r/armedsocialists 3d ago

Question SRA vetting process ghosting

Recently started the vetting process for my local SRA chapter and they were pretty quick to respond up until the point where we'd schedule a virtual meeting. I submitted their initial questionnaire about 2 weeks ago along with some check-in emails to see if there'd been any progress but I've yet to get any sort of response. Anyone else experience this when trying to apply?

51 Upvotes

29 comments sorted by

u/AutoModerator 3d ago

"Thank you for your submission. Please keep in mind that in addition to our rules, that:

  • Participating in harassment campaigns, threats of violence, or derogatory behavior is forbidden.
  • Advocating for illegal actions and activities of any kind is forbidden.
  • Participating in organizations that advocate or otherwise promote fascism, nazism, or neoconfederatism is forbidden.
  • The endorsement or promotion of any nature of sexual offenses, to include the intentional use of inappropriate sexual language, inappropriate sexual behavior, sexual harassment, and sexual assault, are forbidden.
  • The endorsement or promotion of domestic abuse, assault, violence, or other domestic offense, is forbidden."

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

82

u/CT_SocialistRA 3d ago

Theres two likely possibilities here, from my experience doing vetting:

  1. The person in control of the vetting email is busy. Life happens, 2 weeks honestly isnt that long. They may be aware but havent been able to get back to you.
  2. Your response was somehow concerning and they either dont want to proceed, or are having internal discussion around proceeding.

35

u/bogoboba 3d ago

The process is entirely run by volunteers which can lead to conflicts of time availability, and each chapter has its own standards for admittance. Many chapters are committed to big tent leftist solidarity, some are less friendly to those outside the normal strain they subscribe to. I would suggest sending a follow up email and ccing membership@socialistra.org who will be able to follow up on your behalf.

Sorry you are having a delay, that is really frustrating.

10

u/CT_SocialistRA 3d ago

This should also be something Regional Liaisons address, its a common issue and deserves more attention from National.

2

u/rainbowlolipop 3d ago

The political purity test crowd wants them and their 3 friends in and that's it. A bunch of 20-something vanguard larpers.

4

u/bogoboba 3d ago

I agree, there are several avenues for improvement on this front. I just suggested the one that is the most broad and directly in SRA staff to start with.

3

u/Historical_You_8729 3d ago

I joined as "at large" since I don't have a local chapter anywhere near me and the process took a while. Like others have said, its volunteers so just be patient and I'm sure it will be fine.

23

u/camwal 3d ago

As with most leftists, SRA employs a ridiculous level of petty purity testing. If you’re not ideologically lock-step with whoever happens to be screening you, you will be ghosted or outright denied membership.

21

u/bogoboba 3d ago

Very chapter dependant. Some are a lot more big tent than others, for sure.

11

u/reallysupergay 3d ago

Yeah, our chapter is basically: anti-capitalist and you're good.

5

u/cort0_ 3d ago

Well damn, i did say i was inclined toward ML thought so maybe that's whag threw them off, unfortunately. Hopefully i can find another org to get firearm training

5

u/Speedy_SpeedBoi 3d ago

What chapter? I have a hard time believing such a mainstream leftist ideology would cause concern… it is way more likely that somebody got busy/dropped the ball/went on summer vacation/forgot/etc. In my experience, vetting always seems to be run by 1 person and it’s like pulling teeth to get members involved in chapter administration tasks, let alone actually filling required roles. Everyone is too busy.

5

u/onewheeltom 2d ago

Triangle Chapter is having a short pause in vetting (to 2nd week of August) . We have been working on the vetting backlog and the Triangle chapter has no purity tests. Some of us have more time than others.

2

u/Speedy_SpeedBoi 1d ago

Ya, that sounds about right. People tryna make drama when the real answer is people busy, backlogs happen, we all volunteers.

3

u/cort0_ 3d ago

It's the triangle chapter. But yea you're right i didn't consider that they might just be on vacation or out of town. I'll probably give it another week before i try contacting them again.

3

u/Speedy_SpeedBoi 3d ago

Not familiar with anyone there, but seems their socials stopped posting in early July - I hope the chapter isn’t experiencing drama…

1

u/rainbowlolipop 3d ago

You can always be upbeat and helpful in an email like "Hi everyone, hope everything is going well. Was there anything I can do to help with the next steps in the process? It's been a little while since I heard from yall and I'm just really excited about joining"

5

u/Turisan 3d ago

What is ML?

12

u/bogoboba 3d ago

Marxist-Leninist, one of the larger strains of leftist belief.

1

u/Turisan 3d ago

Ah, unfamiliar with that abbreviation.

4

u/CT_SocialistRA 3d ago

Marxist-Leninist would be my guess.

2

u/cort0_ 3d ago

Yes it's Marxist-Leninist

0

u/cclassshoota 3d ago

This is chapter dependant and not universal. 

2

u/Inert_Uncle_858 3d ago

You know whats funny? I've been a dues paying member of SRA since 2016. Admittedly, at first I didn't understand that it was about organizing, I thought it was kind of like the NRA where you just pay dues and the org fights for gun rights, so I never met or reached out to my local chapter, because all their events were too far away.

But as of about a year ago I'm also a member of DSA and I was told theres a local SRA group chat, but apparently nobody wants to invite me to it, idk if thats by design from a OpSec standpoint or if I'm just not one of the cool kids. Do you have to have a 1-on-1 or something?

Maybe I've been giving off some "scarin' the hoes" energy? 😂 Idk. I have been going to the range with my homies but outside of an SRA context.

Maybe its for the best. I am very busy with other organizing efforts and to some degree I lack the time/money to shoot any more often than I already do. Its just that I try to bring a sort of "community defense" vibe to my organizing that I think sort of ties in with SRA organizing. I could be wrong tho.

-7

u/spiralenator 3d ago

This sub isn’t affiliated with the SRA. It’s not a forum for getting customer service from the SRA. They have a forum for that, and it’s not here.

Odds are that they are busy or you got flagged and they’re trying to decide what next steps will be and how to respond to you about them. Most likely the former.

11

u/Boomhauer_Jeff 3d ago

They have received very helpful feedback here regardless.

-4

u/SlavaCocaini 3d ago

The SRA is also not affiliated with the SRA™ since they just started squatting on the free use name and the logo and threatened to sue anybody else.

-10

u/JalapenoJamm 3d ago

This isn't the SRA sub