The way the NRA makes its decisions has nothing to do with the political situation in Africa, the state of elephant herds in Africa, the long term fate of the African elephant species, or anything like that... This is contrary to the original claim the NRA was making the correct decision even from a conservational point of view. They aren't in this case, but if we did the math and found out they did, it would certainly be by accident, because they surely didn't do the math.

I didn't claim that they made the correct decision for the right reasons. Of course it's (in a sense) a felicitous coincidence that the NRA is in the right here from a conservationist point of view. But if environmental groups are helping the environment, I'd view that as even more of a felicitous coincidence, given their methods of making decisions.

It's remarkable, but not hugely so, that the policies of a group who care about the property rights of American gun owners should align with strong property rights worldwide, and hence a flourishing environment. It would be far more remarkable if the policies of a group who care about purity rituals should lead to a flourishing environment.

I think you just like to argue?

Only as long as interesting things are being said :-)

There aren't "private security forces" replacing governments

And nobody said that. But hiring guards for your farm/ranch/pasture is quite common and does happen to be private enforcement of property rights.

They consult relevant gun makers

I can't imagine why contemporary gun makers would care about decades-old ivory. If anything, they'd prefer more constraints on sales of old guns as that enlarges the market for new guns.

And I don't think anyone made a claim that NRA's decision was correct from a conservationist point of view. The claim is that the law fails the cost-benefit analysis for certain (implied widespread) sets of values. I am sure ardent environmentalists are happy with it, but not everyone is an ardent environmentalist.

Do you actually know how many elephants are killed in Africa for non-ivory reasons?

Ah, good question. My pre-Google answer would be "some" and if pressed for numbers I'd say 10-20% at the moment, but with not much conviction. Accio Google!

Hmm... Lots of data but all of it is on "illegally killed" elephants which isn't particularly useful in this context, as killing elephants is mostly illegal everywhere and so the meaning is just "human-killed". My impression is that in areas with LOTS of poaching the great majority of elephants are killed for the ivory, but in areas with few "illegal kills" situation may differ. No data to support this impression, though. It also seems that there is a lot variability in the numbers killed year-to-year.