also I want to say that in comparison to that, the NRA is the single most competent, rewarding organization I have ever been part of

when i join liberal or neutral or commercial groups always a flood of solicitations two months later as they make money selling my existence on

only people NRA ever sell you to is NRA-ILA, which is their lobbying branch. they entice you with raffles to win scores of free guns* in return they encourage you to lobby and vote with the NRA.

the NRA robocalled me three times about the last city attorney election. do you know who your city attorney is?

you get crazy hotel and car rental discounts with the NRA. my membership has paid for more years than I’ve had it already

I joined up the day of that virginia tech shooting. it was the bush years so i backed the ACLU thinking they were as good as the history they polish but then there was gun control again on the telly and i was like oh yeah thats what the NRAs for gotta cover all the amendments

and then there was that supreme court case they tried to hold off on but when it was happening they went all in and it went right and they whooped it up and started to build the infrastructure to use it as a national crowbar (via incorporation)

the shadiest thing the NRA’s ever done with me is send me a free home defense dvd and commemorative coin with an envelope that was like:

“subscribe and keep receiving things like this, or else send these back in this envelope”

and then in bigger, bolded type

“OR JUST DO NOTHING AND KEEP IT FOR FREE, WHAT THE HELL.”

also they give you a choice of 3 free magazines. I go American Rifleman*, it’s cool and it really teaches you an appreciation of guns as machines: it’s like imagine a swiss watch where every time it ticks it has to absorb the force of a point-blank gunshot.

That said:

*: hey Kimber don’t think i didn’t notice how you gave a ton of Kimber Covert raffle prizes and bought the backpage for a while and got the cover story, or Taurus getting your Judge cover with prizes and buying the backpage two months and then getting the Judge Magnum cover buying double-pages two months, jesus christ obvious much?

P.S. my favorite thing about American Rifleman is that there is in each issue only one ad that explicitly invokes the use of guns against humans, and it is always a full-pager directly opposite “The Armed Citizen” column, a collection of 3 or 4 short briefs about good Americans using guns against bad people.