(KRT) - ``Please stand by for a recorded message from Wayne LaPierre, after which you'll be asked to answer a short survey.''
The telephone message from the NRA's executive vice president was predictable: The media and those evildoers of the Democratic Party - Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy - are attempting to take away Americans' Second Amendment rights.
What would an advocacy group be without enemies?
Conservatives have Hill and Ted and the damned "media"; liberals have Tom DeLay and Karl Rove. All are invoked to stoke the fires of passion that translate into money in the coffers.
The voice of LaPierre was followed by that of the survey taker, a cheery-sounding woman who identified herself as a member of the National Rifle Association.
The "survey" consisted of one question: Do you think that the nation needs additional gun control laws, or should we just enforce the laws already on the books?
The obligatory answer to the obviously loaded question was provided: Just enforce the laws we already have.
The cheery-sounding woman then got to the crux of the call: "We notice that your membership dues are not up to date."
Sigh. It was only a matter of time before the NRA nose-counters noticed there was one less sheep among the flock.
You realize, said the cheery woman, that we are in "a fight for our life." We understand that it might not be a good time financially, but we've put together a very attractive package ...
Cheery Woman was stopped before she could complete the pitch.
The non-renewal has nothing to do with the price of an annual membership. It has everything to do with an increasing aversion to hyperbole such as the statement that we are in "a fight for our life."
Please. The NRA isn't going away without my $35 membership, nor will American gun rights disappear - not with a GOP-controlled Congress and 28 governors' mansions housing Republicans.
More state legislatures than ever have adopted laws that allow residents to carry concealed handguns, and 35 of them issue the permits on a nondiscretionary basis to those who have completed the required training courses - meaning that the local sheriff doesn't get to decide who can carry and who can't.
More than 75 million gun owners call the United States home, and more than 250 million guns are in public circulation in this country.
Those numbers alone are enough to scare the spit out of avid gun control supporters, but there they are. Firearms are part of the American culture, and not everyone who owns one is a terrorist or a criminal.
And not everyone who owns a gun is a fan of the NRA.
Although I continue to support the organization's overall mission - protecting the right of law-abiding citizens to own firearms - I have grown increasingly agitated by the method: painting people who don't share their view as "political terrorists," as LaPierre once called the leader of Americans for Gun Safety.
Granted, the more caustic gun control advocates and those lawmakers who carry their water are out of touch with mainstream America when it comes to gun rights - and their methods are equally distasteful.
But I don't belong to those groups, so it's hard to make a statement by withdrawing financial support that was never there in the first place.
Special-interest groups play an important role in American democracy.
Because their focus is so narrow, their leaders pay painstakingly close attention to potential legislation or initiatives that might otherwise be overlooked in the myriad streams of information that clog one's daily life. They can educate and mobilize minds of like interest to contact lawmakers and decision makers.
But ours has become a nation of people too quick to demonize others for the stands they take if they run contrary to our own beliefs.
I think the Brady Center for the Prevention of Gun Violence is wrong on scores of gun-related issues, but that doesn't make Sarah Brady evil.
She'd make a lousy expert witness on Justice Department statistics on the use of illegally obtained firearms in crimes, but she can present one helluva victim's impact statement, as could any American whose loved one was killed or injured by the criminal use of a gun.
I'll continue to fight for the Second Amendment rights of Americans. I just won't do it as a member of the NRA.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Jill ``J.R.'' Labbe is a senior editorial writer and columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. .
