And Now A Word From The Opposition

Having gone from trying to beat Starbucks into submission, and failing, Paul Helmke of the Brady Bunch For The Prevention of Gun Ownership is getting his bleat on about the NRA.

What does he have to say? Well, you can read for yourself, here.

Keeping up with the whole 'NRA's all about letting terrorists have guns' thing, he tries to guilt the membership into supporting his point of view.

Supposedly taking a piece from the NRA's pledge in 1954, we get this little gem:

'I certify that I am a citizen of the United States; that I am not a member of any organization that has any part of its program the attempt to overthrow the government of the United States by force or violence; that I have never been convicted of a crime of violence and that if admitted to membership I will fulfill the obligations of good sportsmanship and good citizenship.'

Now, when I got my life membership last year (I upgraded to Endowment this year on the legacy plan) I got a copy of the Bylaws of the National Rifle Association.

Reading said bylaws, Article 3, section 1, paragraph b states:

'No individual who is a member of, and no organization composed in whole or in part of individuals who are members of, any organization or group having as its purpose or one of its purposes the overthrow by force and violence of the Government of the United States or any of its political subdivisions shall be eligible for membership.'

I don't see where the NRA has ever been about giving guns to terrorists. Either by selling them or giving them away. Nobody wants terrorists, or criminals for that matter, to have access to firearms. That said, what the NRA, and a lot of others don't much care for is putting somebody's name on a secret list and then denying them civil rights with no way or hope of ever getting off the super secret squirrel list. There's something about 'lists' that conjures up all kinds of bad history and memories; from the NKVD to the Gestapo to the Stasi to the KGB and the FSB, nobody wants their name on a list for no other reason than somebody, somewhere didn't like the way they looked or acted. Those kinds of things can get ugly in real hurry.

His other complaint, about the so-called 'gunshow loophole' or as he puts it 'loopholes that allow criminals to buy guns' is a tired old argument he's been at for some time.

His latest, though, is trying to equate NRA membership with militia membership. Now, knowing what the bylaws from 2009 and the pledge from 1954 say, I think he's trying to urinate up the long hemp object hanging from the ceiling. Reason I say that is, everyone I know of who hates the government also can't stand the NRA. Most, if not all, of them think the NRA is too squishy on gun rights for their tastes.

You know, the Prez may have been right. You've got to hitch your wagon to something bigger than yourself. My wagon just happens to be the proverbial 800 lb gorilla in gun rights.