This isn't much of a diary, but it's something that just happened to me, and I'm a bit upset about it.
I got a call from the NRA (National Rifle Association) last night. I simply said "No, thank you" and hung up. I immediately decided that if I should get another such call, I'd listen, to see WTF they wanted. I got another call today, at the same time, from someone who sounded like the same female. Both calls asked for my spouse. Today, I said my spouse wasn't available, but she could talk to me.
She asked me to wait a minute. I waited a minute. I think she was expecting a simple "Yes, I'll send money, how much do you want?" but got me instead, and had to look for Plan B.
My best recollection of the exchange is below the fold.
I should point out a few things first:
- I live in the middle of nowhere, and we own guns (used strictly for shooting chicken-eating raccoons and target practice). They are all old and therefore unregistered - one belonged to my late father, and the others belonged to my late father-in-law.
- My spouse and I are not, and have never been, members of the NRA.
- I do have a CCDW (license to carry a concealed deadly weapon). This information is confidential, supposedly strictly limited to the state's police database. It supposedly cannot be sold. (And youze guyz don't have my name!)
- I am by no means a gun nut.
- I do not know how the hell the NRA got our phone number.
After finding the information to be read to me, the young woman on the phone read me a prepared shtick. She read it very badly, with several long pauses and a few shorter ones that sounded like she was turning pages. The plea was for support, "recruiting" people to donate $75 or $100 to the NRA because "the US Ambassador to Mexico is trying to take our Second Amendment rights away from us."
After politely listening, I told the dumbfuque on the other end of the phone that the US Ambassador to Mexico couldn't take our Second Amendment rights away from us. We then had (roughly) the following conversation:
DF (Dumbfuque): Well, the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is trying to take our guns away.
(Everybody hates Hillary Clinton, right? This new tack oughta squeeze some dough outta me.)
SMG (me): Hillary Clinton isn't going to take our guns away. I have guns. She's not coming to take my guns away. She wouldn't be able to take my guns away.
DF: Well, not her personally.
SMG: Nobody in the State Department is going to take my guns away, either. They may know I have them, but I have ammo, too. And I do support the NRA. (I lied, though I've heard that they do have excellent gun safety courses.)
DF: Well, you're not going shoot anybody?... But the US Ambassador to Mexico is going to take our Second Amendment rights away from us.
SMG: I'm not going to shoot anybody, but I do have the right to bear arms and those arms can have ammo in them. The US Ambassador to Mexico can't do that. The only way to take our Second Amendment rights away from us is to pass a law in Congress overturning the Second Amendment. Only a House of Representatives member or a Senator can write those laws.
DF: He's going to take our Second Amendment rights away from us. He's going to have a committee...
SMG: (Slowly) He is not a member of Congress. Only a member of Congress can do that. He has to have the support of at least one Representative or Senator to write the law.
(The last two exchanges were repeated more than twice. I was always very polite and sounded interested.)
SMG: Believe me, only a Representative or Senator can present a law like that. It's my field.
DF: What field is that?
SMG Political science. (OK, I lied again. My spouse majored in political science, not me.)
DF: Oh.
(long pause)
DF: Well, thank you for listening.
SMG: You're welcome. For future reference, you might want to get a little background on who can write laws. I support the NRA (I guess I'm a chronic liar), but if you're going to call people, you might want to know a bit more about what you're claiming.
(longer pause)
DF: Thank you for listening.
SMG: Thank you!
So...
I looked at the NRA web site, and found nothing at all about "the US Ambassador to Mexico" or anything like it. My search may have missed it, but still... WTF is this about? It didn't sound like a scam - it sounded like real-deal standard NRA stuff.
I hope I'm over-reacting. I really do. But I'd still like to have some informational input from the community here.
- Has anybody else received this kind of call from the NRA?
- What would have been better responses on my part? I may get another call from someone more knowledgeable, and I'd like to have better answers ready.
- Is anybody out there an NRA member - and if so, are they so broke that they have to do cold calls?
- Does anyone have any idea what the NRA really wants my money for, and why they want it now? We've owned guns for decades, and never had the NRA call us before.
- Does this sound more like a deception, perhaps for some political candidate, than something genuinely from the NRA? (One would at least expect hirelings for the NRA to be more knowledgeable, right? Not necessarily?)