This is a simple fact of life, also, we need to donate to BOTH organizations when we can. The NRA does very good advocacy work and even better education work. The GOA is aggressive and pushes through things like Heller (which I have to point out the NRA was too scared to do at first).

In short, lets stop fighting between the groups. THEY NEED EACH OTHER. Without the NRA, most people would view gun advocacy as kind of crazy, without the GOA, a lot less would actually get done. If anything, we should form slightly more extreme GOA-like orgs, that are even more pro-gun than the GOA to draw the public discourse ever so slightly more towards freedom.

Explain to me how donors who can make large donations equals astroturf. Would you argue that if a pro-gun person of means is willing to donate $1,000,000 to advance the cause, they should really only give $1,000 instead because it looks more grassroots that way? Should NRA, and by default, the rest of us as gun owners, be happy we’re missing out on an additional $999,000 for creating new shooting programs or giving to pro-gun politicians or reaching gun rights supporting voters because we get to hold some moral high ground?

I understand what you’re trying to argue, but I don’t think that we should look at the significance of grassroots in terms of a dollar value. Don’t discredit the work to reach wealthy pro-gun donors.

Besides, our large donors are demanding for results that reflect our grassroots. If you look up the larger donor programs at NRA right now, you’d find things like the Gregory Match.

Joe and Cindy Gregory, Co-Chairs of the NRA Ring of Freedom National Advisory Council have generously offered a matching gift opportunity to the NRA of $3 million. If the NRA raises $6 million in outright gifts and pledges of $25,000 or more, by May 19, 2009, the Gregorys will donate an astounding matching gift of $3 million.

Does raising 240 $25k+ donations reflect a sign of grassroots support? I would say so. I know I’m more than happy to count the wealthy among our grassroots. I think that’s part of what makes our movement great.

Last year, NRA was working with August Busch III to do a donor match program that could include everyone.

Busch, of Anheuser-Busch brewery fame, offers this simple challenge to shooting enthusiasts: for every $2 that’s donated or pledged toward YHEC by the end of 2008, he will contribute $1 — up to a maximum of $250,000. Busch plans to raise a total of $750,000 to support YHEC, NRA’s oldest continuously operated program.

Does reaching out to him to support the Youth Hunter Education Challenge reflect a lack of grassroots? Sure, he’s a high dollar donor, but he asked NRA to prove its grassroots support in order to get the larger donation.

At this point, everyone knows and understands that we have real grassroots. Yes, we need to flex that muscle periodically to remind folks on Capitol Hill and in our communities that we’re around. But, I don’t see how looking at whether an organization does outreach to the wealthy is a measure of whether we’re still grassroots or not.

That doesn’t mean NRA wouldn’t seek out members. NRA needs members. It would mean they don’t have to beg for money as much as they do, which drives a lot of people away.

I dunno, Sebastian. There’s no harm in looking for large donors, but I think “astroturf” is one of the more potent arguments NRA has against the antis. NRA, any time it likes, can say, “Here’s evidence of our grassroots support. Where’s yours?”

Now, in an era where politicians are more or less openly bought, or at least increasingly indifferent both to where the money’s coming from and the opinions of the folks back home, I grant that the argument loses force.

Thanks Sebastian, for telling it exactly how it is. I’m going to forward this to a few of my fellow gun owning friends. I just couldn’t get my point across to them as well you did in this post.

But they didn’t really win in several large swoops, though it does seem that way. State level gun controls started as early as 1911. There was an effort prior to 1934 to pass analogues to Sullivan. Even after NFA, there was the Federal Firearms Act in 1938.

I’ll be honest, we’re probably not going to roll it all back. But we, at least, have rolled back most of the laws that popped up in the 20th century banning the carry of concealed weapons. We made sure the assault weapons ban died, and got a least one major chip out of GCA 68 passed.

There’s still a lot of work to do, but wishing it would happen faster isn’t going to make it happen faster. The only way it’s going to happen faster is bringing more people into the fight in a serious way. We have to be willing to do the work to defeat anti-gun politicians, and support pro-gun politicians, and we can only do that with numbers. Numbers that GOA doesn’t have, and even NRA could use a lot more of.

Have you actually read the Act?

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h1096/show

Here’s a summary. Would it make machineguns legal? Would it make SBRs legal to buy over the counter? How does this repeal all Federal gun law?

The other guys have gotten to where they are in several fell swoops – NFA-34, GCA-68, Brady Bill, and some other amendments/bills they’ve slipped in over the years (I love machineguns, but for most people Hughes was relatively minor because they were already rather difficult to get). Why can’t we land strikes of this magnitude too?