If you’ve never supported the NRA, now is the time to start

We bet that what’s been holding you back all this time is the belief that if you donated to the NRA, it would help put more guns in more places and that such a goal, in your opinion, would make the United States a more dangerous place. Well, we urge you to take a second look and ask: Is that really what the NRA is doing?

A misconception that a lot of people have about the NRA is that we are some sort of gun lobby, trying to put guns into and keep them in the (cold, dead) hands of as many people as possible. But as allegations in a recent lawsuit demonstrate, the NRA is about so much more than that. We are also about subsidizing the personal travel of CEO Wayne LaPierre, his family members and a few trusted affiliates! We’re not just a gun lobby whose annual convention did not take place this year and which seems as though it hasn’t been very active around the coming election. We also believe in the power of travel, and the need to support America’s small-ship owners, or large-yacht owners, depending on your perspective.

So please, if you haven’t, consider giving generously to support this vital organization.

If you look at what your donation would be going to support, you barely see anything to do with guns! According to that same lawsuit we mentioned earlier, millions of dollars have gone to support the travel and lifestyle industries through direct action: putting feet on the ground in Four Seasons hotels, luxury black cars and private golf clubs. Your cash will not help defend the weapons that used to be the top reason children were terrified to go to school; it will go to support the economy of the Bahamas, as well as the hard-working providers of private jets to the Bahamas, and the hard-working providers of private jets to other places. Your dollars will help, in some small way, to make it possible for Wayne LaPierre to spend time on a 108-foot yacht named “Illusions.” That yacht has a chef!

For too long, in people’s minds, the NRA was the organization that would send a shouty older man out every time a devastating shooting occurred to grumpily blame it on something completely unrelated like video games or socialism. We can’t blame you for not supporting such an organization. But look again! Instead, imagine Wayne LaPierre on the deck of “Illusions,” eating a chef-cooked meal! That’s the real NRA. Nary a gun in sight!

Come home to the NRA! We’re not just an organization that gives ratings to members of Congress. We also are what Letitia James called a “personal piggy bank” for Wayne LaPierre. That’s the NRA we know, nothing to do with blaming the victims of gun violence and offering thoughts and prayers — which, after all, are free. Please, give now. If your money actually goes toward gun activism, we’ll be as surprised as you.

And wouldn’t it be a shame to see the NRA dismantled and replaced by some sort of new organization whose priority really was putting guns in the hands of history teachers, for no good reason? That’s the alternative we face.

If you are someone who has supported us in the past and want to know where your money went, please disregard this email.

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