Talk:Gun Owners of America

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

United States Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Politics: Gun politics

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by Gun politics task force.

Firearms Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Firearms, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of firearms on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.FirearmsWikipedia:WikiProject FirearmsTemplate:WikiProject FirearmsFirearms articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Organizations

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Organizations, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Organizations on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.OrganizationsWikipedia:WikiProject OrganizationsTemplate:WikiProject Organizationsorganization articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

GOA divered from the NRA

How about some of the ways GOA has diverged from the NRA? Where do they disagree? --BDD (talk) 03:19, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Advertising

I was wondering how I might go about buying advertising space on wikipedia in much the same way that the Gun Owners of America seem to have done here. Nino137.111.47.29 (talk) 02:14, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You start an organization that 3 million people believe in enough to join and pay dues to. Your organization should uphold at least one of the constitutional amendments that are under siege by our current leftist administration. Simple. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.41.173.15 (talk) 23:46, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I meant 3 hundred thousand members, not 3 million. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.41.173.15 (talk) 23:49, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So the page reflects a political agenda advanced by 0.001% of the population of the US, rather than presenting facts about the organisation. Interesting. Ninahexan (talk) 06:14, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just because only (?) 300,000 people actually sign up and PAY dues doesn't mean they represent the views of only 300,000 people. How many folks pay money (directly) to Planned Parenthood?? I guess many more people believe in Gun Rights than abortion. GOA should do like PP and just get congress to mandate that everyone in the U.S. is taxed to support them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.36.76.34 (talk) 18:44, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

At the very least, this article ought to be flagged for being a pure puff piece. There is no balance, there is no objectivity here. Neutral tone, anyone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.221.98.4 (talk) 13:56, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Folks, don't just complain. Be bold and edit the article, or tag it as having issues (which I have just done). This article relies on one source: the subject of the article. All other sources cited are either press releases from this organization or stories on friendly websites (e.g. WorldNetDaily) about press releases issued by this organization. The two other sources cited have dead links. This article needs major surgery. Janus303 (talk) 03:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to add some balance, at least with some statistics. For some reason the formatting for the cite isn't coming out right though. Ace-o-aces (talk) 14:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi guys. I will encourage you to explore WP and examine other articles. Also checkout POV and RS. Its appropriate to ref the organization's press releases to cite positions it has officially taken, things it has said, their 'ratings' for people. If the GOA makes certain points in its info campaigns, linking to one of those campaigns is the way to go and is actually encouraged in the policy (WP:V).

=Digiphi (talk) 14:19, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

article critical of GOA

http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/12/gun-activists-take-aim-obamacare —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.248.251.195 (talk) 11:29, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Contested fact

I removed the following text from the article: "In California last year, two children died—they were pitchforked to death by a crazed drug addict—because a resident in the home could not access the household firearms in time. The guns were locked up in deference to California state law." - I would argue this is a contested fact. You might argue that the children died because the social care system let "a crazed drug addict" to be in a situation where they might harm children. You might argue that children would not have been killed if the local law enforcement agencies arrived more quickly on the scene and were able to resolve the situation. You might argue that the term "a crazed drug addict" needs to be clarified and is not appropriate for wikipedia. Overall I think this sentence should withdrawn for two reasons 1. It cannot be proven as a clear case of cause and effect and 2. the terminology is inappropriate for wikipedia. --87.194.211.85 (talk) 13:42, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, but Wikipedia is not courtroom, and not democracy. Please see WP:POV. Contested facts are fine, and are encouraged per policy. If you can find a source that describes them as contested or describes an opposing viewpoint then you should add that to the article as well.

-Digiphi (talk) 14:19, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here are two refs talking about the incident, and each describes enough that MOS would prescribe mentioning that the facts are contested. See if you wan work them into the article without misrepresenting the section about the GOAs info campaign. They'll have to be outside it. My advice would be to create a page about Jonathon David Bruce and link to it. See what you can do.

1) NYDailyNews article

2) TYsknews piece

-Digiphi (talk) 14:38, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

File:Gun owners of america.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Gun owners of america.jpg, has been nominated for speedy deletion for the following reason: All Wikipedia files with unknown copyright status

What should I do?

Don't panic; you should have time to contest the deletion (although please review deletion guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page.

If the image is non-free then you may need to provide a fair use rationale
If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale, then it cannot be uploaded or used.
If the image has already been deleted you may want to try Deletion Review

This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 17:06, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Aurora, Colorado shooting

I removed the text regarding Pratt's claim about the Aurora, Colorado shooting. His quote is included in full in the source that was cited, and nowhere did Pratt say that the shooting was done as "part of a plot" as the text here claimed. All Pratt said is that the shooting has been exploited by politicians, which is a very different claim. ROG5728 (talk) 18:54, 27 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Obama's anti-gun stance

The statement that "The [Obama] administration in fact has taken no steps to limit gun ownership" is patently false and it is contradicted by the first citation, which clearly says that the Obama admin created a multiple rifle sales reporting requirement in border states (for which the admin was quickly sued by the NRA). It also mentions that Obama has appointed two vehemently anti-gun Supreme Court justices, Sotomayor and Kagan. I went ahead and removed the statement. ROG5728 (talk) 19:02, 27 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am unaware of any anti-gun rulings by either Justice Sotomayor or Kagan. Could you provide a cite? Paul, in Saudi (talk) 06:24, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  @Paul  - just google it.   they lie when they are up for nomination, like all liberals.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.36.76.34 (talk) 18:39, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

both obama and holder are on videotape admitting they want to ban all guns in America. the audio from these has been played over and over on conservative talk radio. holder talks about wanting to brainwash americans into believing guns are bad iirc. why the national media dont report on them? use your own judgement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.36.76.34 (talk) 18:35, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While the statements you make are true NOW, they were not true when the article was created in 2008. The facts can change over time, jumping up and down (figuratively) and screaming LIBERAL! LIBERAL! like a 1950's era cartoon of a woman standing on a chair screaming mouse! mouse! is not necessary. As a matter of fact we don't need people with this attitude on our side. You just perpetuate the anti-gun nuts view of gun owners as being those "crazy gun owners". --75.17.193.238 (talk) 17:27, 13 May 2013 (UTC) Doc Ock[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 4 external links on Gun Owners of America. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers. —^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 17:18, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Gun Owners of America. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 12:32, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Recent news in 2022

Here's an article from USA Today with some current data, and their responses to incidents like Uvalde. There are lots of stories like this on the internet.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/05/31/gun-control-lobbying-groups-nra/9994447002/
Beyond NRA: Other gun rights groups spend millions in Washington to influence laws
DONOVAN SLACK, CHELSEY COX
USA TODAY
May 5, 2022

"The Second Amendment is about defending yourself from an attacker, be it a criminal, or a tyrannical government," Johnston said. "And so Americans need to have the same weaponry as the military."

He said no legislation would have prevented what happened in Uvalde, arguing that a determined shooter would have found a way to get a weapon, regardless of age limits or background checks or bans.

-- Nbauman (talk) 17:28, 3 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

GOA victories section

Addition for consideration in this section.

"Gun Owners of America, a nonprofit lobbying organization that promotes gun rights, wrote about the elimination of the ban on X, formerly Twitter. "Congressional deal cuts funding to the ATF," the organization said, referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, "and eliminates a 20+ year old gun ban for veterans. It also temporarily reauthorizes the archaic Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988." Newsweek

Cheers. DN (talk) 20:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]