Posted on 04/23/2003 12:37:48 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Citing a lack of funding, a national gun-rights organization known for its impressionable pro-gun advertisements has called it quits three years after its founding.
"It has become increasingly difficult to raise sufficient funds to pay for the costs associated with running the organization," said Citizens of America, in a statement published on its website.
The group's co-founder, Brian Puckett, said he had tried to use the Internet to get wired into millions of gun owners he hoped would help fund the fledgling organization. Though donations did come, they were always too little, he said.
And now it's too late.
"COA's original operational model was based on high support response from gun owners connected to the Internet, and the fact that we were providing a desperately-needed service: a pro-active, pro-Second Amendment, pro-self-defense ad campaign that reached all Americans, not just those who receive gun-rights publications or read gun magazines," said the statement.
"The founders of COA believed that since there were about 75 million gun owners in the U.S., if we could get $10 from 10 percent of them per year, we would have plenty of funding. But we did not receive that sort of support – nowhere close, in fact. And [we received] very little support from corporations whose very existence depends on the free exercise of the right to buy, own and use guns – that is, gun, bullet and powder manufacturers," the statement continued.
Still, Puckett said there were some successes. The group's radio and print ads, which featured high-impact pro-gun messages, were picked up by hundreds of stations in 45 states and dozens of publications.
One print ad featured a picture of a handgun and a telephone receiver at the top and asked readers, "Which would a rapist fear?" Another showed a headstone and read, "9-1-1 wasn't enough."
One radio ad titled "9-1-1 Hell" began with glass breaking, a woman gasping, three phone buttons being pushed and a phone ringing. That was followed by a recorded message, "You have reached the 911 emergency service. All operators are busy. Please stay on the line for the next available operator," and an anxious woman caller pleading, "Oh, God! Please help me! He's got a knife!"
Still, despite the unique nature of the ads, funding remained scarce.
"Though we have had much-appreciated help from a few gun-related corporations … it was not enough nor regular enough to make a long-term difference," COA said. "Finally, no millionaires stepped forward to help, as seems so common in the anti-gun camp.
"For all of you who have so generously and diligently supported COA, we believe the work COA has done up until now has indeed made a difference. We thank you for your help," the statement concluded.
Puckett said the group had been a clearinghouse of donations for a legal battle being waged by another gun-rights organization, KeepAndBearArms.org. That group is helping prepare and fund a challenged to California's semi-automatic rifle ban. KABA hopes to get the case before the U.S. Supreme Court and has already retained legal counsel.
COA said "for a time" its website would remain active and anyone looking to download radio or print ads from the site would be able to do so. Also, the group said it may use its e-mail list to notify members of "events that are particularly important."
Actually work against gun control rather than compromise with it.
Ya got me. There isn't any nominally pro-gun group that compromises with the anti-gunners better than the NRA. (Project exile, instant background check, etc.)
Sorry - hit the post too soon.
You can only work with someone if you have the same goals, and to be honest the goals of many gun owners are to protect their rights and even recover some of the lost ones, not to compromise them away further which is the NRA's forte. So you can't work with someone if what they're working for isn't what you want.
I could work with Sara Brady too if I wanted a country where only the police and military were armed. I don't. I'll work with the NRA when they stop their policy of preemptive surrender and stop their policy of opposition to pro gun laws like the Bobby Franklin Amendment to the current stealth trigger lock bill in the GA gnl assy, SB1
No more than I have a preoccupation with Brady, Schumer, Feinstein, etc. They all work on varying degrees to take away my rights. The difference is that the NRA does so under false colors.
If you have a better gun group that does it better than the NRA, I'm sure we would all like to hear it.
I work with CSG which is affiliated with GOA. I also belong to JPFO, but they aren't directly political. Both of these are better than the NRA at actually working to protect rights.
NFA. CGA '68. Brady. AWB. What exactly has the NRA stopped? Even their much lauded Project Exhile is being used against gun owners who get caught in red-tape and technicalities like the Bean fiasco.
If the NRA was actually doing some good, I would agree with you. GOA, SAF, and JPFO have filed more amicus briefs and supported more Rights restoration bills than I have EVER seen the NRA do. I don't say these things lightly either. I was an NRA member from '86 up until they folded, for all intents and purposes, on the Brady Bill.
My Rights are non-negotiable. Either step up to the plate, or get the hell out of the way.
OK.
How about the Second Amendment Sisters vs. the Million Mom March?
NRA couldn't touch that with a ten foot pole.
FYI the NRA opposed the amendment to SB1 that simply states that gun owners could not be prosecuted for not having trigger locks. Didn't just stay neutral on it, but actively opposed it. So take your sell out traitors in the NRA make big kissey noises at them, stop wasting my time, and babble on about the wonders of the NRA to someone who hasn't found out that what they really do is completely different from what they say they do.
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