Massive secret database of gun owners uncovered!

[MillCreek]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/stevefriess/how-the-nra-built-a-massive-secret-database-of-gun-owners

But it is not the government, it is the NRA.  I find this ironic, given all the mailers I get from the NRA urging me to contribute so as to beat back efforts to create a gun owners registry.

[Brad Johnson]

Uh, it's called a marketing database. And the similarity between it and a government-compiled gun owner registry? Not. Even. Close. The author of that article needs to take his craniorectitis meds and get a damn grip.

Brad

[Hawkmoon]

Huh?

Yet nowadays those classes are also an important way of adding information about gun owners to the database, Weisser said.

“After people take a class, then you as an instructor can send all their names to Washington and you get credit for that,” Weisser said. “If you can show you’ve taught enough classes, you can move up in the hierarchy as an NRA trainer.”

Moving up in the hierarchy can mean being licensed to teach more types of gun safety classes and being able to charge more, he said.

Really?

I'm a certified NRA trainer, for three different courses. I had to pay a training counselor to qualify me to teach each of those courses, and to add Personal Protection Outside the Home I'll have to pay a training counselor for that. The NRA doesn't just hand out those certifications like door prizes. And the NRA doesn't set the price instructors charge for their classes, the instructors do. If I want to teach "Basic Pistol" for free ... I can do that.

Or ... have I just not progressed high enough in the (alleged) hierarchy?

[Brad Johnson]

I did some digging and this thing smells like an anti-gunners personal hit-piece. Friess is a freelancer who's articles appear in places like Newsweek and the LA Times. Just the fine upstanding kind of person who might want to, say, discredit the single largest pro-gun advocacy group in America.

Brad

[MillCreek]

I did some digging and this thing smells like an anti-gunners personal hit-piece. Friess is a freelancer who's articles appear in places like Newsweek and the LA Times. Just the fine upstanding kind of person who might want to, say, discredit the single largest pro-gun advocacy group in America.

Brad

Citation needed.

[Brad Johnson]

Citation needed.

Google his name. He's not hard to find.

Brad

[makattak]

I did some digging and this thing smells like an anti-gunners personal hit-piece. Friess is a freelancer who's articles appear in places like Newsweek and the LA Times. Just the fine upstanding kind of person who might want to, say, discredit the single largest pro-gun advocacy group in America.

Brad

Having known, personally, people working at the NRA, I can say with near 100 percent certainty the article is a blatant lie.

The NRA has compiled a list of people who-- now wait till you hear this dastardly plan-- have signed up for a membership in the NRA.

WATCH OUT! If you sign up for a membership they will keep your name and address (probably email and phone number!!!) ON FILE!

[Scout26]

And that's only 3-4 million gun owners, so even if the NSA hack their mailing list, they still missing quite few who aren't members.  (NRA membership is like 10% of all gun owners, at best?)  Throw in a couple-three million who have take classes that are not members, and you are stilling missing quite a few.    I know there are 1.5 million FOID card holders in Illinois and only 33,000 ISRA members, a little over 2%.


Oh, and since Illinois does it's own NICS thing, it does have a database of all guns purchased through FFL's since the Brady Act.  That always gives me a warm fuzzy.

[dm1333]

 Millcreek, the Buzzfeed chairman is Ken Lerer.  Here is what he has created when he is not at his day job.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/06/ken-lerer-launching-stopthenra-effort-165462.html

http://www.stopthenra.com/

I also noticed the Buzzfeed article talks about how the NRA bought lists of gun owners from states like Iowa and Virginia yet there is no proof within the article.  Could it be true?  Yes.  Am I going to blindly accept the word of somebody with such an obvious bias?  Not so much.  I'd like to see some proof.  I'd also like to see all of the text from the quoted emails, not just little snippets.

This Gawker article is more comprehensive.

http://gawker.com/5987293/the-nra-wants-to-keep-gun-records-secret-from-everyone-except-the-nra

[makattak]

And that's only 3-4 million gun owners, so even if the NSA hack their mailing list, they still missing quite few who aren't members.  (NRA membership is like 10% of all gun owners, at best?)  Throw in a couple-three million who have take classes that are not members, and you are stilling missing quite a few.    I know there are 1.5 million FOID card holders in Illinois and only 33,000 ISRA members, a little over 2%.


Oh, and since Illinois does it's own NICS thing, it does have a database of all guns purchased through FFL's since the Brady Act.  That always gives me a warm fuzzy.

You have to remember lapsed members as well, so the numbers are still higher. Still probably doesn't represent even 20% of gun owners, though.

[AZRedhawk44]

Yet nowadays those classes are also an important way of adding information about gun owners to the database, Weisser said.

“After people take a class, then you as an instructor can send all their names to Washington and you get credit for that,” Weisser said. “If you can show you’ve taught enough classes, you can move up in the hierarchy as an NRA trainer.”

Moving up in the hierarchy can mean being licensed to teach more types of gun safety classes and being able to charge more, he said.

I've met some seriously Gawd-awful NRA "instructors" that need to get back to remedial marksmanship.

Volume of classes is hardly an indicator of proficiency.

I'm talking seriously bad... as in can't even shoot 60% on an XTC High Power match.  And they're teaching rifle fundamentals to other folks.

NRA creds are one of the leading creds that have the most in common with the public school mantra (those who can't do... teach).


I don't think you should be able to get the NRA instructor cred for long guns unless you can shoot at least an Expert (preferably Master) score in an XTC High Power match (F class, service rifle, or match rifle... makes no difference to me).  There's got to be a similar ranking system for clay/skeet and pistol as well.  IPSC/USPSA/IDPA class "A" or better, for instance.

[K Frame]

Having known, personally, people working at the NRA, I can say with near 100 percent certainty the article is a blatant lie.

The NRA has compiled a list of people who-- now wait till you hear this dastardly plan-- have signed up for a membership in the NRA.

WATCH OUT! If you sign up for a membership they will keep your name and address (probably email and phone number!!!) ON FILE!

NRA's lists are far more than that.

NRA actively purchases mailing lists from magazines, organizations, and companies like LL Bean, Land's End, etc., or places where you think that the customers would be more amenable to NRA's message than, say, the members of Drum Circle Quarterly.

NRA maintains databases not of just current and former members, but also of POTENTIAL members.

Otherwise, how the hell would they actively grow the organization?


But, mailing lists at NRA are a one-way street.

They buy them, but NRA policy is to NEVER, EVER sell lists of current, former, or potential NRA members.

That was the policy when I was associate editor of American Rifleman, and had been for years, and to the best of my knowledge still is.

At one point about 1992 they floated a proposal for selling lists of FORMER NRA members to like minded organizations (IOW, they would be very picky where the lists went), but the reaction was quite immediate and quite vicious. It was quickly dropped.

[SteveS]

I am far less worried about the NRA compiling public information for the purposes of marketing than I am about the various lists (CPL, NFA, and purchases from FFLs) that the gov't already maintains.

[Scout26]

Wayne LaPierre isn't going to kick in my door at Oh-dark-thirty because my membership expired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUf7JMEf9kY