NRA MEMBERSHIP SURGING SINCE FLORIDA SHOOTING

The National Rifle Association’s four flagship magazines added nearly 350,000 subscribers between February and June of this year, reversing more than a year of decline and suggesting a surge in recruits after the February school shooting in Parkland, Fla.

The gun rights group does not share detailed information about its membership numbers, and in the past has been accused of inflating its selfreported membership to give an impression of political clout. As a result, media organizations often use the group’s magazine subscriptions as a proxy for membership.

All NRA members are entitled to a complimentary print or digital subscription to one of four magazines — American Rifleman, American Hunter, America’s First Freedom and Shooting Illustrated.

As part of its outreach to advertisers, the NRA releases subscriber numbers for each of the four magazines on a semiannual basis. Those numbers are independently verified by the Alliance for Audited Media, a thirdparty media consulting firm.

The NRA’s latest AAM statements, which cover January through June, show total magazine subscriptions increasing from 3,746,153 to 4,066,198 over that period. Much of that increase comes from Shooting Illustrated, which was added to the NRA roster in 2016. This year marks the first time the NRA has included it in AAM statements.

Monthly figures going back several years show that subscriptions to the other three magazines peaked in October 2016 and had been steadily declining through 2017.

But the trends show an inflection point in April and May of this year, after which the numbers began to rise again. That period corresponds to an April pledge by the group to sign up 100,000 new members in 100 days.