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| Yes, you are. |
At first I didn't believe the NRA was tax-exempt, but a quick trip to the NRA's own website (which I will not link to) confirmed it. Hint: if you search the term "nra tax-exempt" you will see a page called "A Brief History Of The NRA". Read that in its entirety if you like.
Here, I will quote paragraph 13:
In 1990, NRA made a dramatic move to ensure that the financial support for firearms-related activities would be available now and for future generations. Establishing the NRA Foundation, a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt organization, provided a means to raise millions of dollars to fund gun safety and educational projects of benefit to the general public. Contributions to the Foundation are tax-deductible and benefit a variety of American constituencies, including youths, women, hunters, competitive shooters, gun collectors, law enforcement agents and persons with physical disabilities.And, paragraph 14:
While widely recognized today as a major political force* and as America's foremost defender of Second Amendment rights, the NRA has, since its inception, been the premier firearms education organization in the world. But our successes would not be possible without the tireless efforts and countless hours of service our nearly four million members have given to champion Second Amendment rights and support NRA programs. As former Clinton spokesman George Stephanopoulos said, "Let me make one small vote for the NRA. They're good citizens. They call their Congressmen. They write. They vote. They contribute. And they get what they want over time."The NRA is no longer engaged in enhancing the fine art of marksmanship or of educating fledgling hunters. They are no longer engaged in the practice of assuring gun safety. They don't appear to provide any "public benefit" even if they once did. So what do they do?
*emphasis mine
They are engaged in the business of representing firearms manufacturers and expanding the market for firearms. See, guns are durable goods. They seldom break or wear out; many guns are passed down from generation to generation - with pride - as fully usable weapons. So they aren't a disposable item - they can hang around for hundreds of years. In order to EXPAND sales, manufacturers need to EXPAND THE MARKET - get more new customers buying their first guns, and get more repeat customers buying second, third, and fourth firearms in an attempt to keep up with the latest models and features.
They are engaged in the business of making sure that laws (like "Stand Your Ground") exist to ease gun ownership. They stoke fear that your neighbor or your government is going to attack you. They claim - by and through their members - that police are either useless doofs or dangerous agents of a grand government conspiracy (you've heard the "jackbooted thugs" meme a time or ten, right?) so that you need to be armed or be dead. (I saw a tweet fly by a few minutes ago: No one at the NRA suggested that after Trayvon Martin's death, or Jordan Davis's death, that black teens should arm themselves....I wonder why?)
They are engaged in some heavy-duty legal action, too: the NRA's Institute of Legislative Action. This is the mothership for their activism. I linked to it because I want you to see it, read it, get a feel for the degree of dedication these people have. Get a feel for the fear they push out. Get an idea of how anyone who isn't all for everything they want is labelled "anti-gun". Become familiar with their terminology and methodology... and above all:
SIGN THE PETITION. PLEASE.
8 comments:
Thanks for your post. I did NOT know that the NRA was tax exempt! That's a slap in the face to all taxpayers.
I also just learned last night from watching Lawrence O'Donnell's The Last Word that the NRA is responsible for preventing the ATF from creating a database of gun purchases. In this 21st century, they limit the ATF to pencils and phone calls, but NRA's Wayne LaPierre wants a national database of mentally ill persons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/us/legislative-handcuffs-limit-atfs-ability-to-fight-gun-crime.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
When law enforcement officers recover a gun and serial number, workers at the bureau’s National Tracing Center here — a windowless warehouse-style building on a narrow road outside town — begin making their way through a series of phone calls, asking first the manufacturer, then the wholesaler and finally the dealer to search their files to identify the buyer of the firearm.
About a third of the time, the process involves digging through records sent in by companies that have closed, in many cases searching by hand through cardboard boxes filled with computer printouts, hand-scrawled index cards or even water-stained sheets of paper.
In an age when data is often available with a few keystrokes, the A.T.F. is forced to follow this manual routine because the idea of establishing a central database of gun transactions has been rejected by lawmakers in Congress, who have sided with the National Rifle Association, which argues that such a database poses a threat to the Second Amendment. In other countries, gun rights groups argue, governments have used gun registries to confiscate the firearms of law-abiding citizens.
Speaking as someone who is no great fan of the NRA or guns I have to say I think this petition is ill conceived. Though, I do appreciate the spirit behind it's creation. Call me naive, but it seems to me that their tax-exempt status is a good thing. Not because I believe we shouldn't be getting tax dollars from an organization that seems to think that the best way to put out a fire is to let it burn itself out, but because in being tax-exempt they are limited in the ways they have to exploit their resources. If you took that away then they would have nothing to stop them from turning into a for profit business selling guns at all of their conventions and building a mint on top of the corpses of children. Maintaining a tax-exempt status means that there is a lot they aren't allowed to do, if you remove that, well, it isn't too difficult to conceive of the many and varied and all horrible possibilities.
I don't know if the NRA will fail the tests to remain a tax-exempt entity - all I know is that they are abusing that status for exploitation and profit. Whether that can all be proved, I don't know. But I do know an attempt needs to be made to examine all of this.
Here's the reason the NRA must be investigated for its claim that it should be tax-exempt: http://www.thenation.com/blog/171913/nra-and-gun-companies-stand-profit-newtown-tragedy?rel=tumblr# - because of the way it gets so active after a mass murder. That's odd.
The NRA is a 501(c)(4) organization.
The NRA Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization.
Their tax-exempt status is not going anywhere.
Possibly - the point is to have the status examined. It may withstand all legal tests - it may not. We shall see what we shall see, shan't we?
Why is so little money spent on programs? Hi salaries tho. 76 Board members? why isn't the mission statement on the website? Why do we need a nonprofit to defend the constitution? Is NRA a militia group? If NRA were a community benefit why aren't u even discussing common sense gun laws. Are u the NRA attorney? More later.
Today's news carries a new reason to request that the NRA lose its tax status. It has entered into an agreement with NASCAR to be a named sponsor of an upcoming race in Texas. I read such sponsorships go for $1,000,000. Now, although I'm not anti NASCAR, I do not agree with the NRA specifically in its intransigent opposition, to reasonable legislation and/or regulation of high capacity weaponry and enhanced background checks on purchasers. I, therefore, do not think that my tax dollars, particularly in this time of sequestration of spending, go, however indirectly, to assist the NRA in advertising itself to the public. If I'm missing something here, I'm more than happy to entertain a reasoned, supported argument.
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