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.