Does the nra really have 5 million members?

[jimmy the one]

jan 2013, mother jones: In 2008, Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the pro-gun control Violence Policy Center, came across more evidence of the NRA's fuzzy math. He pointed to a piece of junk mail that the NRA's treasurer had sent to members peddling a specialized insurance plan aimed at gun owners. The pitch stated that "with about 3 million NRA Members 'on our side of the table,' we negotiated a bargain price." Sugarmann has an intriguing theory why this number may be more credible than the one that the NRA routinely gives the press: The underwriter for the insurance plan was in California, where making "untrue, deceptive, or misleading" statements in insurance materials is outlawed.

Last week, the NRA claimed that it had added 100,000 new members in the weeks following he Sandy Hook massacre. "Our goal is to get to 5 million before this debate is over," a representative of the group told Politico. If all of the NRA's numbers are to be believed, it will hit its target by this fall {2013}.

UPDATE: A source writes in with another strong indication that the NRA's true size is closer to 3 million. The NRA gives members a free subscription to one of four magazines: American Rifleman, American Hunter, America's 1st Freedom, or NRA InSights. The first three magazines are audited by the Alliance for Audited Media, which as of July gave them a combined paid circulation (including newsstand sales) of 3.1 million. NRA InSights is an online-only magazine for kids, with a circulation of 25,000. Though some NRA members may opt out of a free magazine, it's likely that others pay to subscribe to more than one of them. Add in the fact that non-NRA members can pick up the magazines on the newsstand, and the 3.1 million figure is almost certainly an upper-bound for the NRA's true size.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/01/nra-membership-numbers

[flamin lib]

1. Yeah, and rabid second amenders will drink the

5 million cool aid along with the Kleck 2.5 million defensive gun uses a year.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. At one time the NRA was a relatively benign organization

that concentrated mainly on gun safety education for hunters and other sportsmen; their mutation into a collection of fanatical militia-type gun freaks (encouraged by NRA management at the behest of gun manufacturers) is pretty recent. My guess is that there is a fairly large number of old-time members who remain members mostly out of habit. And that the NRA is seriously inflating its "official" numbers.

[atreides1]

3. Possibly

If you count Charlton Heston and the other dead "lifetime" members...

[Hoyt]

4. Well, there are a lot of "free riders" who are too cheap to pay NRA dues, but love their gunz.

I think there are tens of millions of gunners who not only support the NRA's gun expansion efforts, but their bigoted, greedy, callous right wing bent as well.

As long as gun profitteers -- manufacturers, gun stores, etc. -- and right wing politicians are willing to foot the bill, others are content to "benefit" from the expansion of lethal weapons and all the negatives that go with it. And there a plenty of other groups -- including state militias, the KKK, etc. -- who join with the NRA on bullying Congress and state legislatures.

I'd like to believe the NRA's power is relatively small, but it is not. And there power is not just limited to guns.