NRA Leadership is out of touch...

I have always thought the membership of the NRA are respectible, honest, rational people. They make up a sizeable sample of the sporting outdoors-persons of our nation. At the same time, I think in general, the leadership of the NRA are radicals who are completely out of touch with not only mainstream America, but their own membership.

And here is evidence of that:
NRA urges members to boycott oil giant
ConocoPhillips opposes Okla. law allowing guns on company property

NRA Launches Boycott of ConocoPhillips

NRA, Oil Company Clash Over Guns

NRA calls for boycott against ConocoPhillips

Companies have the right to essentially ban free speech...there is no free speech in the workplace. That is reasoanble at times in order to promote efficiency, etc. in the workspace. In a similar manner, companies have always been allowed to prohibit carrying guns onto their property. This is in order to promote a safer work environment.

In Oklahoma, Wyerhaeuser, Inc. recently laid off a group of workers because they were carrying guns to work against Company policy. Unfortunately, for the company which was seeking to provide a safer workplace for its employees, the NRA got on the march - and went straight to the Oklahoma Legislature and actually passed a bill to prevent terminations for employees who bring guns to work. Unbelieveable.

ConocoPhillips has sinced filed a federal lawsuit to block such a measure - because they want to protect their employees in their workplaces. Heaven forbid a company try to protect its employees - they will suffer the wrath of the NRA:

The National Rifle Association, one of the most powerful conservative U.S. political organizations, on Monday asked its 4 million members to boycott leading U.S. refiner ConocoPhillips in retaliation for a ban on firearms on company property.

Conoco is among several companies challenging an Oklahoma law in federal court that allows workers to keep guns in their locked cars on company property.

The law was passed after Weyerhaeuser Corp. fired 12 employees in 2002 at a plant near Idabell for violating a policy forbidding firearms on company property.

"If you are a corporation that is anti-gun, anti-gun owner or anti-Second Amendment, we will spare no effort or expense to work against you to protect the rights of your law-abiding employees," said Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president, in a news release.
....
"ConocoPhillips supports the Second Amendment and respects the rights of law abiding citizens to own guns," the company said in the statement. "We are simply trying to provide a safe and secure working environment for our employees by keeping guns out of our facilities, including our company parking lots."
....
A judge has blocked enforcement of the Oklahoma law pending resolution of the federal lawsuit.

According to a study ... there were 164 workplace shootings in the United States between 1994 and 2003, in which 290 people were killed and 161 were wounded.

The leadership of the NRA essentially provokes a more aggressive opposition because of their outlandish and radical positions. I think that if the NRA would concentrate on its essential - and by far most important - functions of grassroots support of hunting and hunting education, there would be little to no opposition to it. But, unfortunately, the leadership of the NRA chooses to take the "give-them-an-inch-they-will-take-a-mile" rhetoric, which generates an opposition - because it's simply unworkable. Boycotting American companies which are making an effort to protect their employees and workplaces is simply an example of that.