Back to the NRA?
by Gila Hayes
We love meeting and chatting with our members! As a result, even through the darkest years, the Network has rented exhibit space and attended the National Rifle Association Annual Meetings and Exhibits. With the tremendous amount of energy that’s been put into electing a reform-focused board of directors, we will again this year be part of the Annual Meeting this spring.
Please plan to come by and visit with us at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta on April 25, 26 and 27. Marty, William, Amie and I will be in Booth 3930 in Hall B, right behind the Glock booth. For more details, see https://www.nraam.org/events/ . We are optimistic that the Atlanta meeting will be better attended than last year’s in Dallas, when absences to protest against the leadership of the NRA reduced participation to a mere trickle. What’s different this year? What’s different is the great need for armed citizenry to coalesce back into a powerful force to teach gun safety and protect the right to have guns for self defense.
In this month’s lead interview Tom Gresham stressed the need for a strong, functional NRA to stand up to attacks against self-defense rights and gun restrictions. His comments are timely, for several reasons.
In just a few days, April 6, voting for the new slate of directors of the National Rifle Association closes. Reform candidates have dubbed what they envision as a resurrected NRA as NRA 2.0. NRA life members or armed citizens who have continuously maintained membership in the NRA despite the ugliness of the preceding years are eligible to vote. The power to claw back control of what was once the strongest gun lobby to ever influence American politics, to say nothing of nationally-recognized NRA firearms training classes and other benefits with which Americans were previously blessed, rests on the remaining members.
That money and time were wasted over the past decade is indisputable. The question now is how to move forward. The NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits we attended in Dallas in mid-May of 2024 was sparsely attended, despite the first step toward change, the ousting of the old Executive Vice President and CEO four months earlier. Recovery is never immediate.
The NRA’s recovery is essential, as expressed by Gresham in our longer interview. Since we discussed so many other topics let me excerpt his comments for your consideration, as you ask yourself, is it time to go back to the National Rifle Association? Yes, he says, if nothing else for the power to do professional media influencing – like the anti-freedom, anti-gun groups do. They are a powerful influence due in large part to their media presence.
Tom’s reasoning, which is best expressed in his own words, is hard to dispute, as you'll hear in the video in which he's discussing how to counter Bloomberg/Everytown, Giffords, et al.
Is it time to go back to the NRA? We think it is. Will you join us there?