Can’t the NRA say that this was a great decision, but still believe, given the risks at the time, bringing the case wasn’t a good move?

BlueCross/BlueShield
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St Paul/Travelers
Bear Stern
J P Morgan
Dell
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Oracle

Good neighbors–depending on your committee assignments.

NOT MUCH WAS GAINED! Anyone thinking this crap needs to put yourself in the shoes of fellow citizens that have been living under tyranny in the DC suburbs. This ruling gives those citizens the ability to defend their freaking homes, AND YOU CALL IT NOTHING???

If that isn’t an “I’ve-got-mine-attitude” I don’t know what is. And if you are someone that defends the NRA for leaving an unconstitutional gun control “law” on the books for 32 years, (only to build traction and support by anti’s throughout this country), I have absolutely no compassion when tyranny lays up in your backyard and NO ONE lifts a finger after 32 years of getting YOUR nuts kicked in.

Losing this SCOTUS decision would have been probably more devastating than the rights granted by winning it.

Ahem. The Bill of Rights doesn’t “grant” rights.

The first part of the Second Amendment makes abundantly clear that “Arms” doesn’t just mean “hunting or sporting” weapons.

The NRA has its pros and cons, but as a 20 year member I have seen first hand that the NRA has been a major reason for the retreat of the gun-control groups. I’m not sure why Radley Balko posted something snarky about them,…

Because those at the NRA do ingratiate themselves to political factions at the expense of American liberties. There are a lot of purists out there like Levy, Gura, and grassroots activists (like David Codrea) who do seek to advance liberty without trying to master the sleezy political “game.” It’s annoying to see the NRA mentioned in every single article by an ignorant mainstream “journalist.”

2. Given Radley’s own analysis of the victory as being fairly hollow, it seems the NRA was quite correct in it’s opposition, since not much was gained, and there was much more to lose. It seems odd to me that someone who recognizes a victory as hollow would also criticize a group that came to the same conclusion before the victory even occurred.

Had the election gone the other way, this case would almost certainly have been decided AGAINST Heller. It worked out ok, but the NRA was certainly justified in trying to avoid this fight.

The NRA has its pros and cons, but as a 20 year member I have seen first hand that the NRA has been a major reason for the retreat of the gun-control groups. I’m not sure why Radley Balko posted something snarky about them, but then, I also don’t know how Balko, a libertarian, could say with a straight face that Clinton was a better president than Reagan. While I enjoy this site, I don’t trust his judgment.

I often think the NRA is too accommodating, and I tend to prefer the GoA or the JPFO. But if anyone thinks we would have made as much progress on gun issues as we have in the last 20 years or so without the NRA is, in my humble opinion, crazy.

I give to Gun Owners of America, and I should (will) support the JPFO (those people really don’t compromise, for good reason).

Being concerned with always being on the winning team can certainly be important. Losing this SCOTUS decision would have been probably more devastating than the rights granted by winning it.

If the decision had gone the other way wouldn’t that free up every single city council in the US to ban handguns in thier town? If thats really the outcome I wouldn’t want the case to go before the supreme court until I was sure it would win.

Back in the late ’80′s, when our Republican president, George Bush the elder, was backing the assault weapons ban, pro-RKBA folks didn’t have a lot of choices. Or rather, despite the choices, it seemed like a good idea to stand behind the largest pro-gun group in the country.

At times, their highly strategic approach has worked well, but I seem to recall them backing away from the principles of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in favor of hunters, the police, and stocking gun dealers.

You are absolutely correct.

Given the shenanigans that have gone down under the gold dome here in GA over the last couple of years, I have seen their agenda in action and is not based on what is best for gun owners.

The NRA is more concerned about being on the winning team than doing the right thing.

Organizations like GOA, SAF, JPFO and the myriad state-level groups are much more focused on the real issues.

Furthermore, if either John Kerry or Al Gore had defeated George Bush, gun owners would be stinging from a 6-3 smackdown right about now because both Justices Roberts and Alito would likely have been replaced by anti-gun judges.

I realize NRA-bashing is a quick and easy way to make oneself appear urbane and hip to members of the gun community, but in reality it’s juvenile and getting rather tiresome. No other gun-rights group even comes close to doing what the NRA does for gun owners, both in terms of legislation and education.

PS: Speaking of Utah, back in 1995 the Utah GOA affiliate openly opposed Utah’s shall-issue Concealed Carry law, calling the permit system “gun control in disguise”. I was there, I remember.

If we had listened to them Utah’s widely-accepted permit system — considered by many to be the closest thing to a de facto national carry permit — wouldn’t exist, and instead of over 100,000 Utah permittees there would only be a handful of well-connected elites allowed to carry.

Good analogy, but in practice it’s more like this: You have already been kicked in the nuts and are determined to not let it happen again. When the kicker opines that they would like to do it again, the NRA swoops in and proposes that they slap you across the face instead. The NRA then claims victory for this “compromise”, because you didn’t get kicked.

It was far from settled that you were going to get a second kick; the kicker hadn’t even drawn back his foot. But they were more than happy to take the NRA up on their offer to let you be slapped.

And then they probably gave you a wedgie to boot.