Why Would Young People Join?

The Trace is reporting a startling statistic about people who are donating to NRA-PVF. NRA is lead by a septuagenarian (Wayne turns 70 today! Happy Birthday Wayne! My dad is 70 too, but unlike you, he retired 8 years ago) who hasn’t done a damned thing to appeal to younger shooters. “OK Boomer” is a meme absolutely made for the NRA under Wayne.

NRA needs to update its image. Really, they needed to do it a decade ago. Time is running out. I suspect NRA is facing the same demographic cliff my club is looking at in a decade, and for the same reason: nothing was done to cater to younger shooters for years. The Angry Dana Strategy was a waste of time. They would have done better to flush all that money down the toilet. Anger does not appeal to younger people. Anger appeals to old farts with nothing better to do than get themselves worked up on social media.

For years NRA has not at all played to their strengths. They trashed their own training programs for the Carry Guard debacle. They’ve deemphasized outreach to shooting communities and don’t focus on growing them. That should be NRA’s bread and butter. Political power will follow from that. But instead we’re bleeding NRA dry to cover for Wayne’s past sins.

Targeting Judges for Following the Law

The Mayor of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County Chief Executive targeting a judge for following the law is despicable, and I hope gun voters will have Judge Joseph James’ back come election time. It’s a consequence of having elected judges in Pennsylvania. If Judge James had ruled the other way, we certainly would have done the same. But in this case, the law is unambiguously on our side. Do you remember the judge that threw out the preemption enhancement because it was unconstitutionally attached to a metal theft bill? I don’t. Because the law was plausibly not on our side. The judge had to make a call that’s within the space of the law. In this case, they are looking to throw their weight around and intimidate the judiciary into using political expedience rather than the law to inform their decision making.

To me, this looks like a couple of petty tyrants upset they didn’t get their way.