Got to love the NRA.

[Mtn. Medic]

Gun-control groups fear top activist was NRA spy - Yahoo! News

[NSP]

Miller said. "In the battle of ideas with the gun lobby, we're at a constant disadvantage because we're honest."


[kneejerk] What the! [/kneejerk]

[Bombard]

Good for NRA.

You know, if we had several thousand people join Brady and stuff their board, they could vote the organization inactive.

[Old Fart]

It can work. Back during the Proposition 15 campaign, there were quite a few people who were card carrying (and in some cases gun carrying) members of the NRA who attended the NCBH meetings.

I of course only heard of this from a friend of a friends next door neighbor...

[NikNak]

I used to send HCI(Handgun Control Inc) a check for $1.50 each year. That kept me on all of their mailing lists. I would get lots of requests for donations in Stamped Self-Addressed envelopes. I used those to send copies of NRA magazine pages, Cheaper than Dirt and Midway USA catalogue pages. I sent them from various locations in my travels so they would never be able to tell the zipcode they came from. I also did it with the Brady group after the name changed. My $1.50 check was always cashed (costs them $s to do it) and I am sure they had to pay at least $20.00 a year for the prepaid envelopes I sent back. If 100,000 NRA members would have done it, we could have caused some serious financial damage to them.

They used to have a 1-800 number and I had friends that would dial the number from any public pay phone and judt let it hang. They quit the 800 number after about 6 months.

I think they barcode the SSA envelopes now, but it was fun while it lasted..... about 4 year's worth.

My only regret was that I was "counted" by them as a supporter.

[Old Fart]

Always makes me wonder how many of the supporters of "our" side and "their" side are actually doing this.

[sealbeach]

Originally Posted by NikNak

I used to send HCI(Handgun Control Inc) a check for $1.50 each year. That kept me on all of their mailing lists. I would get lots of requests for donations in Stamped Self-Addressed envelopes. I used those to send copies of NRA magazine pages, Cheaper than Dirt and Midway USA catalogue pages. I sent them from various locations in my travels so they would never be able to tell the zipcode they came from. I also did it with the Brady group after the name changed. My $1.50 check was always cashed (costs them $s to do it) and I am sure they had to pay at least $20.00 a year for the prepaid envelopes I sent back. If 100,000 NRA members would have done it, we could have caused some serious financial damage to them.

They used to have a 1-800 number and I had friends that would dial the number from any public pay phone and judt let it hang. They quit the 800 number after about 6 months.

I think they barcode the SSA envelopes now, but it was fun while it lasted..... about 4 year's worth.

My only regret was that I was "counted" by them as a supporter.

FLMAO!!! Great strategy! Legal and fun at the same time... I could send out literally hundreds of lbs of gun catalogs and gun magazines, priceless!!!

[Greg-Dawg®]

Gun-control groups fear top activist was NRA spy By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press Writer
Wed Aug 6, 7:42 AM ET

PHILADELPHIA - A gun-control activist who championed the cause for more than a decade and served on the boards of two anti-violence groups is suspected of working as a paid spy for the National Rifle Association, and now those organizations are expelling her and sweeping their offices for bugs.

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The suggestion that Mary Lou McFate was a double agent is contained in a deposition filed as part of a contract dispute involving a security firm. The muckraking magazine Mother Jones, in a story last week, was the first to report on McFate's alleged dual identity.

The NRA refused to comment to the magazine and did not respond to calls Tuesday from The Associated Press. Nor did McFate.

*The 62-year-old former flight attendant and sex counselor from Sarasota, Fla., is not new to the world of informants.

She infiltrated an animal-rights group in the late 1980s at the request of U.S. Surgical, and befriended an activist who was later convicted in a pipe bomb attack against the medical-supply business, U.S. Surgical acknowledged in news reports at the time. U.S. Surgical had come under fire for using dogs for research and training.

McFate resurfaced in Pennsylvania and has since spent years as an unpaid board member of CeaseFirePA and an organization called States United to Prevent Gun Violence. She also twice pushed unsuccessfully to join the board of the nation's largest gun-control group, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

"It raises some real concerns with the tactics of the NRA. If they've got one person, maybe they have more. If they've done this dirty trick, what else have they done?" said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, which planned to search its offices for listening devices and computer spyware.

The Brady Campaign and other groups said they are also researching whether McFate's alleged spying constituted a crime.

"Under some circumstances, it could be trespass," said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former prosecutor. But "if they're open meetings, it may be underhanded and sneaky; it may not be illegal."

At States United, McFate served as federal legislation director, meeting with members of Congress on Capitol Hill and writing letters. Over the years, she also stuffed envelopes, attended rallies and took part in conference calls and strategy sessions.

In retrospect, Helmke said, he now realizes McFate stopped by the Washington office for meetings and conference calls that could have been handled by phone, and perhaps pushed too hard to join the board or lobby Congress.

But as for any secrets she might have been privy to, the gun-control groups said they have little to hide, since they put their message and information about their budgets on the Web.

The allegations against McFate stem from a lawsuit brought against officials with Beckett Brown International, a now-defunct security firm based in Maryland. A former beer distributor who bankrolled the firm accused them of defrauding him.

Boxes of documents filed in the dispute reveal that McFate worked as a subcontractor for Beckett Brown and that the firm's clients included the NRA. And they show that McFate billed the firm for unspecified intelligence-gathering services, submitting among other things a request for a $4,500-a-month retainer in 1999.

The documents also reveal that McFate — that is her maiden name; her married name is Mary Lou Sapone — tried to get daughter-in-law Montgomery Sapone hired by Beckett Brown. Montgomery Sapone worked as an intern at Brady Campaign headquarters in 2003, the gun-control group said.

John Dodd III, the Maryland beer distributor who bankrolled Beckett Brown, told the AP that he did not condone the infiltration of activist groups.

Bryan Miller, executive director of Ceasefire NJ, said he feels betrayed by McFate. Miller's brother, an FBI agent, was shot to death in 1994.

"To have somebody that I consider a friend, have been with dozens of times, shared meals with, treated as a friend, to have her be an employee, a subcontracted spy for the NRA, is just mind-boggling. It's so venal," Miller said. "In the battle of ideas with the gun lobby, we're at a constant disadvantage because we're honest."

Timothy Ward, a former Beckett Brown principal who said in a sworn statement that McFate worked for the firm, declined comment Tuesday through a person who answered the phone at his new company, Chesapeake Strategies Group. The NRA now uses that firm for intelligence-gathering, another Chesapeake official said in a deposition.

The CeaseFirePA leadership plans a vote Friday on whether to expel McFate, a board member for seven years.

"I feel flattered that the NRA would feel that they would have to infiltrate Ceasefire of PA. Obviously, they're hearing our footsteps," said Phil Goldsmith, the group's president. "Frankly, I think it's a waste of their money. We don't deal in state secrets."

*I added the banana.

[NSP]

I think it's funny how they say they have nothing to hide, but are sweeping their office for bugs.

[maldos]

Originally Posted by NikNak

I used to send HCI(Handgun Control Inc) a check for $1.50 each year. That kept me on all of their mailing lists. I would get lots of requests for donations in Stamped Self-Addressed envelopes. I used those to send copies of NRA magazine pages, Cheaper than Dirt and Midway USA catalogue pages. I sent them from various locations in my travels so they would never be able to tell the zipcode they came from. I also did it with the Brady group after the name changed. My $1.50 check was always cashed (costs them $s to do it) and I am sure they had to pay at least $20.00 a year for the prepaid envelopes I sent back. If 100,000 NRA members would have done it, we could have caused some serious financial damage to them.

They used to have a 1-800 number and I had friends that would dial the number from any public pay phone and judt let it hang. They quit the 800 number after about 6 months.

I think they barcode the SSA envelopes now, but it was fun while it lasted..... about 4 year's worth.

My only regret was that I was "counted" by them as a supporter.

I still do this with all the Credit Card and insurance offers I get. Sometimes sending them other CC companies offers. I try to make the envelopes as fat-as-I-can since they weigh more.

[NSP]

You can actually mail a brick using those envelopes. There is a website floating around out there that tells you how to use the pre-paid envelope to mail all sorts of creative things.