The NRA is perhaps the most controversial latent interest group in the country. With millions of members, the NRA is prone to free riding. An individual gun rights advocate has little incentive to pay dues because their failure to contribute will barely affect the NRA’s ability to lobby. Furthermore, an individual will have their gun rights protected regardless if they contribute. To overcome this tendency to free ride, the NRA provides a myriad of selective benefits to dues-paying members. On their website they tout free magazines, free hats, and travel benefits. The NRA also fits Olson’s byproduct theory. Founded in 1871, the group focused on marksmanship classes before entering lobbying in 1975.Following the Parkland shooting in 2018, opponents of the NRA sought reduce its influence and push for more stringent gun control legislation. Some even targeted the NRA’s selective benefits. ThinkProgress organized a list of companies that partner with NRA in the hopes of pressuring the corporations to withdraw the discounts they provide to members. According to this list, NRA members receive a wide variety of discounts from 26 companies in total. For instance, NRA members get shipping discounts from FedEx and insurance discounts from Metlife. In response to this list, FedEx announced its intentions to stay with the program while Metlife announced they will withdraw their partnership.If Olson is correct about latent interest groups, then ThinkProgress’s public pressure will prove to be an effective tactic to reduce the NRA’s ability to organize. If a latent group loses a significant amount of its selective benefits, its members will have less of an incentive to behave in a group-oriented manner. (Olson 51). Despite the problems facing the NRA from the loss of corporate sponsors, there are still reasons to suspect members will stay around. There are significant ideological motivations that drive people to join the NRA whether or not they receive selective benefits. Additionally, there is likely a lot of social pressure within gun enthusiast circles to join the NRA. Both of these make it easier for the NRA to overcome the problem free riding.
2 comments:
Reading your post made me start thinking about Guns in general and I got into a debate with one of my roommates about the reason behind gun ownership. I realized that the argument on whether or not to own a gun is a perfect example of the prisoner's dilemma. By owning a gun you increase your own safety in the chance that you need to defend yourself from someone else who also has a gun. The dominant strategy is then to have a gun so as you are not having to defend yourself from someone who has a gun when you do not. Because there is such an ease of access to guns in our country it is assumed that the other person may have a gun and further incentivizes an individual to get one themselves. I found an article that does a good job of further explaining this concept https://erik-engheim.medium.com/game-theory-and-gun-violence-abfc1c35c27a
After reading Olson and thinking more about the NRA, I wanted to learn about what exactly these “selective benefits” that they (the NRA) provided. Beyond what’s on the top of their membership page, the NRA’s reach is quite far. One of my roommates is in the Virginia Rifle and Pistol Club (VRPC), casually known as the Shotgun Team at UVa. Most weekends, they go shooting at courses around Charlottesville. Who pays for their ammunition? You betcha, the NRA. Additionally, the NRA offers numerous scholarships to students, including the Collegiate Shooting Scholarship Program, which was established “to support America’s youth in furthering their higher education” (as per the NRA’s website). There is even an all-expenses paid annual Youth Education Summit in Washington, D.C.
All this to say, the NRA begins to provide selective benefits not only once you are a dues-paying member, but also beforehand! There is a robust recruitment process, both through recruitment events/correspondences and through preemptive selective benefits, which ultimately works to counter the free rider problem before it even happens. Instead of the promise of “if you join, you’ll get XYZ,” the NRA has crafted another tool to incentivize future membership among students: “look at what we’ve provided you…you should join.” Even if these preemptive selective benefits do not translate to future membership, my friend on VRPC told me that the free ammunition makes it easier for students to become exposed to shooting, helping to maintain the popularity of casual use and ownership (which is ultimately beneficial to the NRA). He said, “students sign up because it sounds new and fun, and they don’t have to pay for ammo; it’s a win-win, and creates positive exposure for gun usage.”
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