Member dues drop, leaving the NRA in the red for second year in a row - Polidicks

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/09/nra-in-the-red-for-2nd-straight-year/ The National Rifle Association is traditionally one of the most powerful and financially intimidating interest groups in Washington. But a new third-party audit of the group’s finances obtained by OpenSecrets raises questions about its long-term fiscal health. The document offers the first look at the NRA’s finances in the wake of the 2016 elections. It shows that for the last two years, the NRA saw plummeting income from dues-paying members, and that has, in turn, fueled growing deficits. The NRA went big in 2016, breaking its own spending records to help catapult Donald Trump into the White House and protect Republican majorities in the House and Senate. The organization’s Federal Election Commission reports show that the nation’s preeminent gun-rights group spent at least $54.4 million boosting Republicans — with Donald Trump being, by far, the biggest beneficiary of that firepower, reaping $31.2 million in support. The bulk of the NRA’s spending in 2016, $35.2 million, was channeled not through its political action committee, but through its 501(c)(4) nonprofit arm. It’s this section of the NRA — which doesn’t have to disclose its donors — whose finances are reported in the audit obtained by OpenSecrets. Such nonprofits are not supposed to have politics as their primary purpose, but they can raise and spend unlimited funds from anonymous donors and easily spend millions on elections without much oversight from the IRS or the FEC. The fact that they can do so without disclosing their donors is why they are often referred to as “dark money” groups. It’s normal for the spending of an organization as politically active as the NRA to rise during election years and fall in off-years when such groups tend to fundraise and try to get their financials in order. But even with such a steep decline in spending, the NRA — one of the wealthiest, most powerful political forces in the nation — remained in the red, as its revenues umbled by $56 million. “Their current business model cannot be sustained the way it is going,” said Brian Mittendorf, an accounting professor from Ohio State University. “It can be sustained in the short term, but not the long term. The financial statements would indicate that.” This two-year deficit is a steep decline from the NRA’s $27.8 million in positive assets from 2015. More striking is that one of the biggest drivers of the group’s falling revenue is dwindling dues from NRA members, which fell from more than $163 million in 2016 to $128 million in 2017. The audit includes none of the NRA’s affiliated nonprofit entities like the NRA Foundation, the group’s 501(c)(3) charitable arm. Nor is the NRA’s PAC included. It will take time to know if the NRA bounces back in 2018 because the tax returns and audits covering the current year won’t be filed with state and federal regulators until late 2019. The NRA did not respond to questions from OpenSecrets about its finances. But one possible indication that the group’s finances aren’t as robust as they have been in past cycles is that its election spending has slowed down considerably in 2018. The NRA has reported $2.7 million so far this cycle — mostly from its PAC — down from $19.2 million at this point in 2016 and $10.7 million at this point in 2014, the last midterm election cycle.

Good. People want an interest group that solely works in the direction of guns, not as a proxy for Trump propaganda. That is the sole reason I will never consider being a part of the NRA.

The NRA are partially responsible for getting full autos banned. Fuck those guys.

they also convieniantly are mum on the foreign assault weapon ban that is still in effect

Gee, who'da thought the majority of us who like our boomsticks and want to keep them have a vested interest in not supporting a radical group that'll end up catalyzing a ban on them! Fuck off NRA.

They talked shit about Thomas the tank engine. Fuck those guys.

It is interesting that in spite of the increasingly extreme media put out by the NRA, it seems that their membership is dropping. IMO they'd gain more dues and followers by dropping the explicitly right-wing stance they present and instead simply limiting their platform entirely to guns. Focusing on a constitutional argument and what (reasonable) positives there are when it comes to firearms ownership would do them a lot of good.

I've been reading american rifleman since I could read and as time has gone on the material has grown less and less focused on shooting sports, history and related materials and more centered on political soapboxing. A coworker brought a copy from April 2017 into our break area and it'd been quite some time since I had read an issue so I flipped through it and it seems to be 50% ads, 10% gear reviews (magpull wallets?) , 10% articles of interest and the rest just reminding us how Trump is the best thing for this country and if the dems have their way then - yargbanlFNKELAfjksjkl; - donate now. I can see why people other than oldtimers would stop paying.

They will never do this because they don't exist for the purpose of furthering gun rights.

There's a vicious cycle going on here. I, and people like me, refuse to join because they're full of crazies. As a result, the organization is run by crazies and acts crazy, which drives out the remaining non-crazies and further drives away non-member non-crazies. In order to cater to their now batshit insane membership, they act even crazier, and so on. Fuck me, where's it gonna end? I just wanna build rifles and shoot in some 2-gun matches.

hey! when they put that ghost mask on the train it was just them promoting their new amateur porn film Kocks, kocks, kocks - a gun-based homoerotic spectacular

Just want to remind people that no matter who you are, even if you're a radical pro-gun person like myself, this is good news. The NRA as a lobbyist group don't actually give a shit about gun rights and are responsible for getting full autos made after 1989 banned. Or... maybe it's not good news if you are an anti-gun person. Or something.