Meet GOA: The Prejudiced Group Taking the NRA's Place

By Rhiannon Winner on June 23, 2016

In the wake of the tragedy in Orlando, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said that “in spite of the public’s demand for action Senate Republicans continue to cower before the NRA and the Gun Owners of America.” Almost any American can tell you about the NRA, regardless of their personal stance on gun control. This makes sense, given that the NRA has a few million members who are highly motivated, loud, and spent $3,605,564 on lobbying in 2015. Although the NRA may be the single greatest reason why gun control legislation is nearly impossible to pass, they are not the only one. Reid mentioned a second group – the Gun Owners of America – who are racking up influence fast enough that someday, they may outpace the NRA in membership and spending.

The Gun Owners of America (GOA) have a significantly smaller membership. While the NRA’s promotional materials boast a membership of around 5 million, the GOA only has around 1.5 million. When it comes to money, GOA has nothing compared to the NRA’s war chest. GOA poured $1,445,344 into lobbying in 2015, which is barely 40% of what the NRA spent. If you look at the bigger picture, the NRA reports that their total liabilities and net assets for 2014 amounted to a whopping $123,265,445, while GOA ended 2013 with $1,636,497, which is a paltry 1.33% of the NRA. They don’t have the kind of name recognition that the NRA has with the general public. So what exactly makes them, in Reid’s words, “worse than bad?”

Don’t let the GOA’s disadvantages fool you, because they’re not new to the world of pro-gun activism. They’ve been around since 1975, and have only been growing in influence since then. Larry Pratt, the executive director emeritus, once said in reference to the NRA that “we don’t think they’ve gone far enough.” Back in 2013 some congressmen fretted over and news outlets began covering GOA for real in response to their obstruction of talks on a bipartisan bill to expand background checks. According to GOA’s website, their chief interests are repealing the Gun Free School Zones Act, and, well, pretty much everything. They have a huge list of alerts, with new ones posted almost daily, and encourage members to be active in preventing any gun control reform and repealing some existing legislation. They’ve even had a surprising amount of success, considering they’re working with far fewer resources than the NRA. Their opposition to any compromise or reform is to be expected, to some degree, because that’s what interest groups are supposed to do. They’re merely doing their job, and appealing to a more radical group than the NRA is, which is strengthening their ranks. A New York Times piece once argued that “many lawmakers and gun safety advocates believe Gun Owners of America’s rising profile and heavy membership drive has led the N.R.A. to take a more aggressive stance against measures it once supported, like an expansion of background checks to include private gun sales.” Since that 2013 evaluation, GOA’s annual revenue and membership has been continually increasing, and it has been gaining more and more media attention. At some point in the near future, it’s going to be on par with the NRA in terms of influence. The problem isn’t that the members are unwavering defenders of their beliefs, which is commendable, but that the organization itself presents a dangerous narrative full of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia.

Whether you are pro-gun or pro-gun control, the rise of GOA should scare you. If you’re pro-gun control, the reason is quite obvious. They’re an even more radical group than the NRA who is fighting tooth and nail to kill any new gun control legislation, and it’s working. But even pro-gun supporters should be worried. Steering clear of the issue of guns entirely, GOA’s website has a decidedly misogynistic tone. In the site’s Women’s Voice section, not only are some of the articles authored (ironically) by men, but even some by women bear titles like “Women, Stop Watching Oprah and Learn to Love Guns” or “Lessons In Reality: Bitches With Guns.” Misogyny, no matter the source, is not the kind of message any respectable organization wants to be associated with. Yet GOA seems to have no problem advertising articles that portray women as mindless and helpless. Lines such as “feeble Oprah sermon[s] keeping women stupid,” “women don’t make sense,” and describing all women as unaware blabbermouths who are all terrified of big guns and need to be shown pretty guns to get them interested all got past GOA’s editors, and that’s only in a single article.

Worse, GOA peddles false information that puts women’s lives at risk. They argue that women should fight back (presumably with a gun) in risky situations. The story they cite is of women who were raped and stabbed. Although experts generally agree that “a woman should resist, fighting back with every imaginable resource” in the case of attempted rape, they imply this is the correct response whenever a woman is threatened with violence (even situations that do not involve rape). That is a dangerous message to share, because other crimes warrant a different response than rape. Every expert warns that there’s no single right way to respond when you’re in danger, but in most instances, you shouldn’t fight back. During a mugging, you’re more likely to get out alive if you don’t fight. In fact, in the majority of crimes, you’re better off not resisting, and “should view any invitation to violence as an opportunity to die – or be sent to prison for killing another human being.” That is not to say that you should lie down and give up whenever you are threatened, because certainly every situation varies, but in many cases, you would be more likely to survive if you did not try to fend off the criminal. If it’s your wallet or your life, you’d be better served choosing your life.

Sexism isn’t the only issue GOA’s website raises. Let’s not forget the time that GOA equated being pro-gun control with being complicit in the murder of Jewish Americans. One even suggests that being Jewish and pro-gun control is “a sin.” They also argued that the Orlando attack was not an attack on the gay community, which is entirely disrespectful to the LGBT+ community and ignores the evidence that has come out thus far. There’s also an article that mocks a reporter for finding a gun heavy and difficult to operate, calling him “sissified,” “pantywaist,” and mocking him for not being a “real man,” perpetuating an unhealthy, toxic ideal of masculinity. Their implied transphobic attitude is another worrisome alienation of the LGBT+ community. They even term the flood Syrian refugees an “Islamic invasion.” It is not that GOA publishes sexist, racist, homophobic, and transphobic articles on occasion, which would be problematic enough. The issue is that they do it incredibly often, to the point that all of these articles were in just the first couple of pages of their op-eds section. It doesn’t take more than thirty seconds’ worth of digging to stumble across a horrific amount of bigotry. It doesn’t appear that GOA has ever attempted to distance itself from these ideas, either.

GOA’s growing influence should scare every American who supports equal rights for all. Regardless of your opinions on gun control, the rhetoric coming from the Guns Owners of America puts everyone in danger. So, if you oppose GOA, what exactly are you supposed to do? If you’re pro-gun control, you pester your congressman exactly like GOA has done. Everything they’ve succeeded at doing has been writing and calling congressmen, and the only way to stop them is to be louder. If you’re pro-gun, that’s a bit trickier. There are plenty of organizations out there that don’t espouse prejudiced views, so to start with, join those and not GOA. You can also write and call GOA to let them know you’re a gun lover, but you can’t support an organization that’s going to degrade your fellow human beings. We’ve done enough arguing and worrying over guns. That’s an argument that probably won’t be settled for a very long time. Instead, let’s do something that every decent American can agree on.

Follow Uloop

Apply to Write for Uloop News

Join the Uloop News Team

Discuss This Article

Get Top Stories Delivered Weekly

Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format