The annual three-day National Rifle Association (NRA) convention ended Sunday, May 6th in Dallas. President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence spoke on Friday. Other speakers included Texas Governor Greg Abbott and U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn. These speakers indicate the NRA's resilient power and influence.  Attendance in Dallas reported to be about 80,000.* I believe this convention will mark the zenith of NRA’s influence.  

This FREE Insight and the next discuss the organization’s success.  The third in the series predicts the NRA will soon begin a decline in influence.  These essays all recognize that people’s positions on private gun ownership are cultural and demographic; they are largely immune to data and logic.  

Total NRA membership is nearly 6,000,000. A majority of members support stiffer background checks. (Nearly twice as many Democratics as Republicans support a national gun ownership database, 84% to 45%.) Still, the NRA Convention of 2018 opposed all increased gun monitoring and control. Why?  They see a slippery slope and NRA provides the strongest safeguards.

There are two fundamental reasons for NRA's success. The first is NRA's reputation for championing self-protection from both roaming and sedentary bandits.  The second attraction is comradeship and fun times with families and friends. NRA packages these features well and its influence goes far beyond its paid membership.

The NRA theme:  Self-protection from two kinds of predators fosters a wholesome life.

Roaming predators are easy to define, they are bad guys aiming to inflict harm and loss. The NRA monthly magazine, American Rifleman, has a feature, "The Armed Citizen".  It reports success in fending off such creatures.  

The heroes, sympathetic people, are armed in their homes. Most are elderly or female would-have-been victims. They save themselves and loved ones by brandishing, and sometimes using, their weapons against intruders.  Successful charges are never brought in these accounts, even when the assailant is found injured or dead.

Here is a clear admonition from the NRA perspective: "If you are a trained gun handler, you should be caring. You should also have your CCW (Concealed Carry Weapon) permit. It is your duty and responsibility to protect and serve; to protect yourself and your loved ones and to serve your community as a responsible and trained gun handler. You need to be your own first responder."  Tactical Life, 'No Snowflake' Guide to Holiday Safety and Survival, Nov., 2017.

Here is NRA's classification of people:  "The sheep in society (advocates of gun control)... go on acting as if life isn’t dangerous, but they require sheepdogs (gun owners) willing to live a hardier life to keep the wolves (mass shooters and other violent criminals) from taking weaker members of the herd." Journal of Ethnographic Theory, Winter 2017.

Sedentary bandits are harder to identify than those roaming as outlaws. Sedentary bandits posture as "public servants", but plunder people through government power. In economic terms they are "rent seekers", people who use politics to extract wealth and limit the opportunities of others.

America's founders were highly sensitive to this always-looming danger of political plunder.  Hence, the Second Amendment. It's not there by accident and not to protect duck hunting. Rather, the function of the Second Amendment was to be a safeguard against abuse by government officials, both foreign and domestic.

The NRA's monthly magazine, American Rifleman, is a Second Amendment advocate and defender. The NRA bills their annual convention as “the nation’s premier Second Amendment celebration".  The NRA theme is simple: Government predators are more cautious and respectful when eyeing citizens who may be armed. That's why tyrants disarm their subjects. "Don't let them do it to you: Join NRA! Now!"

NRA constantly stresses the strong proclivity for (evil) people in power to disarm others.  This is true across time and nations. It was pronounced during America’s post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Mississippi’s Regulation Law prohibited blacks from owning firearms or ammunition. Alabama prohibited “any freedman, mulatto, or free person of color in this state, to own firearms.” An 1865 Florida law similarly prohibited “Negroes, mulattos, or other persons of color from possessing guns, ammunition or blade weapons”, unless they had a license granted by a judge.**

The American Rifleman constantly reminds readers, often with direct quotes from powerful people, that this threat remains today.  Their claim is simple: Americans really are threatened by political opportunists who ultimately want to take away their guns.  Each seemingly sensible step toward gun safety, better background checks for example, is one in a march toward absolute gun control.  NRA is there to impede or stop that march--and thereby to protect our freedom.

Certainly the great majority of the 80,000 who gathered in Dallas share this culture.  And there is more: The second attraction offered by the NRA is fun and games with people who share core convictions.  Exploring that is our next FREE Insight.

"The South Carolina Youth Shooting Foundation is looking forward to the 2018 season—and celebrating its 10th anniversary—as well. With grant support ($66,000) from The NRA Foundation, it is spreading love of the shooting sports and teaching freedom to the youth of South Carolina."

* NRA's power in the political arena is disproportionate to its membership and lobbying budget.  While roughly 30% of American adults own a gun only about 6% of the gun owners belong to NRA.

**Violators were punished by public whipping up to “39 stripes.  The Carolinas had similar laws constraining Blacks' gun ownership.