here's the latest news... with a bullet

[rone]

The NRA wants to buy a TV or radio station with the purpose of being declared a news organization, so that it may then become exempt from campaign finance law spending limits.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I wonder what it'll take for normal 2nd amendment supporters to band together and wrest the gun ownership issue away from the gun nuts at the NRA.

[huaman.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of facets to the NRA that aren't completely wacko, and when you compare them to some of the *other* 2nd-amendment supporting organizations, they look outright ordinary and normal. Even this, while potentially weaselly from the campaign finance perspective, doesn't strike me as any more weaselly than, say, a church-based radio station type scene.

What would you consider a normal, non-gun-nut 2nd-amendment-supporting organization?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I don't know of any. Perhaps they're so normal, they're lost in the NRA's noise.

You'd think the ACLU would be in charge of that sort of stuff, but i guess the 2nd Amendment isn't one of the liberties they choose to defend.

[omarius.livejournal.com]

You hit that one right on the nose.

I think part of the problem, though, is that in order to *be* a special interest, any nonprofit has to be so huge, rich and agressive as to get made into something inconsistant with its original ideals. In the lobbying game, I'm guessing that if you're not a multimillion-dollar corporation, you have to at least act like one (and have the donations to prove it).

As far as 2nd amendment groups go, I really like the VCDL (Virginia Citizens Defense League). They get a lot of things accomplished at a grassroots level via letter writing, phone calls, and hardworking volunteers who do things like talk to city attourneys, go to town meetings and simply stand up for their rights. Of course, it's a statewide organization. In my cynicism I suppose it's impossible to do anything grassroots on a national level.