this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
8 points (100.0% liked)

AskHistorians

1337 readers
43 users here now

QUESTIONS

  1. Be civil.
  2. Be specific.
  3. Historical topic must be from at least 20 years ago.
  4. Post questions in the title. Elaboration is for the text box.

RESPONSES

  1. Be civil.
  2. Provide comprehensive answers.
  3. Please provide primary and secondary sources upon good faith request. Tertiary sources, like Wikipedia, are not accepted.

askhistorians is a community for academic answers to questions about history. Polls, opinions, bigotry, grammar pedantry, and personal insults will be removed.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Patnou@lemmy.world
PugJesus@piefed.social
8
How did the NRA get so big and influential? Were they just a group of gun nut people who got together and started a group? Why was it originally started and got so big into politics? (lemmy.world)
submitted 13 hours ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to c/askhistorians@lemmy.world
6 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] subverted_per@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 13 hours ago

Pretty much this. Back in the seventies the group was moatly about education, and teaching gun safety and marksmanship. The manufacturers got involved directly for the sake of sales, but then turned it around to be a populist face for a lobbying group. Turns out you can influence a lot of politicians if you can show the ability to direct voter decisions. Russia got involved after Wayne lapierre took over, but then the leadership got greedy and backstabby. I think membership has tanked these days because it's really nothing more than an industry lobbying group now.