Of Lightning Rods and Small Potatoes

Originally published January 2021.

New York v. NRA Lawsuit: An Object Lesson in Distraction

I am increasingly inclined to believe the lawsuit initiated by the State of New York against the NRA was to distract it from being active in the 2020 election cycle. By distracting the leadership to defending its existence, and by distracting the membership to the internal machinations of the NRA leadership, donations to the NRA were both reduced and diverted at a crucial time. The two seemingly contributed to a lessening of a broad public warning, through advertising media, that basic firearm ownership would be threatened by a Biden administration.

There are many NRA members, and former members, who financially abandoned the NRA for other pro-gun organizations, I among them. That may have been a strategic blunder.

Many who own firearms believe AR-15 style rifles have no place among sporting arms. However, had a clarion call been produced by the NRA in key states that basic firearm ownership was a threatened right in the 2020 election cycle, we may have seen different results. Granted, that may be a stretch in the face of unsolicited ballot mail-outs by various states, but that’s a discussion for another day.

(Update 10/18/2021) It should be common knowledge, now, that the NRA attempted to move their headquarters to Texas through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition. That petition was rejected, which means the lawsuit in NY continues.

The Cachet and Tacit Influence of the NRA

Gun owners who may not belong to the NRA, and are not aware of any other pro-gun group, let alone belong to them, probably sense the NRA generally seeks to preserve each citizen’s right to gun ownership. It may be that the generalized sense and conception that the NRA strives to preserve a Constitutional right mobilizes even those who do not own firearms, but simply do not want to see basic rights protected by the Bill of Rights trammeled by government overreach.

Primary and Secondary Targets

!President-elect Biden tweeted a pledge “to defeat the NRA.” Apparently, he had not gotten the news from the gun community that the NRA is a rapidly diminishing voice among firearm owners.

Despite that “insider” news, the NRA is still the primary target for destruction because of its cachet, and the tacit recognition among the broader population that it stands for the protection of citizens’ right to keep and bear arms. Defeating the NRA is nothing more that an exercise of the cancel culture. With the defeat of the NRA, !President Biden, and his anti-gun cronies, would send a message to the nation that if you support the second amendment, you will be cancelled next.

As the most recognizable of the second amendment advocates, the NRA is the lightning rod. For all their judicial successes, other groups are small potatoes, the secondary targets, in the eyes of the anti-gunners. A fundamental strategic maneuver is to destroy the primary strength of your adversary first. Having removed those primary threats first grants breathing room to remove secondary targets at your convenience: NRA first. The small potatoes such as GOA, Second Amendment Foundation, and the FPC, are second.

So, What Can We Do?

The most immediate action we can take is to inundate our elected Representatives and Senators with telephone calls and email protesting the joint Congressional and executive attack on the Second Amendment. The Firearms Policy Coalition’s website has links to make the task of contacting your elected representatives easier (https://www.firearmspolicy.org). The Bill of Rights was not written to grant rights, but to protect rights antecedent to established governments from their overreach and tyranny.

The second action we can take is to financially support our favored Second Amendment advocacy organization(s). I think the NRA is still a viable option, since it is THE lightning rod. Believing that, I contribute what I can to the NRA and FPC, primarily, and to the GOA and Second Amendment Foundation as a third and fourth option.

The third, and admittedly slower, action we can take is to Move Back to America by strengthening local election processes, replacing local liberal elected officials with conservative ones (us), and eventually replacing Congressional professional politicians with citizen-legislators who serve for limited terms.

A book I highly recommend is Mark R. Levin’s The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic (New York, Threshold Editions, 2014). In it Levin outlines eleven proposed amendments to the Constitution that would serve to reduce the stranglehold professional politicians and bureaucrats have on our government.