Wednesday, October 18, 2006

NRA's "A-Rated" Citizen Disarmament Enforcer



Per Larry Rankin:

I just sent the short e-mail to the NRA, see below. Hope some of you will also e-mail them. Bill Brown says he wants a new direction...the question is which direction. Bill Brown told me that anyone in the city should not carry and that he has only given one permit to carry. That person was a federal trapper. I told him there were more wild animals in the city that were far more dangerous. The interview with him went down hill after that. Anyone in Santa Barbara County please forward this to someone you know...that believes in the right for a citizen to protect themselves and their family or friends. Thanks in advance,
www.NRAPVF.org lrr


NRA-PVF,

I received your election alert this evening in the mail and see you are endorsing Bill Brown for Sheriff...and you gave him an "A". I called Bill Brown and talked to him for some time a few weeks ago. He does not believe in citizen having the right to carry with a permit/CCW. I have seen in the past too many "A" given out by the NRA that are not deserved! I know hundreds of gun owners and NRA members in the county and I will let them know your outstanding bad judgment. You really need to talk to local people that are involved and that can ask tuff question to the folks running for office or change the questionnaire or have the simple understanding that there are other letters besides "F" and "A".
Regards, Larry R. Rankin
Past S.B.NRA President the grass roots group for two years...many years ago

Bill Brown said to me when I interviewed him on the phone, that he does not believe any citizen living in the city should have the right to carry a gun. He does believe that people out in the rural areas that really need one should have one...if they can REALLY prove to him it is needed. He has only allowed one and that was a federal trapper that could not carry a loaded weapon while traveling in is vehicle.

So he sees owning a gun not as self protection, but for hunting sports. That is the way I see it.

Bill Brown's contact number 805 757 3960


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I was ready to post this story yesterday, but felt obligated to hold on to it and do my own fact-checking. Not that I don't trust Larry Rankin--I do, completely. I've been corresponding with him for years, and have found him to be a most trustworthy and reliable colleague. But I was also curious as to why NRA would do this.

I left a voice mail on candidate Brown's campaign answering machine, explaining who I was and that I wanted to ask him some questions about his NRA endorsement. At this posting, my call has not been returned.

I called NRA ILA at their "800" number. I explained who I was (also that I'm a Life Member) and that I was calling to speak to the people responsible for giving Mr. Brown an "A rating" and endorsement. The associate gave me the number for California grasssroots. I spoke to the associate there, repeated everything, and he told me all statements to the media needed to go through their office back in Fairfax, and gave me a direct number (I left my number with him anyway, and asked him to pass everything on to NRA state lobbyist Ed Worley, and asked for him to call me back). I called and spoke to a lady at the media office, explained everything a third time, and told her about Mr. Rankin's conversation with Mr. Brown and the fact that he is against private citizens bearing arms. I also told her the results of my scouting around the internet--and finding that Bill Brown supports Jerry Brown for attorney general:
Showing considerable political chops, Brown, a conservative Republican, garnered the endorsement of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Westly and many key Santa Barbara progressives while managing to convince a majority of California police chiefs to endorse former Democratic governor Jerry Brown --now mayor of Oakland --in his race for Attorney General.

and that Jerry Brown is basing a large part of his campaign on attacking NRA's endorsed candidate, Chuck Poochigian, for his opposition to gun control laws.

She said she'd pass my request on to the people who could answer me, and I let her know I was holding up posting on this, and would be willing to delay it another day if someone would be willing to talk to me. No one returned my call, so here we are.

If anyone authorized to speak for NRA wishes to post a response, I will be happy to post it in its entirety. The same offer goes for the Bill Brown campaign.

In the mean time, we gun owners are presented with yet another example of NRA rating credibility erosion. I won't presume to be able to read the unstated intentions of others, but it's my opinion that silence from ILA-PVF is unacceptable--particularly if they expect us to donate to support their endorsed candidates.

If you agree with me, please pass a link to this post far and wide, and contact NRA yourself to request an explanation.

Larry Rankin just emailed me, and said "I will be surprised if I get a response. If I did or do I had already planned on forwarding it to you."

If so, you'll see it here.

9 comments:

E. David Quammen said...

What is one to expect, when the number of politicians that are NRA members are taken into consideration?

And, let's not forget the role the NRA has played in helping to draft many of the Constitutionally perverse 'gun control' laws that have been passed.

Good show David. Truth is how We The People will win this fight. Expose the serpents one at a time, and in their dens.

Anonymous said...

Gentlemen, NRA needs the problem. Without it there is no need for all the hysterical "send more money" letters.

Without it there is no apparent power in NRA leadership as opposed to citizen empowerment.

If NRA didn't have an anti-gun candidate or issue, they would invent one.

LaPierre's entire tenure has been one big scam. He is a confidence artist. He pretends to fight for his membership, while exacerbating the problems so he has a membership to fleece.

As I have stated many times, if I wanted to be betrayed I wouldn't have to join NRA, which is exactly why I left. It is also exactly what I tell them when they try to get me to rejoin.

LaPierre need to be bitch slapped daily. On school grounds, then he couldn't do a damn thing about it, thanks to himself.

Anonymous said...

I am an NRA Life member but I won't give them any money. Over the last thirty years they have exacerbated the problem, they are not part of or driving the solution.

The NRA has gone to the dark side and they are using the second amendment purely as a fundraising ploy.

My American Rifleman magazine this month had the name and phone number on the cover of my "grass roots organizer". I can only think that they must mean he is smoking grass because he has not returned my faxs or calls.

Of course, I live in kalifornia and there are largely no conservative or pro gun candidates but the NRA long ago abandoned ka to the wolves, NRA is becoming an impediment to change because they want to drive fund raising and they want all the credit if they stmble on securing freedom even a little.

For what it's worth.

Fight islam Now

Anonymous said...

Larry Rankin says incumbent Sheriff Jim Anderson is apparently not that great either. But he will agree that Anderson is preferable to Brown and has EARNED relative support:

In February, a deranged gunman killed six in a post office in Anderson's district. From long experience, after such a shooting I expect anti-gun hysteria for months. But within a week, refreshingly, Sheriff Anderson was on Russell Palmer's local radio show, helping calm the hysteria when he could’ve benefited from demagoging instead.

Anderson didn’t show any interest in exploiting the tragedy to enact new gun controls that would leave more people more defenseless. One caller referred to Dr. John Lott's results that CCW reduces such tragedies. (Lott demonstrated strong negative correlation between shall-issue CCW and violent crime and reduces public shootings (2 or more victims) by a large figure, something like 80% or more as I recall.) Anderson wasn't familiar with the studies but said they should be considered. I doubt he followed up later, but he said the right things at a critical time right after the shootings.

Analysis such as Palmer's show facilitated usually isn't heard when it's really needed, in time to nip the hysteria in the bud and keep it from turning into bad bills. Palmer’s and Anderson’s response helped cool the usual suspects, and the hysteria quickly died.

Elected LEOs often can't resist exploiting tragedies to demagogue and pander. If we'd had such discussions early on after tragedies like Stockton, less subversion by folks like Bush 1, Deukmejian, and Ruger, and less fecklessness and disloyalty in the leadership of the gun rights community, we could've avoided a string of unconstitutional gun controls nationwide.

Russ Howard

Anonymous said...

Why should I give to the NRA when they have become just another unresponsive bureaucracy, with a wink/nod approach to Congress, and a thanks-for-the-donation, click attitude towards it's members. Any outfit I've ever seen that was EFFECTIVE was connected to it's rank and file. Strongly. I'm so sick of this lofty, I-wear-a-suit-and-I'm-an-important-hotshot-and-you're-not crap I could hurl when I see LaPierres' visage. Didn't we once put a lot of 73 calibre holes in a bunch of morons who set themselves up as aristocrats? We're not a bunch of hick rubes wearing overalls and looking up at the ferris wheel in dumbstruck wonder. I think they would all do well to remember the look on Louis XVIs' face when that mob showed up one night at his little country bungalow.

Anonymous said...

I'm also a life member.

At one time, I got frustrated and sent them an email complaining about their policies/practices.

I told them that if they continued down the path they were on, they may as well stop sending me solicitations for more money because I wouldn't be donating again unless they changed their ways.

Their response: Thank you for asking to be removed from our solicitation list, it will save us money by not sending mail to someone who won't donate.

Hows that for accepting member input?

Anonymous said...

Bill Brown said to me when I interviewed him on the phone, that Quote: "he does not believe any citizen living in the city should have the right to carry a gun. He does believe that people out in the rural areas that really need one should have one..."

This dual policy (different rules for urban and rural areas) has been declared illegal by the Federal Appeal Court in California.

Anonymous said...

If the rating, endorsement, and donations by NRA operatives were undeserved in that they were given on a basis other than candidate performance and relative position on 2A issues, then on what basis were they given? What's Brown giving NRA operatives in return that Anderson won't?

Unknown said...

The thing is, I would send them a much money as possible if they just began to speak out against many of the unconstitutional gun laws that seem to spread across this country. The NRA has a lot of members and are a fairly strong lobbying group, they should be coming out so strong at these violations that it is the only thing we see or hear about.

If they stuck to their purpose and worked for the members and no one else they would do just fine. But it is things like this that begin to make members question their real intent. If they are selling out I just thank God I have an iron tight grip on my guns.

Anthony