Is the NRA Pulling our legs?

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PLASTIC SIG

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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...

------------------
"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
 
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