I joined the NRA

What kind of nut job joins the National Rifle Association?  This kind. 

I joined this "long standing civil rights organization," or had to, in order to attend an NRA national convention in Atlanta some years ago. I'm an American through Dad. I like shooting firearms on a target range but the idea of owning one produces an English gag reflex. Why? Because guns have one function and one function only: to kill. 

My wife, a full blown Englishwoman, likes to shoot. She owns an H&K VP 9mm. For the uninitiated, that's probably the best "striker fired" 9mm handgun on the American market. She bought it a week after she got her Green Card. There must be some significance in that. 

I fussed over a gun purchase like a Karen over a pair of Jimmy Choo heels. What to get? I thought long and hard. How's about a sawn-off shotgun like a 1970's English bank robber? "Sawed-off shotguns" are illegal in the state of Georgia. Maybe not. 

What about an AR-15? The active shooter weapon of choice has gone down significantly in price since Donald Trump was POTUS. "The prices always go down under Republicans," said the bloke behind the counter at my local gun store in Atlanta (one of the biggest in the country). There must be some significance in that, too.

Ironically, it's better for the NRA, and the firearms industry, if a Democrat is in power. During Obama's second term in 2013 there was a shortage of 9mm, America's most popular handgun ammo, and manufacturers made a killing contracting supply, upping prices and blaming Obama for shortages. 

Gun sales went down big time under Trump but some firms, including our oldest gun-maker, went out of business. Manufacturers dubbed it "the Trump Slump." But then the pandemic happened and business was booming, again. However, now there's a shortage of .223 ammo for AR-15s and it's a $1 a round for 9mm, yet again.

The NRA membership card is rested in the wallet next to the Labour Party membership card. I must be the only member of Kensington CLP to be a member of the NRA. What a double whammy. I hope it doesn't get me chucked out of either and/or both. 

I didn't get much post but the NRA write almost every week. They always want money. They always want a liberal-style hand out. I thought the NRA was loaded? Only their guns, I guess. 

Guns are supposed to be apolitical in America, but the NRA is anything but. When I was a fully paid up member of the NRA, almost every week an earnest sounding soul from the NRA called up to ask, "Do you think Donald Trump is doing a good job as President?" Am I aware that liberal elite pals in New York, Hollywood and the Fake News Industrial Complex, are trying to take away my cowardly killing machines and high capacity magazines? Maybe that's a good thing, I think to myself as I switch the iPhone off.  

Are the NRA and the NSA one and the same? When firearms were the topic of the dinner table, the NRA used to call up with lifetime memberships deals and more questions about the performance of POTUS .45 cal. Did I think that Donald Trump was doing a good job as president? I crack. And out it comes like vomit, "Does anyone?" 

Now my membership to the NRA has lapsed. Do I renew it? Two years for $60.What are the perks? There's an NRA wine club. And lots of free gifts: lock knives, CS gas canisters, and solar powered torches. But things change. They change all the time.  The NRA was recently designated as a foreign asset to Russian spooks in a 77-page Senate Finance Committee report by Democrats. Should I renew membership to the NRA? On the face of it, no. Perhaps not.