Just got this month’s issue of American Rifleman, which is one of the magazines you can choose a subscription to with NRA membership (it’s the gun-as-gadget one, there’s also one focused on hunting, one on politics, and one for kids). Came wrapped in a secondary cover promoting their newest gun raffle and I just want to take a few minutes to describe all the various ways it’s brilliant.

First, the theme is the “‘Banned Guns’ Raffle”, which not only fits with their running themes and current betes noires but as a promotional idiom I am 100% sure is stolen from the ALA’s “Banned Books Week”, which is brilliant.

For two the NRA (or their technically-distinct-for-tax-purposes lobbying arm, the NRA-ILA) does raffles a lot. And part of it is that they solicit (but don’t require) donations with entries. But more of it is that they’re refining the data on their members for future solicitations and political campaigns - previous campaigns told them who’s willing to give $40 in response to a mailer yes, but even beyond that, from the people who don’t send in money, they know who’s willing to even open a piece of third-class mail, read three paragraphs at a 9th-grade level, spend 2 minutes filling out a form, put a stamp on it, and remember to mail it. This one tells them who’s willing to type in a 20-letter URL, who’s willing to donate and at what point over a more finely donation range - $5 to $60 - who will remember to keep returning that page daily over the course of a month, and who is willing to find and follow the method for submitting (multiple) entries without paying. Which is brilliant.

For three the NRA is as much if not more a gunmakers’ promotional organization - akin to say the Dairy Council - as it is a consumer-level gunlovers one. The raffles, and manufacturers voluneering prizes for them, are basically a way for manufacturers to promote themselves while funding the organization, a great two-for-one. Which is brilliant.

(Which is also to say, the ~editorial independence~ of American Rifleman is about on par with video game media outlets - it was really obvious how Kimber and Taurus were trying to establish name recognition by donating raffle prizes and buying ads and ~coincidentally~ getting cover features. The Taurus Judge Magnum feature coming like within a year of the basic Taurus Judge one, with a double-page ad spread, that was really blatant, guys.)

Ammunition manufacturers too, the raffles always have a few guns chambered in obscure calibers. I’d never even *heard* of .300 Blackout or .264 LBC-AR, but now, well, I just know 15 seconds skim worth of each, but that’s still infinity percent more than I did before. Brilliant.

I think the NRA might be the single most competent combine I’ve ever been part of.

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.