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Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist Hardcover – October 1, 2007
| Richard Feldman (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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Ricochet
Confessions Of A Gun Lobbyist
""Ricochet tells the truth. With each page I can hear the echo of footsteps down the Rayburn Building's marbled halls as Feldman tells the intimate story few know and even fewer survive.""
Jack Brooks (D-Tex.), former Chairman, U.S. House Judiciary Committee
""Ricochet casts an eye-opening spotlight on the shadowy world of behind-the-scenes gun politics. Is it accurate? Absolutely! I was there.""
John Aquilino, former Director, NRA Public Education
""Ricochet is right on target. Feldman's behind-the-scenes memoir vividly describes America's firearms debate and struggle to win in extraordinary detail. I thoroughly enjoyed it.""
John W. Magaw, former Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherJohn Wiley & Sons
- Publication dateOctober 1, 2007
- Dimensions6.5 x 1 x 9.4 inches
- ISBN-100471679283
- ISBN-13978-0471679288
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Ricochet casts an eye-opening spotlight on the shadowy world of behind-the-scenes gun politics. Is it accurate? Absolutely! I was there."--John Aquilino, former Director, NRA Public Education
"Ricochet tells the truth. With each page I can hear the echo of footsteps down the Rayburn Building's marbled halls as Feldman tells the intimate story few know and even fewer survive."--Jack Brooks (D-Tex.), former Chairman, U.S. House Judiciary Committee
From the Inside Flap
It's no secret that the National Rifle Association is probably the most powerful lobbying group in America, noted for its no-nonsense tactics and fervent membership. Beyond that, virtually everything about the NRA's political agenda, its financial structure, and how it spends the vast amounts of money it collects from contributors has been kept a tightly guarded secret, not only from the public but from NRA members as welluntil now.
In Ricochet, a onetime NRA lobbyist and avid Second Amendment defender unmasks the inner workings, influence, and goals of this highly secretive political behemoth. From internecine warfare, media manipulation, and executive bankrolling to gun control bills and school massacres, Richard Feldman, former NRA regional political director and lobbyist for the firearm industry, exposes the NRA as a cynical, mercenary political cult obsessed with wielding power while exploiting members' fear in order to maximize contributions.
Among the many dirty little secrets that Feldman exposes are the phenomenal salaries received by CEO Wayne LaPierre and other high-ranking NRA officials. These generous remunerations, which place NRA executives among the highest-paid officials of any tax-exempt organization, are funded by biannual "crisis du jour" fund-raising drives, in which members are exhorted to donate additional funds to fend off the latest alleged threat to their Second Amendment rights.
Looking back over his long association with the NRA, Feldman reveals the inside stories behind the organization's responses to the Bernie Goetz subway shootings, the Assault Weapons Ban, gun control legislation, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Long Island Railroad shootings, and Feldman's own voluntary gun-lock agreement. He explains how the NRA's inflexible positions have placed the nation's most prominent representative of law-abiding gun owners in increasing opposition to law enforcement, gun makers, and moderate Republicans. The upshot is that the NRA is not an effective advocate for its members' interests. Obsessed with fund-raising, scare-mongering, and wielding political power, NRA leadership undermines commonsense solutions that would protect gun-owners' rights while reducing accidental shootings and gun violence.
Ricochet is not for gun control advocates: It is a wake-up call for gun owners who cherish their Second Amendment rights. The message is that the NRA has betrayed your trust, misused your hard-earned donations, and strengthened the hand of those who would take your guns away. Read this hard-hitting exposé to discover how this has happened and what you can do about it.
From the Back Cover
Ricochet
Confessions Of A Gun Lobbyist
"Ricochet tells the truth. With each page I can hear the echo of footsteps down the Rayburn Building's marbled halls as Feldman tells the intimate story few know and even fewer survive."
--Jack Brooks (D-Tex.), former Chairman, U.S. House Judiciary Committee
"Ricochet casts an eye-opening spotlight on the shadowy world of behind-the-scenes gun politics. Is it accurate?Absolutely! I was there."
--John Aquilino, former Director, NRA Public Education
"Ricochet is right on target. Feldman's behind-the-scenes memoir vividly describes America's firearms debate and struggle to win in extraordinary detail. I thoroughly enjoyed it."
--John W. Magaw, former Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
About the Author
Richard Feldman was a regional political director for the National Rifle Association during its rise to power in the 1980s. In the 1990s he was chief lobbyist and spokesman for the firearm industry's national trade association. The founder of MLS Communications, a public relations and political consulting business, Mr. Feldman is also an attorney specializing in public affairs.
Product details
- Publisher : John Wiley & Sons; 1st edition (October 1, 2007)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0471679283
- ISBN-13 : 978-0471679288
- Item Weight : 1.12 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.5 x 1 x 9.4 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,453,879 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,808 in General Elections & Political Process
- #2,270 in Human Rights (Books)
- #6,764 in Political Leader Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
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Much of what Richard says in this book is dead on. The scene he describes in the opening pages of walking through an NRA gathering as a pariah was all too familiar. Dad and the rest of our family experienced exactly the same cold shoulder.
This is an important book to have in your library if you are interested in the inside details of the gun rights war. It's not a bad read, and, with internal pressures building within the NRA headquarters, can give some insight into the next internal fight when it breaks out.
--
Chris Knox
Editor of Neal Knox - The Gun Rights War
Richard Feldman, former lobbyist for NRA and various firearms industry groups in the 1980's and 1990's, has created a fair stir with his book Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist. The book has the appearance of a turncoat insider dishing up hot gossip from the bowels of the gun lobby. But despite its cover - and despite some angry reviews - Feldman has not joined the anti-gun side.
He has staked out a pro-gun, but anti-NRA position.
Feldman's thesis is that the National Rifle Association's High Command has cultivated "a cynical, mercenary political cult" that it is "obsessed with wielding power while relentlessly squeezing contributions from its members." Those intemperate words appear on the second page. He expands on the theme over the next couple of hundred pages finally arriving at the conclusion that NRA has been co-opted by, and is run for the benefit of, its hired guns. He singles out in particular the advertising firm Ackerman McQueen.
My father, Neal Knox said much the same thing some twenty years ago. Wanting to keep internal problems internal, Knox worked from the inside. In retrospect, maybe he should have gone public. For those interested enough to dig into it, I've collected a generous helping of Dad's writing into a single volume, Neal Knox - The Gun Rights War
The bile flows generously from Feldman's pen, but inconsistently. He attacks NRA with relish for cynically milking its membership and playing on fears of politicians who want to take away their guns. Those of us who can read find those fears quite justified, yet we are also familiar with the sensation of being milked. Then, in virtually the next breath, Feldman directs a generous stream of invective toward the "fanatics," among whom he numbers former ILA head Tanya Metaksa and, of course, Neal Knox.
Feldman's inconsistencies affect his strategic view. He criticizes NRA for standing firm against the Clinton gun ban and fanning members' perfectly reasonable fears that the ban would spread to all semi-automatics. But then he reports the success of that hard-line position. He has to. It's history.
The tactical loss of the Clinton ban led directly to the strategic victory of the 1994 Congressional landslide that swept the Democrats out of power, even unseating Speaker of the House Tom Foley. Ten years later, the other shoe dropped. The ban expired as Congress, loath to face another up-or-down gun vote, quietly looked the other way.
As Executive Director of ILA, Tanya Metaksa was under tremendous pressure to help write the Clinton ban "in order to keep worse from being rammed down our throats." That's what happened with both the 1934 National Firearms Act, and the 1968 Gun Control Act. Had Metaksa succumbed to that pressure, we would likely still have "thumbhole" stocks on our AR-15 rifles - if we had AR-15's at all - and there would have been no chance of the ban ever expiring.
Feldman apparently wants to take a "moderate" position in the gun debate. He expresses the view that if we could just get everyone together and form relationships, we could create effective programs, such as the National Institutes of Justice-funded "Boston Gun Project" which he credits with reducing gang violence in Boston. That project, with its east coast think tank funding and initial emphasis on the "supply side," stirred less than enthusiastic reactions at NRA. Significantly, a major component of the Project's success was the aggressive prosecution and jailing of "Armed Career Criminals," a policy that "hard-liners" like Neal Knox advocated for many years. But Feldman suggests that programs like the Boston Project don't interest NRA because they don't stoke the fund-raising engines.
Although there's much to dislike about Feldman's book - the personal sniping detracts - it is well worth a read. He is definitely onto something when he describes how "Ack-Mac" burrowed into NRA headquarters, and got fat triple-dipping on retainer fees, mailing contracts, and billed creative work.
Some thirty years ago, following the tumultuous 1977 NRA meetings in Cincinnati where the members took control of the organization, Harlon Carter told his protege Neal Knox, "Revolution begets revolution. The NRA runs on a ten-year cycle." He then ran off a litany of internal fights, revolutions and counter-revolutions that had occurred with surprising regularity in years ending in seven or eight.
That cycle continued from 1977 when the members took control of the organization to 1987 when the Board of Directors successfully took back the power to hire the EVP, the last of the Cincinnati reforms. In 1997 staff and vendors mutinied against a Board-directed management audit that investigated how contracts were assigned. That revolution resulted in Neal Knox being bumped on a razor thin-vote, from the First Vice-President chair and the path to the presidency of the Association by Board new-comer Charlton Heston. Heston just happened to be represented by Mercury Group, a fully owned subsidiary of Ackerman McQueen.
Now with Heston's stabilizing influence gone, Feldman's book making waves, and the term "fiduciary responsibility" in vogue, it's just possible that an independent-minded Board coalition might stage another revolution and put the NRA's advertising and public relations accounts out for bid. When that happens there's going to be one heck of a fight.
NRA staffs at the local and state level are hard working advocates for individual rights. Too many volunteers and some of the State affiliates don't quite get the big picture and resort to partisan bias to guide their mission but the NRA "pros" that lobby the state legislatures know results come from a bipartisan approach and efforts are guided by results in the real world of local politics. The old part of the Association still does excellent work in training and certifying matches. They do a good job on firearm safety, but they could do more.
It's obvious that long-range success protecting our rights cannot rely on a one-party strategy. The fight for individual rights must be made in both major political parties. But that strategy at the national level can't be made visible because the fight is the thing that raises money. Trust Richard Feldman on this point.
Besides, I'm from Vegas and I can tell you that fight promotion is all about binging in the revenue. A fight can't just be a good contest, there must be personalities involved and it needs a good guy vs. bad guy angle to bring in the bets. Promotion is not about who wins and who loses, it's about the money. Who cares about who wins the fight - how did the cable buy go? How much was bet at the sports book?
I was once confused by NRA-ILA daily emails that dished out needless partisan bashing and asked a Federal Lobbyist how he can approach Democrats on a vote when they have trashed them or their colleges with email blast and links to obvious right-wing blogs and bulletin boards. He smiled and said that they know it is just part of the game and the NRA will be there for them if they vote right. So the trash talk is just part of the game, the promotion, keeping the fight in the fundraising. The NRA will always, always fight for you. Just don't expect them to win for you.
Feldman's book is a must read for anyone who follows the gun control issue. Certainly there will be disagreements with his account of things. That's inevitable. His recollection on passing the important Gun Liability bill left out an important piece of the process. There was one Senator who could have killed it and that one Senator allowed it to pass by releasing Democrats to vote their conscious and their constituency. That was Senator Harry Reid who had been a sponsor of the earliest drafts of the legislation. He and many other Democrats supported the effort and it was Senator Robert Byrd, he who so often drives Republicans to distraction, that became the 60th co-sponsor making the legislation filibuster-proof and shutting down the liberals who had threatened that maneuver.
Kennedy, Kerry, Schumer, and Boxer have not put any serious gun control legislation in play since Reid became Majority Leader. But you saw them on your last NRA fundraising letter and you may see them on the next one.
Bill Richardson should clearly be the NRA's top pick among Democrats and top over many front-running Republicans. But the NRA brass have fingers crossed that it will be Hillary or Obama. Either one will be a top money raiser and top recruiter for the NRA. The fund raising letters are already in draft. Mailing dates are set. Through 2016. With just a little Democratic Party luck it's going to be eight great years for NRA coffers.
The author clearly has a personal ax to grind. But most former insiders who become whistle blowers do. There likely is another side to the chronology of events directly involving the author. However, his overall history holds up well.







