Why More Than 90 Percent of Gun Owners Don’t Join the NRA
I could write a novel packed with why so many gun owners I know are not members of the NRA. But the author below has far greater writing skills than I, and seems to have done the groundwork. His most salient point to me personally is the astute observation the NRA has no place for moderate gun owners.
Jan Dizard, 77, a professor emeritus at Amherst College who splits time between western Massachusetts and California, is a registered Democrat and a self-described environmentalist. He’s also a life-long gun owner who patronizes both his local rod and gun club and bird dog association.
Although Dizard acknowledges that he’s “by far the furthest left [politically] of anybody in the club,” being a liberal gun owner hardly makes him a unicorn.
If a left-leaning gun owner seems unusual, it’s in part because there are critical gaps in our nation’s collective understanding about who owns firearms in America and what they use them for.
Dizard stands in contrast to the 87,000 Americans at last weekend’s record-breaking annual NRA conference, where attendees told a HuffPost reporter that the media focuses a disproportionate amount of coverage on gun violence and ignores positive stories about firearms. “They are censoring what the true pulse of the citizenry thinks,” said Brian Lilly, 49, who attended the conference for the first time this year with his 18-year-old son.
More: Why More Than 90 Percent Of Gun Owners Don’t Join The NRA