advertisement

SSN on Facebook SSN on Twitter SSN on YouTube RSS Feed

51 Comments
Columns

The Truth Is Better Than Fiction

June 12, 2019 - 10:15am
Marion Hammer
Marion Hammer

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly people believe distortions printed by the media -- particularly in their efforts to help the enemies of freedom and the Second Amendment and to try to destroy the NRA. Nor does it cease to amaze me how willing the media are to deliberately distort and mislead. 

The Washington Post used legitimate expense reimbursements and recruiter payments to drive their narrative and pad their numbers to falsely cast aspersions on 18 board members and the NRA (the story can only be found behind the Post's paywall). It is a deliberate distortion and an orchestrated attempt to convey a false impression.    

The numbers weren’t extraordinary if one looks at it from a one-year perspective, so the Washington Post lumped three years of reports together to make the amounts look larger and more lucrative. That is the epitome of calculated treachery!     

Board members who are NRA recruiters get no special treatment. They, like all recruiters get the same commission that any recruiter receives. Yet the Washington Post makes it sound like they’re stealing or have some sweetheart deal. Some of these board members use their businesses to recruit members and they disclose it. Yet the Washington Post attacks them for serving the NRA – and for trying to get more people to sign up as NRA members.

Also included in the scurrilous attack are board-member reimbursements for travel at the NRA's request, for speaking engagements and appearances at events to which the NRA is requested to send a representative. Some board members make these trips and appearances at the NRA’s request because the officers and staff can’t do it all.

In addition to taking off from work and giving their time, perhaps the Post expects board members to pay for airline travel, lodging, meals and expenses out of their own pockets to travel for the NRA? 

Another big fraud by the Washington Post suggests that when the NRA purchases materials, supplies and services from board members or their businesses, board members are getting rich. Anyone alleging that Hornady or Brownell needs the paltry sums disclosed by the Washington Post clearly has no idea what they’re talking about. What nonsense! 

Board members whose companies sell products to the NRA for discounted prices don’t need to do business with the NRA, they have plenty of customers. It’s the NRA that wants to do business with them -- for better deals than we can get elsewhere.  

Have you been paying attention the New York governor’s attempt to maliciously stop companies from doing business with the NRA? Since the NRA is under attack -- by what has all the earmarkings of a coordinated attack -- would you believe that some businesses want to charge the NRA more just to do business with them? Because of this orchestrated attack, some businesses refuse to do any business at all with the NRA.  

Yet, the Washington Post wants you to believe that board members somehow have sweetheart deals and try to paint them as engaging in some illegal activity. What bull! The NRA has the sweetheart deal!  The NRA and our members benefit from the good deals NRA gets when we use board members.  

Heck, the Washington Post even used a deceased board member and friend, R. Lee Ermey, to pad its false narrative. For crying out loud, the Washington Post even disparaged a dead man --  who has been gone since last April -- to pad its numbers! That is as bad as Joe Biden claiming he just talked to Margaret Thatcher when she actually died three years earlier.

Board members’ legitimate expenses are being made to look sneaky by a publication that has no love for the Second Amendment, or the NRA. Are you going to fall for it? Or are you going to open your eyes and your mind?

Payments to board members are disclosed, in writing, at every NRA Annual Meeting.  Stacks of disclosure reports are put on a table along with other financial reports at the Annual Meeting of members and are available to members and the media. These reports are where they got the information they are distorting.

And, yes -- I am on that list.  I am proud of my work on behalf of the NRA and the Second Amendment. I have spent my entire professional life in this arena. For over 40 years I have been standing on the front line fighting for Right-to-Carry, Castle Doctrine, preemption and the list of pro-Second Amendment legislation goes on. The list of anti-gun, freedom crippling legislation is even longer. In fact, I was lobbying for the NRA long before I was elected to the Board and long before I was elected NRA president. There aren’t many states in which I haven’t helped fight for the Second Amendment.  

Isn’t it interesting that in this article, the Washington Post points out that there are other non-profit organizations that require their board members to make financial donations to these organizations in order to get on their boards?

In other words, some other non-profit organizations require people to "buy" their seats on their boards. I guess the Washington Post thinks that's OK. But the NRA’s democratically elected board is demonized?

For the past few months, the media have trained their guns on the NRA and those of us within our movement. They are happily doing the bidding of Mike Bloomberg, Andrew Cuomo, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.  

The simple fact is that Second Amendment rights are the only means that citizens have to protect their ability to protect freedom from the enemies of America. Give up that right and you are no longer free.  

If you think the NRA is the only organization they are turning their guns on, just wait ... we may be the first but we won’t be the last. Make no mistake, we are the first, because we are the most effective. This is the price the NRA is paying for getting Donald Trump elected and for securing the Supreme Court for a couple of generations.

I believe with all my heart that the freedom we enjoy today depends on the NRA standing guard to protect Second Amendment rights from the enemies of freedom and our Constitution. I want that freedom and those rights for my grandchildren and for yours.  

Marion P. Hammer is a past president of NRA and a member of the NRA Board of Directors.

Comments

You need to read some history books yourself there fatboy. Party demographics changed long ago. The Dems of my youth are now the Repubs of today. Just like the NY Dems of old used to have jobs and contribute to society as a whole. Now those converted Repubs, like you, live in trailer parks and suck off the Gov't *** and then have the balls to complain about it in the same sentence. Why don't you haul *** back to NY and get a job tiny?!

LOL. Theres the old bullshit lie that the parties changed. Keep trying to distort history.

Once upon a time the Democrat party and the Republican party got together and agreed to swap the names of their political parties. This happened shortly after it was discovered that the moon was made of green cheese and that the earth was flat.

Isn't it strange that Northern Democrats are still driving the "gun control narrative", even after a century and a half? What's next for Democrats; the 1st Amendment (for which, it seems, they've already "reserved a seat for on the Slippery Slope")... Is there no respite from these inwardly-turned, dangerously "clumped-up" old-fashioned, left-over, lock-stepping, Democrats who lack an "independent thought" in their heads?!?!?

Yes but the history of the 2nd amendment, modeled after the Virginia constitution, is itself in part an outgrowth of providing slave owners the ability form militias to round up escaped slaves. I'm vastly more concerned about extremist gun owners which the NRA supports than I am about the ills the NRA frightens the public about. I agree the NRA will not be eliminated and wouldn't support its demise - but I don't like what it has become and I feel threatened by its extreme positions.

Free Americans are vastly more concerned about extremist anti-second-amendmenters who would disarm law abiding citizens in the face of hate-filled leftist's mob-rule.

smart girl Barbara. It's not hard to poke holes in ridiculous stories when you have facts, of which the idiot above rarely has. The NRA has long since devolved from the fine educational institution it used to be, into a right wing extremist arm of the Republican party hiding under the guise of the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment is no more under attack than your voting rights. However, there are moves toward smarter gun control, requring background checks, closing loopholes, and keeping guns out of the hands of nuts and criminals, all things that the public has overwhemingly poled in favor of. Only the wingnuts and militia wannabes are left sabre rattling about the vicious attacks on their 2nd amendment rights. They would have you believe that simply reporting information that common people are not aware of is somehow wrong or devious. Thank God for the media for giving the rest of us The Truth that the establishment does not want you to know...

You are "all wet" Barbara... Read some history books.

You are "all wet" Barbara

Sadly, we must accept the fact that the DNC has become the most dangerous terrorist organization in history. Thank God we have great American organizations like the NRA to fight for citizen's rights while the DNC fights to take our rights away.

Do you know what "bunkum" is, Marilyn? You and the old lady are both peddling it! (?)

I long for the NRA of my youth, the NRA that taught responsible gun use and safety from which I benefitted. YOUR NRA long ago lost its way and is a threat to my safety and security. I still believe most gun owners, who are also conservative politically and are patriots, want responsible gun safety regulations. The NRA could truly be protecting American freedom by adopting sensible gun regulations and supporting rational approaches to gun safety issue. Instead, you defend and identify with many of the most extreme and dangerous American citizens who are themselves anything but American patriots.

Barbara the NRA still teaches responsible gun use and safety so your wrong on that count. Your also wrong that most gun owners want additional draconian gun laws enforced on them . You sound suspiciously like every Candidate currently running on the Democrat clown car. Law abiding gun owners are smart enough to see through the "nobody wants to take your guns " but then propose legislation that does just that. If you think patriotic means attacking law abiding citizens your even more delusional than I suspected.

You might want to research a little further. Year after year, poll after poll shows the significant majority of gun owners support sensible gun regulations. And, by the way, true patriots don't call fellow citizens "delusional" just because they are exercising the constitutionally protected right to speak. I'm entitled to voice my opinions without your name calling.

I agree, you are entitled to voice your opinions as long as they mirror what college campus students believe. If you deviate then you are the enemy . When Martin Luther King died he was still a registered Republican and probably would not be allowed to speak on most college campuses.If you don't like the way a party is going then change it, abdicating your responsibility is the worst thing a citizen do to their country.The NRA has long advocated for background checks to have access to mental health records to prevent people under treatment from purchasing weapons. But Mental health professionals and the left appear to be against this, WHY??

Delusional is mild compared to what those on the left call people. Barbara you're right about one thing. The NRA has lost it's way. It's gotten SOFT on fighting for the 2nd Amendment. There are already over 22000 gun laws on the books. You ARE delusional with all the lies you speak. Just because you say something over and over doesnt mean it becomes truth. Thank God other organizations like USCCA, GOA are picking up where the NRA has become soft.

I long for the DNC of my youth, the DNC that taught responsible gun use and safety from which I benefited. YOUR DNC long ago lost its way and is a threat to my safety and security.

Goodness! I also long for the GOP of my youth. However, even as a child trying to decide which party I thought I would one day support, it was the extremists in the GOP (moderate extremists by today's standards) that frightened me. And Goldwater's (who I liked and admired) convention comments sealed forever the party's steady march to extreme views. That said, there is no changing my mind or yours. I hope there are some reasonable heads in the populous who can find sensible middle ground.

Barbara. You were never a GOP member. The out thing you long for is for people to shut up and accept your partys bullshit as truth.

The NRA is one of the major sources of fake news.

...says someone who makes an anoymous post to ridicule another's opinion.

Pages

Comments are now closed.

columns
advertisement
advertisement
Live streaming of WBOB Talk Radio, a Sunshine State News Radio Partner.

advertisement