Feldman is trying to organize a politically moderate gun owners’ association as an alternative to the NRA. So far, he has not had much luck with that project.
Paul M. Barrett
Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun page 267.
[Richard Feldman,Esq. doesn’t have anything on his web site about trying to do this but Barrett knows him personally and perhaps has inside knowledge that I am not privy to. That aside, this would appear to be the worst error I found in the book. I have a lot of good things to say about the book and will do so in another post. I really liked the book so don’t let my disagreement with Barrett about the quote above adversely color your thoughts about the book. That would be very unfair.
The error in the quote above is as follows: I know many people who have left the NRA and having nothing good to say about the organization. All of them left because the NRA was too “moderate”. They felt the NRA compromised when they shouldn’t have. The anti-gun groups try to paint the NRA as extremist but that is certainly not the viewpoint from the majority of gun owners that I know. That Feldman hasn’t “had much luck with that project” would indicate to me that there may be a problem with his vision. Admittedly the “market” for political gun organizations is a bit crowded and it is always difficult to break into a new market even if you do have a lot of money and/or an exceptional product. My impression is that Feldman has neither. The “product” Feldman is selling, if he is in fact trying to do this, is not going to find a very large market. The people that yearn for a more “moderate” NRA either advocate against guns and gun owners or don’t care about the issue. Neither of which would join such an organization.
Barrett has done a very good job with this book. He has done a lot of research and he accurately reports on many subtle points that I would not have expected him to have found. I’m a little surprised he didn’t realize the statement above does not match the reality as I know it. Perhaps he does recognize it as an error on Feldman’s part but he didn’t comment on it beyond the “not had much luck” quip.
I found similar things in the book on other topics. He has all the facts right and then fails to draw the obvious conclusion or sometimes a jarringly different conclusion from what seems obvious to me. But these are mostly little things. I really liked the book and will report about it at length very soon.—Joe]