I don’t know if anyone noticed, but Bitter’s blog was featured in yesterday’s NRA Outrage of the Week:
But when NRA-ILA puts the word out that AHSA is an anti-gun front group, these “sportsmen” get a little sensitive, calling ILA staff “right-wing attack dogs” and calling gun owners who support the right to own firearms to defend themselves “self-defense whackos.” (To see the comments Ricker made on a popular pro-gun blog, please click here.)Â But the truth is, AHSA and its anti-gun leadership have supported anti-gun lawsuits and gun bans, and its leaders have given money to the Brady Campaign and to anti-gun politicians like John Kerry, Al Gore, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, and Ted Kennedy.
Bitter has a post that devastates Riker’s assertion in her comments here:
At AHSA, we value quality over mere quantity and let me asure you there are plenty of very wealthy “progressive†gunowners out there who understand AHSA’s mission. You know, NRA in over 100 years has only signed up about 4 million of the 70 million gun ownres out there and it’s not like the other 66 million gun owners have not heard from the NRA- clearly a huge majority of gun owners have rejected NRA’s message. That leaves a huge market for a group like AHSA that has a more reasoned and rational approach.
Basically about 33 million people think they are members of NRA, but aren’t paying dues, which is what counts for membership numbers. That leaves Bob’s pool of “progressive”gunowners much smaller than he thinks. There’s never been a group that’s been able to seriously capitalize on disconcent with NRA. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, capitalizing on discontent from the right of NRA, GOA’s income from membership dues puts their numers at about 30,000. I highly doubt AHSA will do any better, but maybe they can dupe enough folks that they can afford some digs that are a bit more swanky than a post office box in Fredrick, Maryland.