let the ideal be the enemy of the effective.”
I thought that no one wants to take our guns away. That’s what they keep telling us.
If they love how other countries do things, I’d be willing to pony up a few bucks to send them packing over to that country. Maybe, if they’re lucky, that country will be just as forgiving of illegal immigrants as the US is; you know, by giving them jobs, welfare, free healthcare, votes in their elections, free housing, etc.
Speaking of facts and figures: If there are (the usual estimated) 80 to 100 million gun owners, and if the NRA has 5 million members, then why doesn’t the NRA have many more times that number of members?
It can’t be cost of membership (which is no more than the cost of many magazine subscriptions).
Is this important? I think it is when you realize that even a quarter of 80-100 million is 20 to 25 million. So by that reasoning, I would expect the NRA membership to be at about 20 million at least. Now think about the average winning percentage for elections for senators, congressmen and presidents. Isn’t that margin usually around 5-6% (and in the low millions)?
Just saying (basically, I know it’s more complex than I’ve presented): potentially, a 20+ million membership would put the NRA in the drivers seat in any election and that would pretty much guarantee establishing gun rights forever more. So it follows that every pro gun rights person and organization should be focusing on recruiting those 80-100 million gun owners to become organized on behalf of gun rights (if not for the NRA).
Also consider: the Democratic Party strategy is pretty clear. They realized that there’re millions of Americans who simply don’t like guns or are afraid of them. They have done a fine job of showing those people the Party is ready to empower them and make their anti-gun prejudice have the force of law. If gun owners realize this, then it will be easier to disempower those people who’re fixated on “eliminating guns.” So, in the end, it’s really about recruiting pro gun against anti gun people. Are we to lose out to a bunch of sissies and neurotics who see futility and vulnerability as virtues? Really?
To me the interesting thing about this is, The left has consistently painted the NRA as some corporate monster that champions the proliferation of guns in America against the will of “the people”.
In this candid peek into the leftist mind however there is a recognition that the NRA really is subject to its body of members who are “the people”.
This is an awesome idea!
Actually, what they should do is pay the $25 annual membership fee, then do the same for SAF and GOA too, while they’re at it! But that might not be enough — better give an extra, like $10,000 donation to all three organizations, while they’re at it. That way, the organizations are all flush with cash when they take control!
Vote for me. I am a life member since 1995. The 2nd Amendment was put into the Constitution so the people could protect themselves from a corrupt government. That is why it says “shall not infringe” so we can have what the government has to prevent a Holocaust. I believe the people should have what the government has including machine guns. The only gun control law there should be is that criminals can’t have any firearms. Thanks for your vote, pass the word. mrpresident2016.com
This site is not here for you to spam. Repeating the same post in multiple discussions is insulting to the rest of us. Please desist.