I am involved in the process much more than I care to be but the legislator’s votes aren’t there.
Now you can wish upon a star if you want but that doesn’t change anything.
Now let’s take a hard look at what you are doing. Exactly nothing that will change the outcome. You don’t know anything about the closed doors dealings on this issue because you aren’t part of the process. You aren’t going to change the anti’s minds about this or the dem party.
The reason why is the NRA only has four million members. Do you have any idea how many AARP members there are? They dwarf the numbers the NRA has. Are you going to become a member so eighty million gun owners are now part of the NRA and can really scare some of these politicians? Doubt it.
If your gun group was so good, they wouldn’t need the NRA. The other gun groups can’t stop this any more than the NRA can. The NRA is trying to minimize the damage a bill like this can do but your gun group is too busy complaining and whining about the NRA.
Other gun groups: send emails and complain about the NRA when a antigun bill passes. Hope you think that’s worth sending in membership dues.
The numbers are extrapolated, my friend. Four million members equals many more million who agree with them. Politicians know this. It's a formula. One person who writes in to complain or praise equals X many more out there who agree. That's why the NRA gets in.
Do you know why the "back room" exists? It exists because an organization has approval from its members in the form of dollars and silence. You've agreed that for a price you'll let someone else speak on your behalf and determine your fate.
And there's where everything has gone wrong. The NRA's members are generaly satisfied to let the NRA muckety-mucks make the decisions, because they know all the ins and outs of politics and back rooms and all that happy horsesh*t. You need us to be there in Washington fighting for your rights, they say. But we can't always get everything we want, they say, because we have to make certain compromises along the way and play the political game to reach the ultimate end. But we need to be here for you, they say, because the process is far too complicated for the average American to grasp.
Baloney.
You're a politician. Five thousand letters from people in your district hit your desk. They all say the same thing - if you vote for Bill #1, we'll look for another candidate to put in office this coming November. Are you impressed? What about ten thousand letters? A hundred thousand? What if an organization decided to make an effort to mobilize its four million members to action like that? Oh, right, we wouldn't need the lobbyists.
Now, what have other organizations done for rights lately? Not much, because either NRA apologists are all too eager to mock them out of relevance, or the NRA itself will co-opt or undermine until the "upstart" is absorbed or eliminated. Yeah, I've had my share of experience with the NRA and its affiliates.
Refresh my memory, how was the assault weapons ban defeated?