Got home Saturday night and found a large manila envelope claiming it was from Senator Rand Paul. Intrigued, I opened it, finding a letter from Rand Paul on behalf of gun rights organization that I have never heard of called National Association for Gun Rights.
The envelope contained three pages. The first two, a double sided letter and the other a donation form. The letter was on fake senate letterhead with my last name misspelled. They typeface appears to be mono spaced Courier typeface optimized for legibility. I would imagine that this is to make it easier to read for older people. The Donation form's top portion puts the donation portion in a heavy black box for maximum attention and the bottom portion the 'survey' is in a slightly lighter box. I would imagine that this is to assure that recipients attention is drawn to the donation portion. I finally note that they are also interested in harvesting email addresses, presumably for extracting additional money.
The content of the letter goes immediately to the two minute hate of Hillary Clinton and then takes a casual swipe at Obama. At this point the authors proceed to punch every last John Birch Society approved talking point on the UN coming to take their guns. Finally toward the bottom of the third page, comes the pitch. The writers ask for $250 or even just $25 to finance their efforts to stop the "UN Small Arms Treaty" and to please sign and return the survey.
Knowing about the NRA-ILA and GOA, I have not heard about NAGR. I did a quick Google on the NAGR and concluded that they are almost certainly a wingnut welfare organization but instead of using some rich sugar daddy to pay the bills, they are doing direct mail. PA Gun Blog claims that NAGR started a wild rumor that Democrats were attaching a 94 Crime Bill style magazine ban to the FAA re-authorization. As per this blog post on the conservative site Pajamas Media its a parasitic wingnut welfare operation. It sounds like a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
From what I can gather, NAGR targets low information conservative voters for financial contributions using letterhead with Rand Paul's Name on it despite not actually doing
much. They employ no lobbyists, and spent little of what they took in in 2010. They do manage to increase right wing paranoia. I have spent enough time around low information voters and conservatives to have some idea that these pitches work fairly well. Anyone who returns a survey or even better a check is now marked as a Shlemiel and targeted for additional mailings. If the mark also sent in his email address so much the better. All of this can be sold to other Wingnut Welfare
Organizations.
On one hand this parasitic behavior weakens more effective conservative organizations by denying them resources. On the other hand it does wonders to pump up the persecution meter. The NRA is seen as weak and monies are diverted to a group that does not even have a registered lobbyist. I would not be surprised if overall this behavior weakens the organized right.
I know that when this diary posts, I will be at work, so I won't be able to respond to comments.
Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a DKos group of second amendment supporters who also have progressive and liberal values. We don't think that being a liberal means one has to be anti-gun. Some of us are extreme in our second amendment views (no licensing, no restrictions on small arms) and some of us are more moderate (licensing, restrictions on small arms.) Moderate or extreme or somewhere in between, we hold one common belief: more gun control equals lost elections. We don't want a repeat of 1994. We are an inclusive group: if you see the Second Amendment as safeguarding our right to keep and bear arms individually, then come join us in our conversation. If you are against the right to keep and bear arms, come join our conversation. We look forward to seeing you, as long as you engage in a civil discussion. If you're just here to disrupt or troll, expect to get a Do Not Respond (DNR) comment and then be ignored. Insults, lies, and willful ignorance will be dealt with by normal community moderation. Disagreement by itself is not considered trolling.
As always, if you're interested in joining RKBA, message KVoimakas.