What’s it like working for the NRA?

[DaleA]

I know some of the staff here have worked for the NRA and I was wondering if they’ve written books or articles about it or know of anyone who has done that.

I imagine if you worked for the NRA you’d work with a lot of shooting equipment in addition to the firearms themselves and would have met a lot of interesting people and would have been involved in a lot of interesting firearms related projects.

[g.willikers]

Probably spend more time with phones and paper pushing than with guns.

[Mike Irwin]

I spent 3.5 years as associate editor of American Rifleman magazine, from 1990 to 1994.

Working on the magazine was, for most of the time, pretty damned exciting.

We were miles away from NRA Headquarters, in Virginia, because of the gun laws in DC.

Then, slowly, as things began to turn bad for gunowners in the 1990s, a power struggle broke out in NRA management and the board of directors, and the magazines were caught in the crossfire.

In the space of about 6 month in late 1992, it became a uniformly horrific place to work. Editorial control of the magazines was alternately seized by different power cliques who used it to promote their stance.

Around the same time, NRA moved to Virginia, into the new HQ, and the magazine quickly became a financial pawn, culminating with a "survey" pushed by that asswipe La Pierre and his clique to essentially gut the magazine in a "cost savings" move. The "survey" was very craftily designed to give them exactly the results that they wanted, and they were very successful in their shilling.

There were also endless series of layoffs in which one department would be hit multiple times in succession. It got so bad that many in the Competitions Department taped over their name plates with and Sharpied in "To Be Determined."

Management seemed bound and determined to destroy employee morale at all costs, and in many instances looked at every employee as:

1. A drain on resources.
2. A plant for Handgun Control Incorporated
3. A plant for the Clinton Administration.
4. Unloyal to the firearms rights cause.

I have no clue what it's like to work there now. I really don't want to.

I'm glad that I worked there, but the day I was laid off, along with pretty much half the rest of the publications department, was actually a very happy day for me.

[Evan Thomas]

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, that it wasn't all, um, guns and roses.

[DaleA]

I've been a member for years and never paid much attention to who was running the organization or voting in the elections. Just looked forward to the American Rifleman each month. I'm sorry.

[redlevel42]

I have a young friend who worked in the recruitment department for a year and a half or so. He flew all over the country to shows, etc. He enjoyed his time fairly well, but, as in any other job, the immediate boss can make it good or terrible. He had a terrible boss. He also couldn't stand the Northern Virginia winters. He is now getting certified as a radiology technologist.