The NRA's biggest sin? Apparently, it's being successful

I've mentioned before how venemous the anti-gun folks get when discussing the NRA--I've seen three-year-olds throw more restrained and reasoned tantrums. Yesterday, some of my favorite anti-gun folks, the Gun Guys, found a new reason to get their knickers in a twist about the NRA.

Evidently, the Gun Guys are upset that the NRA has the unmitigated gall to be effective in organizing members to vote for candidates who support gun rights, and against those who would infringe on those rights. Furthermore, those darn NRA members actually go along with the plan, and vote in such a way that our rights are indeed protected. Evidently, the Gun Guys (and Josh Sugarmann--another of my favorite gun rights deprivation lobbyists) think it's wrong for NRA members to be so fully engaged in the political process, and to refuse to vote against our own interests. Of course, the Brady Bunch makes voting recommendations, too--aparently it's fine for them to do so (that list can be useful, too, by the way--just vote the direct opposite of what it says). Maybe instead of complaining about how effective a grass roots organization the NRA is, the Brady Bunch and the VPC should concentrate on mobilizing their own supporters just as effectively. Of course, it could be that they can't get that kind of response, because there just isn't that kind of support in the U.S. for crushing a Constitutionally guaranteed fundamental human right of individuals. If the anti-gun folks realize that (on some level), that would explain their sour grapes, I suppose.

One of the amusing aspects of this is that the Gun Guys almost ceaselessly deny that the NRA is a grass roots group (their grounds for this assertion are somewhat vague, though), and that supporters of gun rights constitute too small a voting bloc for there to be any logic in legislators acting for our interests. Now, however, they're apparently acknowledging that we do indeed form a voting bloc that needs to be taken into account (although they don't seem to think it's "fair" that we manage that). They even go so far as to presume to accuse the NRA of subverting the Constitutional process of representative government (especially ironic coming from a group who claims that the Second Amendment doesn't guarantee any kind of right--which begs the question of why the founding fathers bothered including it in the Bill of Rights in the first place):

That is, of course, hardly what our forefathers wanted when they laid out the electoral system. Americans are meant to vote their conscience, not blindly follow a lobby that has convinced them with platitudes that they need to vote a certain way or else. The gun lobby is clearly and openly abusing the electoral process, twisting the system to follow their own gameplan rather than doing what they’re meant to do: release their viewpoint in the wild and let it stand on its own merits (or, in their case, the lack thereof).

Basically, encouraging NRA members to vote for legislators who respect the Constitution and the rights it guarantees is "openly abusing the electoral process. . . ," and members who follow the voting advice of the NRA are "blindly follow[ing] a lobby. . . ." What the Gun Guys think voters should do is blindly follow the fear mongering directives of the anti-gun lobby--that, of course, is exactly what the founding fathers had intended.

When the NRA points out the breathtaking scope of the anti-gun agenda that certain extremists have in mind, the Gun Guys accuse them of "spreading fear." This accusation completely ignores the actual words and deeds of the radical anti-gun legislators, such as Senator Diane Feinstein (D-California) saying, "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in, I would have done it," or Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) trying to ban virtually all centerfire rifle ammunition, or any of a multitude of other words and deeds showing beyond any doubt that many of these people want every private citizen in the U.S. to be completely disarmed. We don't need the NRA to tell us that our gun rights are threatened, many of our enemies have no interest in even trying to be subtle about it.

If these people hate the NRA so much, the solution to making the NRA irrelevant is a simple one. All they have to do is stop attacking the right to keep and bear arms. The NRA has gotten this strong because gun owners have seen that they need to organize to protect their rights (and the Constitution itself). Our will is strong, our cause is just, and we shall overcome.