National Rifle Association

Today’s NRA is nothing less than a gun industry trade association masquerading as a shooting sports foundation.

— National Rifle Association

Somehow they managed to make the N.R.A. the victims of the Newtown shootings. I think the average American would be shocked by their language.

— National Rifle Association

The NRA, a trade association for the gun industry masquerading as a shooting sports foundation, has worked for decades to block any policy that could negatively affect the industry’s bottom line. They’ve taken tens of millions of dollars in donations from gun companies that care more about increased profits than protecting public safety.

— National Rifle Association

It certainly has been a fantastic time at Smith & Wesson...We are true believers in that and defenders of that and we are very closely aligned with the NRA. The time had come to step up and do the right thing.

— National Rifle Association

We looked back at the support we had given the NRA over time and decided, really quite honestly, that it wasn’t enough. It is imperative that we hold fast to the freedoms that the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights provide our citizens. Those freedoms cannot and must not be negotiated. So, I think it’s more important than ever that we come together in support of the NRA.

— National Rifle Association

...the truth is that guns are rarely used to stop crimes or kill criminals...private citizens use guns to harm themselves or others far more often than to kill in self-defense...The fact is that the use of guns in self-defense in America bears little resemblance to the false claims made by the NRA and its gun industry partners. Perhaps most striking is that in a nation of more than 300 million guns, how rarely firearms are used in self-defense.

— National Rifle Association

It's time to admit the NRA is not a "gun rights" organization. The NRA — and their allies in the Republican party — are about one thing and one thing only: Stoking racialized fears of crime amongst paranoid white people for political gain and gun profits. The inability to give two hoots about the police killings of two gun owners, who happen to be black, just confirms it.

— National Rifle Association

The hypocrisy there is so blatant. I always thought the NRA was not concerned about me. And I hunt and I fish and I own a gun. But the last few days have clarified it for me — that their Second Amendment concern is not a voice of concern for African Americans. And I just believe that we cannot give them a pass on not making a comment.

— National Rifle Association

Racism is often used casually: a “racist” is simply someone who is prejudiced in one situation or the other.From their reaction — or lack of — to these cases, the only logical conclusion one can reach is that the NRA is racist.

— National Rifle Association

[The National Rifle Association] has President Trump’s back for the next eight years.

— National Rifle Association

...many domestic-violence suspects...are arrested only to have the charges dropped later, which leaves them armed and dangerous. The National Rifle Association and its allies have successfully argued that a mere arrest on domestic-violence charges...is not sufficient reason to deprive a citizen of his right to bear arms.

— National Rifle Association

The N.R.A., with its yearly budget of three hundred million dollars, has mastered the dark art of substituting money for popular will. By spending strategically and threatening to “primary” any office-holder who deviates from its agenda, it has managed to impose an extremist agenda that seems almost unchallengeable. America now has something like eighty-eight guns per hundred citizens—the highest concentration in the world—yet, inevitably, there will be calls for more tomorrow.

— National Rifle Association

The NRA is a rabid dog. It is a rogue outfit. Whatever its purposes are, they are not mine. They do not speak for me.

— National Rifle Association

Let’s say it's 10 million. That’s still a fraction of the gun owners out there.

— National Rifle Association

The only thing more inflated than their membership numbers is the myth of their invincibility.

— National Rifle Association

They are rarely representing their membership. They represent the people who Wayne LaPierre takes pictures with holding big checks. Perhaps they represent the people who are giving them [membership dues] money, but they clearly represent the manufacturing industry.

— National Rifle Association

The NRA is the most important organization protecting our rights to defend ourselves and our democracy in America.

— National Rifle Association

[The] National Rifle Association is always arguing that the Second Amendment determines the right to bear arms. But I think it really is the people's right to bear arms in a militia. The NRA thinks it protects their right to have Teflon-coated bullets. But that's not the original understanding.

— National Rifle Association

Charlton Heston...recently was re-elected president of the NRA for the third term. And they made an exception, because their charter, their constitution, says you can only have two terms, but they changed it. Ah. So constitutions can change. Interesting. Because it is called the Second Amendment. The word "amendment" itself means, "We had another thought! We re-thought something!"

— National Rifle Association

One of the greatest talents of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry has been their ability exploit high-profile events to pump up gun sales: Bill Clinton, the Brady Bill, the federal assault weapons “ban,” Y2K, September 11th, and now, of course, Barack Obama. Regardless of the event, the solution remains the same: buy a gun. And if industry and gun fan mags are any indication, it should be an AR-15 assault rifle.

— National Rifle Association

Today's NRA is a virtual subsidiary of the gun industry. While the NRA portrays itself as protecting the 'freedom' of individual gun owners, it's actually working to protect the freedom of the gun industry to manufacture and sell virtually any weapon or accessory.

— National Rifle Association

They translate the industry's needs into less crass, less economically interested language -- into defending the home, into defending the country. The industry needs a veneer of respectability.

— National Rifle Association

The National Rifle Association’s main cause is not the spreading of rifles; it is making sure that more people can legally carry handguns, ostensibly to protect themselves from armed thugs.

— National Rifle Association

There is not a middle ground with the NRA.

— National Rifle Association