GOA’s ‘grades’ continued
I guess it stands for GOP Owners of America!!!111eleven
Non-gun votes affect their grading system. Seems they dinged Halvorson over her votes on Obamacare, stimulus, and DISCLOSE. None of those are related to gun rights.
Compared to NRA’s grading system, both have their problems. NRA focuses on gun votes. This means things tangentially related to what your typical gun owner values can slip threw the cracks if they’re not gun-related. Neither system is perfect.
October 14th, 2010 at 8:49 am
NRA didn’t “ding” people for their votes on DISCLOSE, because NRA worked out a deal where NRA–and only NRA–would be exempted from the most egregious requirements.
Say what you want about the other bills, but if DISCLOSE is enforced the way Democrats want it to be, every gun rights organization other than NRA would be hounded out of existence. (Of course, it would then be NRA’s turn.) Not commenting on the morality of NRA’s deal with the devil, just making the point that DISCLOSE was, on its face, intended to shut down gun rights advocacy as one of the types of speech the Democratic Party disagrees with.
October 14th, 2010 at 9:23 am
DISCLOSE was related to gun rights, if only because it would have a strong negative impact on all lobbying including the gun rights lobby. Remember that NRA opposed DISCLOSE until it no longer effected them. They threw every other gun rights political organization under the bus on that one.
October 14th, 2010 at 9:59 am
Government health care could also effect gun owners, as proponents want to call out firearms as a health hazard, or label those with basic ailments as unfit to own a firearm.
Not saying they should be light on the GOP, they are just as crooked as the Democrats. In fact, the Dems have been more honest about what they are doing in recent history, if you understand where they are going.
October 14th, 2010 at 10:08 am
Then every bill is either pro-gun or anti-gun!
October 14th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Supreme Court and many other judicial appointments and executive appointments are definitely gun related and deserve to be included in such grading systems.
Sotomayor dissented in McDonald, even after stating under oath during her confirmation that Heller was “settled law.”
Anyone who voted to approve Sotomayor should lose at least one letter grade from gun groups.
October 14th, 2010 at 10:37 am
The way I get it from a friend who works there, the NRA opposed DISCLOSE – until the 40 million claimed membership AARP blew in certain Congressmen’s ears.
The exemption was then written broadly to include both the AARP and the 4 million claimed member NRA, as well as a couple of other long existing and very large organizations that might be able to rock the boat. The three million claimed member American Legion, for one.
It is interesting to note that the AARP’s membership is three times that of the combined membership of the other DISCLOSE exempt organizations.
Once the exemption was written into the law, the NRA no longer “owned the ox that was gored,” that is, it no longer had standing to fight the bill. So it shut up.
Which all seems remarkably simple considering the byzantine reasoning behind most bills.
Stranger
October 14th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Mikee is dead on.
The NRA endorses a good many Democrats.
How many of them either voted for the virulently anti-2A Nancy Pelosi in the House or for Sotomayor and Kagan in the Senate?
This isn’t a rhetorical question – I don’t know the answer.
And why isn’t it endorsing Sharon Angle, who is opposing the Senator who ramrodded Sotomayor and Kagan through the Senate approval process?
Because it cut a deal with Harry Reid that it would either endorse him or, if it’s trial balloon got shot down, it would not endorse Angle.
Does anyone really think that quid pro quo didn’t change hands during the DISCLOSE negotiations?
October 14th, 2010 at 11:18 am
Uncle … get over it already.
AND YES any bill that take away from your freedoms are anti-gun
DISCLOSE was a bill that the NRA weaseled themselves out of, so that they will be the only gun lobby. Stimulus sets precedents that they can use government money to bend states to their will. And Obamacare will use the concept of cost for gun related medical cost a reasoning for a myriad of gun restrictions. AND NO heller won’t stop that.
Seriously, the more people toss hate to the GOA … the more i begin to think that they are right.
and BTW the NRA should stand for Nevermind the Right to bear Arms
October 14th, 2010 at 11:53 am
When the gov’t controls healthcare and has the power to deem you mentally unfit to own a gun, it will.
Remember, to most dems the mere idea that you, as an ‘ordinary’ citizen, want a gun is evidence enough that shouldn’t be trusted with one.
October 14th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
If the NRA endorses pro-gun Democrats, then when the Congress is run by Democrats, the NRA has allies in it.
This seems like an obvious and intelligent move by the NRA and yet it is astonishing how many people don’t get it.
October 14th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Meh. We’re all fond of dumping on the NRA for their so-called “single issue” grading system, which, it turns out, isn’t so single-issue after all.
However, upon FURTHER REVIEW, I find that I am in the “single issue” category myself: I don’t trust a damn thing that comes from DeeCee, regardless of the party which spouts it.
October 14th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
I am not concerned about the present management, behavior and actions of the NRA because I am against the NRA.
I am concerned about those matters because I have been a member of the NRA for 9 – 10 years and it has been, and remains, very important to me.
Does anyone really believe that the NRA would have perpetrated slick DISCLOSE maneuver while Charlton Heston ran the NRA?
Of course not, becasue he had, above all, character.
Does anyone really believe that the NRA wouldn’t endorse a pro-gun Senate candidate (Sharon Angle) to run against a majority leader who worked hard and successfully to ensure the approval of 2 anti-2A SCOTUS justices while Charlton Heston ran the NRA?
I didn’t think so, because he had character.
Trading principle for power is what the GOP (which used to be very important to me, when it still had principles and character) did a few years back.
I hope that the NRA doesn’t follow suit, and I’m not convinced that it won’t under its current management.
I always hoped to scare up the money (i.e. sell a gun) to buy a lifetime membership in the NRA.
At this point, I’m kind of glad that I pay every year(or every 3 years, whatever it is I do).
Which brings me to another point.
As soon as I pay my annual (or sometimes my tri-annual) membership dues, I start getting calls at my home from people wanting me to renew my NRA membership.
This is pretty weak.
When I ask the caller how much time is left on my current membersip, he or she becomes apoplectic (as in “I don’t know, but you should probably go ahead and renew to be on the safe side”).
October 14th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
DISCLOSE really needed to be fought, not so much because it was anti-gun, but because it was anti-GOA.