calling them out

Just bounced the below email off to the NRA-ILA.

Sir or ma’am,

My name is [NAME], my NRA membership number is [NUMBER], and I write to you today concerning a variety of interrelated issues.

First, I received an email from the desk of Wayne LaPierre yesterday, warning me that my NRA membership “will expire soon”, and offering a discounted rate should I go ahead and renew. I confess that I am slightly confused – my NRA membership card clearly has the date “08/31/09″ written upon it, and logging into my online member services also shows that date as being the expiration of my membership. If Mr. LaPierre is talking on the cosmic scale, seven months is, indeed, “soon”. However, given that I only have a one-year membership, I consider soliciting for my membership renewal before I even reach my halfway point to be a little too proactive, and, as such, I am requesting that I do not receive any further renewal requests or notifications until August.

Second, in visiting my parents over Christmas, they related a somewhat interesting story to me. A few years ago, I signed up for a one-year NRA membership, and unfortunately let it lapse. I have since signed up for another membership (my current one), and while I currently have the intention of renewing it, it would seem as though some NRA representatives were very, very interested in convincing me to renew my old one, but, for some reason, they were not calling me to try and effect this renewal – instead, they somehow discovered my parents phone number, and insisted on calling them almost every day, at all hours of the day, for a couple of weeks in October. My parents repeatedly told the individuals on the phone to stop calling their house, and that I did not live at their address, but the phone calls continued unabated. Unfortunately, the Federal Do Not Call list does not apply to the NRA, given its not-for-profit status, but, finally, my parents had a stroke of inspiration, and the next time a NRA representative called, they told him that if another person from the NRA called their house, they would go out of their way to vote for every pro-gun-control candidate on the ballot in November. Unsurprisingly, the phone calls stopped. I find it rather surprising and disappointing, though, that the NRA representatives did not obey my parents’ wishes and cease calling their house, until my parents finally fielded their rather creative threat – harassing my parents in this manner may have permanently soured their perspective on the NRA, and, by extension, firearm rights in general, something I would think you would like to avoid.

All this meandering and story-telling brings me to my unifying point, however: I am requesting that the NRA take the funds saved by not spamming me or my parents, and apply them towards whatever campaign is being waged to prevent Eric Holder from being appointed the next Attorney General (and if there is no such campaign in play, please use those funds to start one). During his time in the Justice Department, Mr. Holder showed a remarkable lack of respect for the United States Constitution, in addition to an enthusiastic willingness to pursue further gun-control laws, making the lives of law-abiding, firearm-owning citizens, such as myself, that much more complicated and regulated. Furthermore, during the Supreme Court case of D.C. vs. Heller, he signed his support to a brief supporting the opinion that the Second Amendment establishes a collective right to bear arms – an opinion that was rejected by all nine justices. Finally, new legislation is being proposed that would allow the Attorney General to ban any “semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm, that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes…” Do we really want an anti-rights individual such as Mr. Holder to have that kind of power?

Given the amount of snail mail, electronic mail, and phone spam my family has received from the NRA over the past few years, I sometimes have to wonder where the money I pay for my membership goes. I am only asking that the funds used for these preaching-to-the-choir campaigns instead be applied towards pursuits that will better help protect our Constitutionally-ensured rights.

Respectfully,
[NAME].

(Please be advised – this letter, along with any response, will be posted to my weblog at http://www.wallsofthecity.net.)

As you might figure, I will keep you all appraised of any response.