Earlier this week, NRA President Wayne LaPierre penned a column for the November issue of America’s 1st Freedom where he calls out the liberal elites. In the process, however, he accidentally opens up his own organization to criticism.

In his column, LaPierre states:

All while most Americans have lost faith in the institutions we used to be able to count on, except for one—the National Rifle Association of America. Today, more Americans trust the NRA than either national political party, and more than almost all of our political leaders and institutions. And Americans sure don’t trust the news media! But they do trust the NRA. They trust the NRA to tell the truth, to say what we mean, and to stand and fight for what we believe. More than anything, we stand and fight for the right of every law-abiding citizen to exercise his or her Second Amendment-protected freedom—unfettered by government intrusion—to defend and protect themselves, their families and their communities.

The problem is, a lot of gun owners actually have lost faith in the National Rifle Association.

You see, following Las Vegas, the NRA issued a statement like most others with ties to the firearms industry. It wasn’t just unsurprising that the NRA said something, it was expected.

However, what they said wasn’t something most gun owners really wanted to hear. Particularly this part:

Despite the fact that the Obama administration approved the sale of bump fire stocks on at least two occasions, the National Rifle Association is calling on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) to immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law.  The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.

That was most definitely not what many of us wanted to hear.

Now, I’m a political realist. If the NRA were interested in offering up bump stocks in exchange for the SHARE Act that would legalize suppressors and national reciprocity, then I could probably live with it. After all, those are two big wins in exchange for a device that most people had no interest in buying prior to Las Vegas and the left’s push to ban them.

But nothing the NRA said at the time seemed to indicate that. Nothing was said about being willing to talk in exchange for being part of the conversation so they could minimize the impact on our Second Amendment rights. They said none of this.

As a result, a lot of people are losing confidence in the NRA as a whole, and that’s not a good thing.

While following a discussion of why so many gun owners don’t join the NRA, more than one person argued that it wasn’t because the NRA was too radical, as some have argued. No, it was that the NRA seemed far too willing to compromise with anti-gun forces. I’ve heard that before from various places through the years, but the most recent incarnation of the NRA didn’t seem willing to budge…until Las Vegas.

At that point, the organization so many of us have donated time and money to appeared willing to sacrifice a part of our Second Amendment rights without so much as a fight.

So yeah, a lot of people have lost faith in their institutions…and that includes the National Rifle Association.

Luckily, it’ll be far easier for the NRA to restore that faith.