NRA supported Jeff Sessions for the attorney general, on the grounds that he "has a proven track record of going after the real criminals". Jeff Sessions was involved in prosecution of civil rights activists in Alabama, and is known for his hard anti-drug stance. Both of those are pertinent to civil rights, yet NRA ignored it.
NRA also consistently pushes the "tough on crime" narrative, including outright false claims that crime is on the rise in US, to justify both RKBA (for self-defense against said non-existent rising crime), and to redirect any accusations regarding too lax gun control. They are literally saying that the government should be jailing more people and dishing out harder punishments.
(It should be noted that this last one isn't even a new thing - NRA explicitly endorsed "tough on crime" politics since early 90s.)
At the same time, while NRA is presumably pushing back against federal gun laws, there's one on which they're completely silent: the prohibition of gun ownership for any users of illegal substances (i.e. drugs). Note that this applies even to those in states that legalized marijuana, and even to medical marijuana users with prescriptions. This is a very real problem, especially given the feds have been raiding dispensaries for lists of patients, and demanding lists of medical card holders from the states that maintain registries. NRA's stance on it is literally non-existent - they simply don't talk about it, and refuse to answer any questions from members regarding it.
So, as far as I'm concerned, NRA is not in any meaningful way a civil rights organization. It's a "just let me keep my guns, and I don't care about others" organization.
> Jeff Sessions was involved in prosecution of civil rights activists in Alabama, and is known for his hard anti-drug stance. Both of those are pertinent to civil rights, yet NRA ignored it.
Those are good points. They also concern me. Is there a better organization which fights for second amendment rights that you recommend?
The non existence of other orgs fighting for second ammendment rights, even if it were true, is a pretty weak argument for supporting this particular one, especially given that you agree there are good reasons not too do so.
I would not recommend SAF anymore. The reason is that their (effectively) lobbying wing, CCRKBA, had also endorsed Sessions, using even stronger wording than NRA.
NRA supported Jeff Sessions for the attorney general, on the grounds that he "has a proven track record of going after the real criminals". Jeff Sessions was involved in prosecution of civil rights activists in Alabama, and is known for his hard anti-drug stance. Both of those are pertinent to civil rights, yet NRA ignored it.
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20170106/the-battle-to-confi...
NRA also consistently pushes the "tough on crime" narrative, including outright false claims that crime is on the rise in US, to justify both RKBA (for self-defense against said non-existent rising crime), and to redirect any accusations regarding too lax gun control. They are literally saying that the government should be jailing more people and dishing out harder punishments.
https://www.thetrace.org/2016/06/nra-mandatory-minimum-sente...
(It should be noted that this last one isn't even a new thing - NRA explicitly endorsed "tough on crime" politics since early 90s.)
At the same time, while NRA is presumably pushing back against federal gun laws, there's one on which they're completely silent: the prohibition of gun ownership for any users of illegal substances (i.e. drugs). Note that this applies even to those in states that legalized marijuana, and even to medical marijuana users with prescriptions. This is a very real problem, especially given the feds have been raiding dispensaries for lists of patients, and demanding lists of medical card holders from the states that maintain registries. NRA's stance on it is literally non-existent - they simply don't talk about it, and refuse to answer any questions from members regarding it.
So, as far as I'm concerned, NRA is not in any meaningful way a civil rights organization. It's a "just let me keep my guns, and I don't care about others" organization.