Nra Needs To Revamp Its Image, Members Say

Several local gun owners weren’t surprised Tuesday to hear that the National Rifle Association’s membership dropped sharply this spring.

The NRA, they said, has an image problem, with many Americans grouping the 124-year-old gun organization alongside militias and the Oklahoma City bombing.

But some current NRA members aren’t sure whom to blame: the media or the NRA itself.

“Times are changing, and if you don’t change, you die,” said life member Bill Sahlberg of Spokane. “The NRA has to get back to firearms instruction and take less hardline stances.”

In June, The Spokesman-Review asked for local gun owners’ opinions of the NRA’s current direction. Dozens of those who called said they are dismayed at what they view as the NRA’s change from a sportsmen’s organization to a strident, no-compromise Washington lobby.

Sahlberg said many members are turned off by the group’s frequent fund-raising letters.

Sahlberg also said he’d like to see the NRA stress gun education and establish new ranges.

“Put your emphasis on that and let it speak for itself,” he said. “Most NRA members have a good handle on our own politics. We, as Americans, don’t need to be told what to do.”

In Coeur d’Alene, Bob Heimann said he questions whether the NRA’s membership really has gone down this year.

“My impression, based on the literature the NRA sends out, was that membership was going up,” he said.

Life member Paul Weis of Spokane said he thinks the group has become too militant. Gun education, he said, should be the NRA’s primary function.

“We’re getting an image as a bunch of militants and independent vigilantes. I don’t like that,” he said. “But I don’t think that leaving the outfit is the way to solve the problem. If you’re going to make changes, make them from within.”

Other members blame the press for what they view as heavy-handed coverage of the NRA and its causes, such as calling for investigations into alleged wrongdoing by federal agents.

“I think the media have pretty much whitewashed a lot of the things we see today, like government misdoings at Waco and Ruby Ridge,” said disabled veteran John Hader of Mead. “Everything is pretty much slanted away from government responsibility and keeps getting turned back to all of the ‘crazies’ who own guns.”

, DataTimes