biggerbrother
Inactive
Beware of the NRA & The Patriot Act
Be advised that the NRA may no longer be a gun owners best friend. Since the resignation of the distinguished, patriotic, and honorable Charlton Heston, the NRA has taken a decidedly commercial turn. Their allegiance has wavered from being solely dedicated to the full, vigorous, and comprehensive protection of its members 2nd Amendment rights, to sleeping with those in Washington in return for corporate favors. If you look at your membership card, you’ll see some of the many diversified areas the NRA is involved with. With help from their chief lobbyist, Christopher Cox, they obtain legislation in their favor, which helps them profit from their various ventures and diversified products. They have also become overly infatuated with the troubles that Tom Delay has gotten himself in to lately, but they don't seem to have anymore real time for us.
If this was all they did, and the legislation they sold your votes for, had no negative effect on the 2nd amendment rights of gun owners, there would be no problem... but, that's not the case, as they willfully, forcefully, knowingly and loyally supported the Patriot Act, and continue to do so today.
Not only did I recognize the immediate dangers of Patriot Act 1 when it was first rushed through congress, but I became more irate when I learned that Patriot Act 2 was already in the works. In an effort to help stop this unconstitutional run-away power grab, I made several attempts to appeal to the NRA in hopes that their political arm could put enough pressure on the Bush administration to overturn or repeal the act, or at least allow its 16 sunset parts to die peacefully. After persistent nagging, I finally received a letter from Mr. Cox, but not until a month before the 2004 election. In this letter, Chris made a couple things clear. He explained that the NRA didn’t consider the Patriot Act to be a problem worthy of their resources. He went on to explain that there was no indication from their membership that fellow gun owners were concerned enough about it either. In spite of those two points, he also assured me that, due to several controversial issues that year, the NRA was going to remain neutral and not endorse either presidential candidate. The very next day, I received an automated phone call, recorded by him personally. In this brief call, Mr. Cox's’ only message was to be sure I got out on election day to support George Bush.
The millions of dollars they rake in each year from over 25 million members, could have gone a long way in protecting our hard-fought-for freedoms and privacy rights where the Patriot Act and 2ND Amendment conflict. There is no sense in paying annual dues for 2nd amendment protection, when government spies, secret courts, and “Sneak & Peak” tactics can be used to circumvent it with out any recourse.
Section 215 of the act, allows Uncle Sam to collect business activity records of not just gun purchases, but also all related and non related purchases as they desire. This includes, but is by no means limited to: fire arms ammo and accessories purchases, gun club memberships, proficiency and tournament awards, gun show buys and sales, gun books bought or signed out
from libraries, and shooting related magazine subscriptions. The internet spying provisions of the Act permits authorities to secretly monitor your gun related forums, chatrooms, blog sites, and e-mail correspondences. From all the information gathered from these sources, the Feds get a good idea as to how many guns you have, what kinds of guns you own, how you may have modified them, how you tend to use them, how you obtained them, where and how you may be storing them, and any plans you may have to resell any of them. If they deem it necessary, they then can use another section of the act to conduct a “Sneak & Peak” raid on your home or business, and confiscate anything they can related to being a potential instrument of terrorism, including many types of guns or quantities of arms. Depending on what all they find, and/or how much of it has been deemed illegal to posses by earlier anti-constitutional bans, you could then find yourself being confiscated, taken to who knows where, to do who knows what to you, for who knows how long. In the best scenario, you simply lose your expensive fire arms collection, with no compensation or redress, and what ever fines and charges they want to levy on your record, which may include felonies and revoking your right to even own a gun. They’ll tell you that no such uses or abuses have been reported yet. The key word is “yet”. Now, if these aren't serious concerns to gun owners, then I guess there must not be any concerns about the 2nd amendment at all; and as such, I see absolutely no need to continue paying my hard earned money to a do-nothing gun rights organization. As such, I called them up to express my anger, then I cut up my card and mailed it back to them with my resignation in the form of another letter. They still don't get it though, because they keep sending me membership renewal junk in the mail.
Be advised that the NRA may no longer be a gun owners best friend. Since the resignation of the distinguished, patriotic, and honorable Charlton Heston, the NRA has taken a decidedly commercial turn. Their allegiance has wavered from being solely dedicated to the full, vigorous, and comprehensive protection of its members 2nd Amendment rights, to sleeping with those in Washington in return for corporate favors. If you look at your membership card, you’ll see some of the many diversified areas the NRA is involved with. With help from their chief lobbyist, Christopher Cox, they obtain legislation in their favor, which helps them profit from their various ventures and diversified products. They have also become overly infatuated with the troubles that Tom Delay has gotten himself in to lately, but they don't seem to have anymore real time for us.
If this was all they did, and the legislation they sold your votes for, had no negative effect on the 2nd amendment rights of gun owners, there would be no problem... but, that's not the case, as they willfully, forcefully, knowingly and loyally supported the Patriot Act, and continue to do so today.
Not only did I recognize the immediate dangers of Patriot Act 1 when it was first rushed through congress, but I became more irate when I learned that Patriot Act 2 was already in the works. In an effort to help stop this unconstitutional run-away power grab, I made several attempts to appeal to the NRA in hopes that their political arm could put enough pressure on the Bush administration to overturn or repeal the act, or at least allow its 16 sunset parts to die peacefully. After persistent nagging, I finally received a letter from Mr. Cox, but not until a month before the 2004 election. In this letter, Chris made a couple things clear. He explained that the NRA didn’t consider the Patriot Act to be a problem worthy of their resources. He went on to explain that there was no indication from their membership that fellow gun owners were concerned enough about it either. In spite of those two points, he also assured me that, due to several controversial issues that year, the NRA was going to remain neutral and not endorse either presidential candidate. The very next day, I received an automated phone call, recorded by him personally. In this brief call, Mr. Cox's’ only message was to be sure I got out on election day to support George Bush.
The millions of dollars they rake in each year from over 25 million members, could have gone a long way in protecting our hard-fought-for freedoms and privacy rights where the Patriot Act and 2ND Amendment conflict. There is no sense in paying annual dues for 2nd amendment protection, when government spies, secret courts, and “Sneak & Peak” tactics can be used to circumvent it with out any recourse.
Section 215 of the act, allows Uncle Sam to collect business activity records of not just gun purchases, but also all related and non related purchases as they desire. This includes, but is by no means limited to: fire arms ammo and accessories purchases, gun club memberships, proficiency and tournament awards, gun show buys and sales, gun books bought or signed out
from libraries, and shooting related magazine subscriptions. The internet spying provisions of the Act permits authorities to secretly monitor your gun related forums, chatrooms, blog sites, and e-mail correspondences. From all the information gathered from these sources, the Feds get a good idea as to how many guns you have, what kinds of guns you own, how you may have modified them, how you tend to use them, how you obtained them, where and how you may be storing them, and any plans you may have to resell any of them. If they deem it necessary, they then can use another section of the act to conduct a “Sneak & Peak” raid on your home or business, and confiscate anything they can related to being a potential instrument of terrorism, including many types of guns or quantities of arms. Depending on what all they find, and/or how much of it has been deemed illegal to posses by earlier anti-constitutional bans, you could then find yourself being confiscated, taken to who knows where, to do who knows what to you, for who knows how long. In the best scenario, you simply lose your expensive fire arms collection, with no compensation or redress, and what ever fines and charges they want to levy on your record, which may include felonies and revoking your right to even own a gun. They’ll tell you that no such uses or abuses have been reported yet. The key word is “yet”. Now, if these aren't serious concerns to gun owners, then I guess there must not be any concerns about the 2nd amendment at all; and as such, I see absolutely no need to continue paying my hard earned money to a do-nothing gun rights organization. As such, I called them up to express my anger, then I cut up my card and mailed it back to them with my resignation in the form of another letter. They still don't get it though, because they keep sending me membership renewal junk in the mail.
