Gun Owners Alliance ALERTS!

By Neal Knox

WASHINGTON, D.C.  (March 10) -- NRA officials are once again chasing the Holy Grail of millions of potential hunter members -- and contributors. And once again they're talking about achieving it by "softening" what NRA's foes consider its too-rigid legislative positions.

Although NRA has been primarily focussed on gun rights for more than 25 years it does significantly more for hunters than most other hunting organizations.

NRA obviously needs to do a better public relations job of telling hunters what it does -- in addition to protecting their guns. And it could a build an expanded contingent of hunting members around its excellent American Hunter Magazine.

Instead, at the January meetings of the Hunting and Wildlife and Public Affairs committees, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre sketched out a puzzling plan to create a new national hunting club that would be semi-separate from NRA.

Even more puzzling, the new organization would be named for a little-known cable television hunting program, "Under Wild Skies," which would not exist if it hadn't received millions of NRA advertising dollars.

The cable program, and the name of the proposed "Under Wild Skies Hunting Club," belong to long-time LaPierre friend and ally Tony Makris.

Makris is also president of NRA's public relations contractor, Mercury Group, a "wholly owned subsidiary of Ackerman-McQueen," which has directed NRA's less-than-sterling public relations programs for 20 years.  It also contracts publication of NRA's First Freedom magazine, directs some of NRA's fundraising mail and membership promotions, and much else.

What particularly disturbs me: the rationale for a separate club is that it could present "a softer image" than the media-reviled NRA, and get more hunters "inside the tent."

It's been tried before, at huge costs to the association.

In the 1960s, the quarter-million member NRA, whose leaders considered it strictly a competitive shooting organization and detested being called "the gun lobby," made a major effort to attract hunter members. Leaders of hunting organizations were added to its board, and -- more skilled in intra-organizational politics -- quickly rose in influence.

Dr. C.R. (Pink) Gutermuth, who saw "no problem with gun registration," and was head of the Wildlife Management Institute, became NRA President in 1973.

Pink and his allies corrupted what had been the good idea of a "fail-safe NRA-owned range" to conduct the National Championships in case Sen. Ted Kennedy succeeded in shutting down Camp Perry. They twisted that effort into a primarily conservation-oriented "National Outdoor Center" at Raton, N.M.

Simultaneously, they strangled NRA's first-ever professional lobbying effort, the 1973 predecessor to NRA-ILA, partially because consultants said the needed $30 million could not be raised unless NRA "softened its intransigent opposition to gun control."

Some officers and staff attempted to do just that.

Those factors, combined with the planned symbolic move from Washington to a new headquarters under construction in Colorado Springs, Colo., were the primary causes of the "Member Revolt" at the NRA Annual Meeting at Cincinnati in 1977.

Few current NRA Directors know much about those past mistakes, but several have questioned some of the stranger aspects of LaPierre's plan, which is to be detailed at the April meetings.

The biggest question was why NRA would not have direct control. The hunting club supposedly would be owned by "NRA Holdings Inc.," but LaPierre was "vague" about who would elect the directors.

And why would NRA -- one of the best-known "brands" in the nation -- adopt "Under Wild Skies" as the name for its club, paying for the privilege by advertising on Makris' program "in perpetuity."

LaPierre told questioners he didn't know the name belonged to Makris -- which isn't believable, considering a 1996 ruckus over NRA's paying huge chunks to Makris for TV advertising without a contract.

If it is indeed best to start a club without NRA's name on it -- which is debatable -- why shouldn't there be bids from other television programs and hunting organizations for the proposed right to be "The Only Hunting Club Endorsed by NRA."

Wouldn't the hunting organizations which support NRA resent that endorsement?

Hunting Committee Chair Tom Arvas told me last night that his committee had received few details, but would have many questions at Orlando. That's good, and all Directors should see the contract.

But ordinary members haven't been allowed to ask questions at recent Member Meetings.

If NRA really wants hunters, it should solicit former members, promising that they would receive no more than one fund-raising appeal per year.

That would restore memberships and net as much in contributions  -- but would sure make NRA's contractors unhappy.

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