Statement from NRA-Endorsed 2018 Potential Board Member Duane Liptak

[Bartholomew Roberts]

This is long. Apologies.

After discussions with the K Street folks and some of the NRA leadership, here's where I believe we are at:

<snipped>

Bigger threats on the state level...FL bill has some REALLY dangerous language about bumpfire stocks and triggers, mental health etc., and is 66 pages of intentionally vague bull-CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED-. If you're in FL...You need to be writing and calling non-stop for school security, culpability for school administrators, etc., and to protect the rights of law abiding citizens. Kill that bill. It's dangerous because the title and supposed topics are portrayed as "common sense controls", but it's nefarious. IL bill is absolutely draconian. Same there. Anyone there needs to be in the 2 minute drill...that bill is bad, bad, bad. I fear that one has steam and includes all the hardware bogeymen. CO has a senate majority that is holding strong, but if the Rs lose the senate this fall and don't take the governor's mansion, expect CA style gun control in the spring. UT...someone from LDS needs to slap your governor. I'm looking at where we can help in those states.--Edited to add MN and MI...but I haven't been fully briefed on those, so I'm looking now. MN looks ugly.

Of course all of this is a snapshot and may change tomorrow. Biggest thing is that if you haven't written your congress critters and your governors at the state and federal level, do it. If you have, write them again. Call, too. Have your spouse write them. Make sure your extended family is writing them. The minute anything specific hits the floor, write and call again.

And don't shop at Dick's.

Mr. Liptak is a VP at Magpul and running for the 2018 NRA Board. Transparency in pro-RKBA? Who'd have thunk, yeah?

ETA: Snipped because I thought this was a public statement; but it was only semi-public.

[Prndll]

The single biggest reason why it means little to nothing to me when people (anyone) talks about how Trump knows/understands nothing is that so very few people in Washington seem to know/understand anything.

These people gave us Obama care. WITHOUT even reading the bill first. Yeah, I know there is a split when it came to the vote for it. But that hardly means much when there have been so many missed opportunities to kill it and take it down.

So few seem to actually care about much of anything aside from hanging on to their position of power. That's not even to mention how many act like children on public stage while claiming to be the ones that can provide for the rest of us.

By comparison, I'd rather have Trump over MOST of the complete uselessness that is Washington.

-----------------

As for Dick's:
They will likely go the way of Gander Mountain. The smaller mom-n-pop shops are really lookin pretty good to me.

[In The Ten Ring]

Bartholomew,

Thank you so much for posting that! I've been looking for something solid on that for days and I've been getting more and more nervous without it.

I have called and emailed all my state senators and reps, once my printer is fixed next week I'll be following up with printed memos to all of those and do that once a week.

I've never bought anything at Dick(head)'s since they stopped carrying AR's and I called their corporate office on that. I haven't even been in their store.

[adamBomb]

Don't blame the NRA for backing him, because that was done when it became obvious that if we didn't back him, we'd have Clinton in the WH and if Trump did squeak by without the NRA endorsement, we wouldn't have a seat at the table. Politics sucks. That's a fact...And don't shop at Dick's.

I'm sorry but if Obama said what Trump did the NRA would be calling for his impeachment. So still support Trump and then ask us not to shop at Dicks? Why the double standard? This is why I stopped being a member about 10 yrs ago.

[Tom Servo]

This isn't the place for partisan politics. Posts have been deleted. Don't make me swing the rubber chicken, folks.

[5whiskey]

I'm sorry but if Obama said what Trump did the NRA would be calling for his impeachment. So still support Trump and then ask us not to shop at Dicks? Why the double standard? This is why I stopped being a member about 10 yrs ago.

Well, I suppose its important to remember that this is not an official NRA statement. So critical thinking should catch the fact that this is one guy who WANTS TO BE (not is) a board member, and is no form of official spokesman. Are we to burn our NRA memberships because of f a statement made by 1 other member (nothing else)?

Second off, political hypocrisy isn't exclusive to the NRA or to one political party. I could provide numerous examples of groups that endorsed president Obama despite Guantanamo bay remaining open, troops in afghanistan, him "not being there yet" on gay marriage, and a plethora of other issues.

And that not to criticize Obama for going back on a campaign promise, believe it or not. He made the promise to close guantanamo before he was the POTUS. He likely received intelligence and guidance (that likely no one here is privy to) after he became the president, and decided not closing it was best. And many organizations forgave him of that. Code pink didn't. I don't agree with them but they stuck to their principles. Got to give them that.

[44 AMP]

The single biggest reason why it means little to nothing to me when people (anyone) talks about how Trump knows/understands nothing is that so very few people in Washington seem to know/understand anything.

To (sort of) quote Reagan (and likely several others as well)...

"The problem isn't that our opponents know so little, the problem is that so much of what they know is wrong..."

Trump and all the other politicians can say anything, and people get all spun up about it. Now, look at what people DO, and not just what they say...

Dick's DID something. They made a store policy decision, to capitalize on the current emotional surge. Anybody got any information on what percentage of Dick's profits came from AR (or any "assault weapon") sales, before they publically announced they were stopping sales?

I'm guessing it wasn't very large. Tick off maybe half a million potential gun buyers, to get 20 million soccer moms happy to shop at the "store that cares"?? I'm thinking Dick's profit on a team's worth of kneepads, shoes, jerseys, etc was weighed against the profit from AR sales and they went for the bigger chunk of change.

I could be wrong, they could be doing it entirely from their sense of shame and desire to do "the right thing", that they had an epiphany and realized what evil merchants of death they had been, and want to atone for that.

They could also have monkeys fly out of their butts. I put the probably of either as approximately the same.

[fredvon4]

44 AMP you are spot on with the Dick's rational

Delta on the other hand screwed to pooch...IMO