Is the NRA Pulling our legs?

P

PLASTIC SIG

New member
Im a proud member of the NRA(as are most of you) When i joined the NRA they asked me which monthly magazine subsciption i wanted. I chose the American Guardian. We'll, yesterday i got my new issue, and while reading the headline story about how Smith and Wesson bowed down to the Clinton administration i noticed that just a few pages later S&W had a big colorful advertisement in the NRA's magazine. I thought to myself "what a crock!"

After trying to understand why our NRA would do this, the only thing I could come up with is that maybe they had a contract with S&W to advertise in the magazine and legally they must honor that contract. Other than that Im clueless. Any ideas?


Signed,
Mad as Hell
 
I think you hit it on the head. Most companies sign 6 month advertisement agreements. On a similar vein I noticed in the last "Gun Give Away" for NRA they had a blurb that they were contractually commited to offering S&W's even though they didn't want to.
 
I drew a different conclusion - that the magazine's journalistic integrity is uncorrupted by pressure from advertisers, or from the magazine's advertising department.
 
I guess they will have S&W ads in the new
restrauant their opening in New York,,,What
a joke! What a waste of my dues.



[This message has been edited by bobo (edited May 26, 2000).]
 
S&W is actually paying (with their ad dollars) to have negative things said about their company -- nothing wrong with that from the NRA point of view.
 
I can tell you this with a little authority, as I was associate editor of American Rifleman from October 1990 to April 1994.

S&W, at least that that time, had long-term contracts for advertising space in Rifleman and Hunter. I would suspect that hasn't changed.

A long-term contract (6 months, 1 year, or more) gives the advertisor a pretty good break on the advertising prices and also allows them to "lock in" the space that they want (i.o.w., page 6, or the page before or after a certain feature, such as The Armed Citizen).

NRA or S&W could break the contract if they so chose, but it would cost the party breaking the contract a fairly large sum.

I suspect that once the current contract expires, it will not be renewed.

As for the magazine's "journalistic integrity," I could tell you some stories about how bigger advertisers got rotten guns reviewed, but smaller advertisors didn't...

But that's for another day.

I agree with FUD. Let NRA continue to take S&W's money while blasting the company in print.
 
I concur. If S&W want to keep paying the NRA to bash them, let them pay up. It serves them right for their shameful sellout.
By the way, has anyone ever seen a manual safety or childproof lock for a butcher knife? There's one in every home...

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"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with Army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege." Wilson vs. State, Ark. 1878
 
Mike Irwin -

Thank you for your authoritative, factual rebuttal of my position, which has caused me to withdraw my previous conclusion. Inside information such as yours helps make TFL the palladium of firearms forums.
 
Slopoke...

"Palladium?"

Of course! It's elemental! :)

And, to add to that, the advertising department DID occasionally get involved in editorial issues. Not often, though.

And the advertising director rode a broom to work every day. Whoa could she be a.... :eek:
 
If I may offer another perspective: assuming even that S&W has only a month-to-month contract with the NRA, what's wrong with them advertising in the magazines? I'm not defending S&W by any means, but the NRA has consistently been locked out of advertising in the mainstream press. If we/NRA lock out S&W, aren't we guilty of the same suppression of speech?

Dick
 
S & W was set up at the Binachi Cup with a display of new guns for sale, the poor salesman that was there sure caught alot of flack from the competitors and from the spectators, which maybe he will bring all his grief back and share it with the big wigs of S&W. He couldn't stand it any longer so he pulled out early. :) They did donate about 8 brand new S&W handguns to the winners of the Binachi Cup, I guess they figured they myswell donate them because they can't sell them.

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WHEN IT COMES TO FRIENDS THE SKY IS NOT THE LIMIT
 
Why does the NRA accept ad money from *&*?

Out of sheer pragmatism?

I'm riffing, here, but if HCI wanted to give the NRA money AND provide full page tear-out targets in next months issue of First Freedom, well that's:

1)Cash in the good guy's pocket.

2)The enemy's bank balance depleted by a like amount.

3)Free targets in every magazine!

And just how many readers' opinions do you think they'd sway in the first place? If the NRA really wanted to help pile-on *&*, draining their funds for ads in a magazine whose readership has pretty much decided one way or the other what to do with *&* would be a swell way to hurt 'em. *&* would probably have better luck with ads in non-gun publications, since they're unlikely to generat any conversions in the gun culture with simple print ads... ;)



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"..but never ever Fear. Fear is for the enemy. Fear and Bullets."
10mm: It's not the size of the Dawg in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog!
 
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