Discussion: NRA Gave More Than $7 Million In Grants To Hundreds Of Schools

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Well, you do have those pesky grizzly bears everywhere…

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Oh my, in some schools they can only afford Junior ROTC programs if the NRA gives them grants.

What a shame if a school closes down it JROTC program in order not to be affiliated with the NRA and its blood money.

Or perhaps doing so could be considered a win-win for the school, and its students.

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“Whatever I think of the NRA, they’re providing legitimate educational services,”

“The safety that we’re teaching, the good citizenship that we’re teaching here, those are the things you don’t hear about,”

We might hear more about the good things if the NRA would return to its roots and advocate for education and safety rather than pimping for the gun manufacturers and their goal of an AR-15 in every house.

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Good news and props the Parkland Students and the movement they have stirred.

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“The National Rifle Association has given more than $7 million in grants to hundreds of U.S. schools in recent years…”

How much is that in rubles?

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 but few have shown any indication that they’ll follow the lead
   of businesses that are cutting ties with the group

Yeah ? ? …

Just wait till the kids have their say …

It’s just begun ! –

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I missed the sign-up for ’ Russian as a second language ’ course …

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I took one semester of Russian as an undergrad and didn’t get past Я иду на почту. Dropped it the next semester.

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So they’re mostly giving the grants in states where legislatures are predisposed to do nice things for them. Synergy.

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NRA has to do this kind of thing - education & social welfare - to keep up their non-profit status.

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Right. But in fact they’re using the grants as political sweeteners as well.

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That is a big problem with all of our ‘charity’ system (in lieu of elected & funded government)! Puts priorities & policies in the hands of the rich instead to the voters.

Coke didn’t give all that money to schools for nothin’. Walmart family gives big to schools in a way targeted to destroy actual public schools in favor of charters.

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Not just the big players. A few years back I was on the playground committee for my kids’ elementary school, and we were looking at replacing a bunch of broken-down and not-quite-appropriate equipment. Turned out there was a foundation offering grants to schools for new playground stuff. But only if you went through a community consultation process (pretty good idea) and oh, yeah, only if you bought a minimum amount of new playground equipment from one of the manufacturers who just happened to be the group that set up the foundation.

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“Whatever I think of the NRA, they’re providing bribes,” said Billy Townsend, a school board member in Florida’s Polk County district, whose JROTC programs received $33,000, primarily to buy air rifles. “If the NRA wanted to provide bribes for our ROTC folks in the future, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. Everybody takes bribes.”

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Do the schools , when accepting the grant , have to sign paperwork which stipulates what the money is to be used for ? If no signature is needed , then the schools should be able to use the money for their requirements .

I can’t speak for @paulw 's case , of course. But it is normal to put stipulations on grant money.

Annual reports from the pro-gun group say its grant program was started in 1992 and raises money through local Friends of NRA chapters. It says half the proceeds from local fundraisers go to local grants and half goes to the national organization. Tax records show roughly $19 million in grants going to the group’s Virginia headquarters in 2015 and in 2016.

So the NRA sucks funds out of the communities and gets credit for what it leaves behind?

Or is it that the half going to the national NRA ends up back in communities, but NRA controls which communities and programs get the funds?

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Is this the NRA trying to buy respectability? Seems like “blood money” to me.

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Yes. I don’t think orgs like the NRA should be allowed to conceal who their donors are. Transparency.

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