How the NRA built massive secret database of gun owners

The National Rifle Association has rallied gun owners — and raised tens of millions of dollars — campaigning against the threat of a national database of firearms or their owners.

But in fact, the sort of vast, secret database the NRA often warns of already exists, despite having been assembled largely without the knowledge or consent of gun owners. It is housed in the Virginia offices of the NRA itself. The country’s largest privately held database of current, former, and prospective gun owners is one of the powerful lobby’s secret weapons, expanding its influence well beyond its estimated 3 million members and bolstering its political supremacy.

That database has been built through years of acquiring gun permit registration lists from state and county offices, gathering names of new owners from the thousands of gun safety classes taught by NRA-certified instructors and by buying lists of attendees of gun shows, subscribers to gun magazines, and more.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/stevefriess/how ... gun-owners

It's nice of them to keep that info all in one place.

Is there something bad about a list of owners? isn't that akin to a list of registered voters and what party they claim as their own? Where the problem comes in is in knowing how many and what guns are owned, it is the equivalent of knowing how you voted, not if you voted. That's the list that concerns the populace who own guns that they don't want in the hands of the government. I have no more of a problem registering to be a gun owner than I do registering to vote. I don't care who knows that I own a gun, it's knowing what guns I own, and how many of them I own, and how many rounds of ammunition I have for them, and what reloading supplies I have purchased that is my business and my business alone.

So save you phony and flawed attempts at trying to conflate two non-equals you fraud. We're a lot smarter here than the folks you hang out in your echo chamber with. That drivel might work to convince the low information voters typically associated with the Party of Democrats, but it doesn't even hold a single drop of water with people who can reason and think for themselves.

I'm glad you agree. So it's OK for the U.S. government to compile a list of gun owners as long as they don't list how many guns each have. I wonder why the NRA and gun owners have been fighting a federal database for so many years? You make it all so simple, PS.

The government already has that list, just like the NRA has it, and it populated that list in the exact same manner that the NRA populated its list. You want anyone who thinks they might want to buy a gun to have to register first so their background can be checked? Fine. No worries, we register to vote so that our eligibility can be confirmed prior to election day, well, it used to be that way anyway. Not so much anymore since Democrats and "progressives" decided to start undermining the integrity of the process of voting to complement their undermining of the Constitution over the last century. The ends justify and means after all right? But I digress.

As I said, I have no problem adding my name to a registry of those who wish to own a gun, or several guns for that matter. I have no problem with my eligibilty being checked when I purchase a gun, just like I have no problem with my eligibility being confirmed prior to my casting a vote in the election, something Democrats and "progressives" seem to have a problem with for some odd reason. Again, I digress.

What I, and other gun owners, do have a problem with is the government being able to decide it wants to know how many guns I have bought and sold, how many I own, what type of guns they are, the specifics associated with exercising my right to keep and bear arms. Just as I have a problem with the government keeping a permanent record of who, precisely, I cast my votes for when I exercise that right.

Of course one can count on "progressives" like yourself misrepresenting the actual state of things in order to advance an agenda. The ends justify any means after all, right?

"The NRA used the specter of a national gun registry to great effect in the debate over the Manchin-Toomey background check bill that failed last spring. Even though the bill explicitly prohibited the federal government from creating such a database, it was a talking point that senators who opposed the measure repeatedly cited."

That was in the article I linked to that you obviously didn't take the time to read.

In other words, the NRA absoluately HATES keeping lists of gun owners except for its own secret database.

Another misrepresentation of the facts. Seems to be a serial offense with you. What the bill you speak of prohibited was one head of the hydra that is the federal government from compiling that database, not the federal government in its entirety. That is why the bill was opposed. But you knew that already when you deliberately distorted the facts in the pursuit of your agenda, didn't you. Repeating the same lie over and over again will never fundamentally transform it into the truth. Of course, one shouldn't expect anything other than deception from you given your decision to deliberately attempt to deceive with your nic here, should they.

And you don't think the Brady people do the same? They make sure the dozens of people who attend their rallies all get their names written down. And they probably also buy PETA members lists for marketing purposes too.

It is about who you trust getting your name. And right now I trust the NRA and Amazon more than I trust the IRS who have been shown to hand out my name to my political opponents.

And given extra attention to the donors of right wing organizations.

"They did it too..." The standard response when caught in an obvious case of hypocrisy.

It isn't hypocrisy, it is about who do you trust with your name. The Feds have shown they can't be trusted.

Well, it's nice of the NRA to have the names all in one place for when the tanks roll up at your house to confiscate your guns.