I can understand your wish for general aviation to have the clout enjoyed by the National Rifle Association, but in your article in the Jan. 28, 2005, issue of GAN, you promoted that organization with all of its falsehoods more than doing a favor for your paper and the aviation community. You even printed the NRA lie that it is devoted to upholding the Consitution and the Second Amendment. Acutally, it is dedicated to, in the words of the late Chief Justice Burger, perpetuating a fraud on the meaning of the Second Amendment.
The leaders of that organization have fought to keep military type assault weapons available to anyone entering a gun store, they fought the Brady bill, which asked only that gun purchasers be checked for felony convictions. They have worked with a knee-jerk reaction to every common sense attempt to safeguard the public where guns are concerned.
Only Charles Spence wrote a sensible and adult article about our need to coordinate within the industry without once mentioning the NRA (Activism: Where we went wrong and how to correct it). The rest of you writing in this issue on the subject seemed to have succumbled to that body’s propoganda.
I received my private certificate in June of 1946, and I flew civilian and military for the next 50 years. I am still devoted to aviation, especially general aviation, and I for one resent your bonding us with the NRA in any way.
Lohren Applegate
Phoenix