The National Association for Gun Rights lays claim to a member base of 3.5 million and is one of the burgeoning powerhouses in the gun rights arena.
Here are six facts about this association:
1. The National Association for Gun Rights is growing has grown at an impressive rate. According to IRS financial reports
published on Guidestar, donations and grants in 2011 were $3.8 million and jumped to $7.1 million in 2012. In 2010, contributions and grants were just $433,000. The 2013 report wasn’t available online.
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2. NAGR was founded in 2001 and is led by Dudley Brown. Brown, who also founded and runs the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners in Colorado, is known for saying that the National Rifle Association is too soft in fighting for gun rights.
The Denver Magazine wrote of Brown and his Colorado organization: “The RMGO’s demand of ‘no compromises’ on gun rights is an indirect shot at the National Rifle Association, which Brown sees as too willing to cut gun control deals. (The disdain is mutual; the NRA once called Brown the ‘Al Sharpton of the gun movement,’ too extreme for America’s most notorious firearm lobby.)”
3. NAGR formed a Political Action Committee in 2010. In March 2014, the Federal Election Commission listed the PAC’s resources as $230,000, putting it in the 43rd spot on the FEC’s list of Top 50 PACs based on cash on hand. The NRA was first on the list with $14 million. That level of cash was up significantly; in 2013, the PAC received only $152,000 in donations for the year. In October 2014 alone, midway through the month, it received more than $96,500.
4. In 2013, USA Today reported that the “ultra-conservative” NAGR outspent the NRA on lobbying. Basing information on spending during the first quarter of 2013,
USA Today said NAGR spent $1.9 million, up against $700,000 spent by NRA.
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5. The NAGR addresses the question of how the organization differs from the NRA on its website. “The National Association for Gun Rights and the NRA are both gun rights organizations, but the similarities end there. NAGR has grown in recent years because hundreds of thousands of gun rights activists across the country are tired of the ‘inside the beltway’ institutional gun lobby. There has been a perception that the institutional gun lobby is more interested in having access to politicians and ‘getting something done.’ NAGR does not want ‘access’ to politicians, though we have friends that are elected officials, and certainly does not want to pass a gun bill ‘just to get something done.’”
6. The online attitudes expressed toward the NAGR are often negative. For instance,
on The Firing Line, an online forum, one person wrote, “Ah, yes. The National Association for Gun Rights, better known as the ‘Help Dudley Brown avoid having to look for a real job’ Association. Basically, they seem to recycle a lot of news about what other people and groups are doing, and try to package it so as to appear that they are actually doing something. Which, by the way, they do not appear to be doing.”
Another wrote, “When I get approached by a 2nd Amendment organization looking for support, my first question has become ‘how much of their time and energy do they spend bashing the NRA?’ Well, NAGR is pretty much top dog at that. Dudley Brown's main focus appears to be nipping at the NRA's heels. It's somewhat ironic that I can't recall them scoring a single successful lawsuit or piece of legislation. They just yell.”
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