Do you believe that a majority of NRA members are not the enemy?

[Kaleva]

Last edited Sat Aug 3, 2019, 11:24 PM - Edit history (1)

It's been mentioned in this campaign that they are not and this has been discussed on Twitter and in a few threads here at DU. I myself believe that statement to be wrong and I posted supporting evidence of why I think so in the following OP:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212230793

Based on the the comments I've read here at DU over the years, there are examples of such in this OP, I'd say that only a very small fraction of DUers believe that the majority of NRA members are not the enemy. However, that attitude could have changed recently and maybe this poll will shed on light on a possible shift.

31 votes, 2 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	I believe the majority of NRA members are not the enemy
	10 (32%)
	I believe the majority of NRA members are the enemy
	21 (68%)
	2 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[Hoyt]

1. Any organization whose members elect a Board of Directors with people like this, is the enemy:

?resize=987%2C576&ssl=1


One of NRA's latest memes:

https://d97yz4wvpgciz.cloudfront.net/remote.axd??preset=article

[demmiblue]

9. Ted Nugent is a piece of shit. Remember this one:

[Initech]

48. And he's a friend of Sean Hannity too.

[treestar]

17. Perhaps only a small fraction of membership votes, though

I belong to an organization that has us vote, and I never know those who are running. The average member might not pay attention to that extent.

[hack89]

39. So why is a moron like Ted Nugent kicking your ass?

If he is the enemy then there should be gun control by now. Just saying.

[Hoyt]

40. Because gunners helped elect likes of trump, they like his hateful rhetoric, racism, gun-love, etc.

[hack89]

41. Except for those gun owners that are Democrats

It is easy to be a Democratic gun owner - Biden or Bernie will be just as good for gun owners as Obama was.

[Hoyt]

42. Yeah, those that are truly Democrats. A lot of Gungeoneers have beef very

quiet since trump got elected. That tells me something.

I have a hard time believing gunners who put their easy access to more guns than anyone needs and public toting, over society, are truly Democrats.

[hack89]

43. There is nothing to argue about anymore

Nothing has changed nor will anything change in the future.

[Hoyt]

44. Nothing will change with trump in office, so no need for the inteference

from gun profiteers and addicts.

[hack89]

45. Nothing will change with Biden in office either.

That’s just the way things are now days.

[Hoyt]

46. Gunners hope and pray.

[hack89]

47. That has been our reality for a very long time

Nothing is happening that will change things, especially with Biden. He is old school.

[MrsCoffee]

54. Then kids will keep dying.

If nothing changes, then Schools, Churches, Mosques, Synagogues and Walmarts will keep getting shot up.

That certainly has been the reality for too fucking long.

[demmiblue]

2. Appeal to gun owners if you want, not to members of the NRA.

This was a really mind-boggling step given the NRA's horrid, right-wing reputation.

To me, this would seem like common sense.

I wonder what Shannon Watts/Moms Demand Action, as well as the Parkland survivors, have to say about this.

[Kaleva]

3. NRA members are more right wing then non-member gun owners

"A majority of gun owners (61%) are Republicans or lean to the Republican Party, but NRA members skew even more heavily to the political right than other gun owners. Roughly three-quarters (77%) of gun owners who say they belong to the NRA are Republicans or lean Republican, while only 20% are Democrats or lean Democratic. Among gun owners who do not belong to the NRA, by contrast, 58% are Republicans and 39% are Democrats. And among Republican gun owners, NRA members are much more likely than nonmembers to describe their political views as very conservative (29% vs. 18%).

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/05/among-gun-owners-nra-members-have-a-unique-set-of-views-and-experiences/

[Politicub]

4. That is an eye-opening stat.

[treestar]

16. Still that shows that even Democrats are members of the NRA

[Kaleva]

18. Would like to see your vote in the poll.

[treestar]

20. Do we really know much about the membership

to call them an "enemy?" More facts needed to make a guess on whether a majority of them are that bad. The NRA started as a gun safety organization as I recall, and a lot of older members might come from that instead of current politics of the leaders. I thought I heard they were losing money too. Like maybe people are quitting due to the political positions some of them have taken.

[Andy823]

23. Well

They have been funneling money from Russia to republicans. Their conventions have the slimiest speakers they can find who trash Democrats and liberals. And most of all they support trump, give him a platform to spew his hate, and donate large amounts of money to him.

I would call the NRA and enemy of democracy!

[customerserviceguy]

28. I'm sure there were more of them ten years ago

before NRA membership became politically incorrect.

[VOX]

51. "Politically incorrect"? One look at the NRA board members should make one recoil (heh)

Nugent? North? Any Democrat worth his/her salt would react to these ideological loons as if they were highly toxic substances.

[True Dough]

5. Your poll is very telling

17-0 in favor of NRA members being our enemy. And many Biden supporters are surely avoiding casting a vote in this poll.

[corbettkroehler]

6. There's Plenty To Despise Here

And the NRA's origins were about sidestepping the will of the majority of Americans in order to line the pockets of gun manufacturers. In the 1990's and beyond, an unholy alliance was formed with the hard-right within the GOP and the rest is history.

Having said all of that, I know some NRA members who are Progressives, true Progressives bordering on Democratic Socialists. Are they rare among the ranks of NRA memberships? Yes but they exist.

The real problem here began with Charlton Heston and spilled over to Wayne LaPierre. It snowballed from there. The organization's recent demise comes not a moment too soon.

[Kaleva]

7. A running tally of how supporters and undecideds are voting

Last edited Mon Jul 1, 2019, 03:30 PM - Edit history (1)

Believe the majority of NRA members are not the enemy

1 Bernie Sanders supporter
1 Pete Buttigieg supporter
1 Joe Biden supporter

Believe the majority of NRA members are the enemy

8 Elizabeth Warren supporters
6 Kamala Harris supporters
1 Joe Biden supporters
2 Pete Buttigieg supporters
5 Undecideds

Members who did not wish to select any of the options provided.

1 Pete Buttigieg supporter
1 Joe Biden supporter

Warren and Harris supporters along with Undecideds make up the great bulk of those who think NRA members are the enemy. The view that NRA members are not the enemy is a minority one but there haven't been that many votes yet.

[Kaleva]

8. Kick for the Monday crowd.

[Paladin]

10. NRA membership means they drank the kool-aid. They believe Democrats are evil.

And they are therefore the enemy.

[IronLionZion]

11. Members who believe in "A well regulated militia"

or gun safety education are definitely in the minority over there.

[Voltaire2]

12. Fuck the NRA.

[myohmy2]

13. yes, they...

...are certainly the enemy of little children in schools...and that's coming from a proud gun owner...

...but unlike your average NRA knuckle-dragger, I believe a little common sense and stiffer gun laws would go a long way in reducing senseless gun violence...

...bang bang, MAGA MAGA

...

[JI7]

14. maybe not to most straight white men

not the case with others

[Kaleva]

15. Kick for the Tuesday crowd.

[LanternWaste]

19. The NRA is little more than a PR mechanism for the gun manufacturing industry.

The NRA is little more than a PR mechanism for the gun manufacturing industry. I take little exception to anyone's mouth, as it's their brain and heart that tell the mouth what to say. NRA members themselves are simply patsies for the industry's excesses and careless disregard.

[onetexan]

24. Exactly - get to the root of the problem

[crazytown]

21. American Citizens are not 'the enemy'.

[onetexan]

22. Not falling for this bait. This is posted by a Kamala supporter in an attempt to hang Biden

supporters

[sop]

26. They should conduct a poll asking whether respondents support court-mandated busing today

[Kaleva]

27. The conventional wisdom here has been for years that the NRA and its members are the enemy

Am wondering if that has changed recently. Based on the voting so far, it appears that it really hasn't.

[rufus dog]

25. In 2014 I couldn't figure out why people were defending Putin and his actions in Crimea

Turns out they were NRA members getting the propaganda directly from Putin and the NRA

Fuck them and their traitorous asses.
If you are a NRA member you are a fucking wimp and anti democracy

Fucking wimps

[Kaleva]

29. Updated tally of the vote

Last edited Fri Jul 5, 2019, 09:24 PM - Edit history (4)

Believe the majority of NRA members are not the enemy

9 Joe Biden supporters
5 Undecideds
2 Pete Buttigieg supporter
1 Bernie Sanders supporter
1 Seth Moulton supporter
1 Kamala Harris supporter
1 Tulsi Gabbard supporter

Believe the majority of NRA members are the enemy

13 Kamala Harris supporters
12 Elizabeth Warren supporters
11 Undecideds
4 Bernie Sanders supporters
3 Joe Biden supporters
3 Pete Buttigieg supporters
2 Beto O'Rourke supporters
1 Marianne Williamson supporter
1 Jay Inslee supporter

Members who did not wish to select any of the options provided.

3 Elizabeth Warren supporters
1 Joe Biden supporters
1 Pete Buttigieg supporter
1 Undecided

[Celerity]

35. The NRA membership is at around 80% Rethug (I think higher now) and your question asked about

the majority (50% plus 1 or more) of NRA members

98-99% of their money to polls goes to Rethugs

it also is Russian money laundering op

so very curious to see so many say that they majority of its members are NOT the enemy

curious indeed

[Kaleva]

36. I thought that the percentage picking the 1st option, not the enemy, would be in the single digits.

[Kaleva]

30. Kick for the 4th of July crowd.

We are getting enough votes to start drawing some conclusions and I'll be posting my opinion on how the vote went later this week.

[demmiblue]

31. If this was in GD, and it wasn't primary season, the results would be a lot different.

Almost 30%, FFS.

[Kaleva]

33. Yea, I'm really surprised by how high that percentage is.

[Iggo]

32. I feel the same way about them as I do about members of the catholic church.

I don't think "enemy" is the right word for how I view them.

"Complicit" is closer.

[Celerity]

37. At a recent rally, one Trump supporter said his rifle "speaks louder than any stupid dictionary."

https://tinyurl.com/yye7lkag







NRA urges members to support Republican who threatened to kill police-officers.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212214850

The membership is vastly Rethug gun humpers, at least 80% (I say higher). Most all of the decent ones left long ago. They contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to a radical Rethug agenda. The NRA is also a giant Russian money laundering/influence scheme.

Why More Than 90 Percent Of Gun Owners Don’t Join The NRA

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/01/nra-russia-investigations-gun-lobby


The NRA used to be much more bipartisan. Now it's mostly just a wing of the GOP

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/24/politics/nra-partisan-bipartisan-republican/index.html





NRA in crisis: how the gun group became ensnared in the Russia inquiry

The Russia ties of NRA bigwigs are political and legal headaches that won’t go away

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/01/nra-russia-investigations-gun-lobby


a poster on another thread said

many gun owners will agree with him nt

(with Biden)

yeah, right, lol



An attendee inspects a rifle during the NRA annual meeting in Dallas, Texas. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

[Kaleva]

34. Kick for the, I mean, Friday crowd! Don't know what day of the week this is.

[Celerity]

38. lol

you need a beer

I see you are from Michigan

Founders from Grand Rapids is world class



https://foundersbrewing.com/our-beer/kbs/

KBS
BOURBON BARREL-AGED CHOCOLATE COFFEE STOUT
2019 ABV: 12.2%
IBUs: 70
RateBeer Rating: 100
Availability: Mar-May
What we’ve got here is an imperial stout brewed with a massive amount of coffee and chocolates, then cave-aged in oak bourbon barrels for an entire year to make sure wonderful bourbon undertones come through in the finish. Makes your taste buds squeal with delight.

[Kaleva]

49. Kick for the Monday crowd.

A number of DUers who i see here most every day who haven't voted yet.

[Kaleva]

50. Kick

[LiberalFighter]

52. If they were not the enemey they shouldn't be a member.

[MrsCoffee]

53. Fuck the NRA.

Anyone who supports them is suspect in my book.