How To Use The American Gun Owners Alliance Services
AMGOA offers a massive amount of information (over 100,000 pages and growing daily) about everything firearm related, from pending legislation to services like gun shows, gun dealers and a whole lot more. But more so we offer member services to help you find and track what you are interested in.
This tutorial will help you get the most out of our service.
Pending Legislation Tracking
Once you have signed up as a member, or signed into your member account, you will be directed to your 'member control panel'. Within this area you can set up various alerts for information you are interested in. In the 'Alerts Settings' section you can set your account up so you will be notified about any of the following events:
- email alerts regarding newly proposed state and federal gun legislation
- email alerts when a bill on your watch list is updated
- email alerts when a new date for a gun show on your watch list is added (sponsor member plan)
- reminder email sent to you the Monday before a gun show on your watch list (sponsor member plan)
- email alert when a new rally is added to our system based on a mileage you enter (sponsor member plan)
- email alert when a bill on your watch list has had it's rating changed (sponsor member plan)
You can also set up your alerts to be sent to your email, your phone or both.
Pending Legislation Services
When you view a pending bill that is from the current legislative session you will notice icons and links at the top right of the bill's detail page. If you are looking at a bill from your state or the federal government the 'contact your reps' link will take you to a page where you can automatically email your reps, as well as generate a PDF file for faxing and mailing. You may also retrieve any PDF you create from within your member control panel or you may reload an existing email into the contact form editor so you may update it and send it again.
When a bill has been sent to the governor's office for their signature the contact your reps link takes you to the email editor and the email is sent directly to the governor's office. Sponsor members will receive an email alert telling them the bill is on the governor's desk.
Below the contact link there is a link that says 'track this bill'. Clicking on this will add this bill to your watch list. If a bill is currently on your watch list the link will say 'tracking bill'. Clicking on this link will remove the bill from your watch list.
An optional icon is the question mark. If we have a synopsis in the system about the bill the icon will be shown and clicking on the icon will display the synopsis.
Finally there will be one of three different rating icons, thumbs up, thumbs down or a set of eyeglasses. Obviously the thumbs up and down relate to bills we feel are positive or negative. Bills marked with the eyeglass icon are bills we are watching and have yet to make a determination whether they are positive or negative.
Legislation Watch List Alerts
Watch list alerts are sent out daily when a bill that is on your watch list has been updated. These updates are changes to the last action on the bill so you can track it while it moves through the process.
If you selected yes on the first option in your alerts preferences (see above) you will also receive information on new bills in your state or from the federal government. Free members get an alert telling them what bill has been updated, the last action on the bill and a link to the web site page for that bill. Sponsor members get an alert that includes everything in the free alert along with our rating and synopsis (if any). Alerts are sent out daily at 12 noon EST.
As mentioned above you can turn off these alerts and add or remove bills from your watch list at any time.
'Personalize' The Website (sponsor member plan)
You can set which state(s) you are interested in seeing information about in your control panel by clicking on the 'Personalize Website' link and selecting the state(s) you are interested in. If you choose only one state all links for pending legislation, state laws, attorneys, gun shows etc will automatically take you to your state's listing pages avoiding having to wade through all the data for the other states.
If you choose more than one state the listing pages will only show links for the states you have selected.
Legislator / Governor Contact Information
All members can access their governor's contact information using the menu item under resources.
Sponsoring members will have two extra menu items under the 'resources' menu item for your state and federal legislators. These pages have every piece of contact information available including address, phone, email (when available) as well as any Facebook, Twitter or other social media links.
Gun Show Watch List (sponsor member plan)
At the top right of every gun show, just above the map, you will see a link that says 'add to watch list', clicking on the link adds it to your list and changes the link to 'on your watch list'. Adding a gun show to your watch lists allows you to use two services. The first service sends you an email when new dates have been added for the show. The second service sends you an email reminder the Monday before the show is held.
Rally Alerts (sponsor member plan)
If you check yes for the question 'email alert when a new rally is added to our system' in your alerts preferences (see above) and add a mileage you will receive an email alert any time a new rally is added that matches your criteria along with a link to the rally details.
Gun Dealer Favorites List
At the top right of every gun dealers details page there is a link to add that dealer to your favorites list. This then allows you to quickly get back to their page from within your member control panel.
Member Control Panel
Your member control panel is the heart of our application. This area allows you to change every detail of your membership and its options and access all of the information you have saved. Your member control panel contains:
- Edit your contact information
- Sponsor member information (update credit card info, terminate subscription)
- Edit your membership preferences (volunteering etc)
- Alerts Settings (see above)
- Alert Sending Preferences
- Change Password
- Groups I belong to
- AMGOA Web site 'Badges'
- Refer A Friend
- State Legislation Watch List
- Federal Legislation Watch List
- Letters To Legislators (sponsor member plan)
- Affiliate Information / Tracking
- FFL Favorites List
- Gun Show Watch List (sponsor member plan)
