5 Reasons Even Gun Owners Should Hate The NRA
Listen, United States: You look bad when there's a mass shooting, but you look insane when people deny that guns had anything to do with it. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That's insane even when the thing isn't letting almost any asshole have a gun. Also, you need to stop letting almost any asshole have a gun.
Which means you need to stop the board of the National Rifle Association. Here's why ...
They're Paid By Gun Manufacturers
In 2013, Business Insider reported that less than half of the NRA's revenue came from membership dues and fees -- the majority came from things like advertising sales, donations, and grants, largely contributed by the gun industry. And even some of the revenue from dues and fees still came from gun manufacturers, as Taurus buys its customers an NRA membership with every weapon they purchase. In the past, Ruger donated a dollar from every gun sold to the NRA, and now they're doubling down, pledging $2 from every Ruger rifle, handgun, and shotgun sold until the next NRA annual meeting. Crimson Trace laser sights donates 10 percent of their sales and $20 for each product sold through the NRA Instructor Program. Crimson Trace employees can't be making that much per unit.
MidwayUSA sells guns, ammunition, and completely sane high-capacity magazines, and it encourages customers to round every purchase up to the nearest dollar with the difference going to the NRA-ILA lobbying arm. Gun companies have donated tens of millions of dollars to the NRA's Ring Of Freedom sponsorship program and spend tens of millions more on advertising in NRA publications.
"I use guns to put money into the bank!"
Industry giant Colt is filing for bankruptcy, and The Intercept reports that it still owes money to the NRA and its tangle of affiliated legal entities. And that's the saddest thing of all. What was the point of letting arms manufacturers turn an entire country into a Scrooge McDuck vault filled with shell casings instead of money if they're going to go bankrupt anyway? At least before they were mercenaries. Now it's just terrifying stupidity.
Even more people piss themselves in this swimming pool.
A Yahoo investigation reported multiple violations of federal law in how the NRA makes political donations. Their sole purpose is to act as a paid weapon-unlock cheat for the real world. Major historical NRA members have noticed and are leaving the organization in disgust. Adolphus Busch IV, the last Busch to own Anheuser-Busch, explained his resignation with:
When you're dumped by the last American to own Budweiser, you must suck at serving Americans. The NRA represents regular gun owners the same way the National Pork Board represents regular pigs.
They're Allowed To Casually Talk About Shooting People
NRA board member Ted Nugent is what happens when a washed-up classic rocker starts believing his own songs and is too heavily armed to be stopped. At this year's NRA rally, he got up on stage and publicly fantasized about shooting a senator in front of quite a lot of cameras. Media Matters reported his stream-of-insanity speech:
"If your child is dying and there is only one way to get to the doctor, would you get on Harry Reid's boat to get there?"
"Then your child's dead! I'd get on the boat, get there, and then I'd shoot him."
Luckily he wasn't a teenager with a webcam, so he wasn't arrested.
"Sure, record this; I'm too rich and white for handcuffs."
In the U.S., children can be arrested for snapchatting stupid shit with an Airsoft gun. Not interviewed, not chatted with -- arrested and hauled down to the station. Teenagers can be charged for pulling an emoji of a gun on Facebook. Ted Nugent has lots of real weapons; these days that's his entire deal, but he just gets to go onstage, wave a gun, scream about the coming struggle, and talk about shooting people on camera, and it's fine? Is money an antidote to terroristic threats? Do courts recognize terrible music that no one listens to as a vaccine against jihad?
He was talking about the NRA's funding of senators, but even in Nugent's fantasy metaphors we have dead children and assassinations. Which is a much better speech on the effects of unregulated firearms than I think he intended. Even in the endless, bullet-ridden trenches of NugentWorld, the reward for helping him save his child's life is lethal gunfire. In his fantasies, good Samaritans need better body armor.
"Turn the other cheek, press it into the stock, and squeeze the trigger."
This isn't even the first time Nugent has done something like this. In 2012, he was interviewed by the Secret Service for threatening, "If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year." Just interviewed, mind. If he'd been doing something really serious like playing Counter-Strike, maybe they'd have sent a SWAT van to cuff him live on camera.
NRA Board Members Are All Kinds Of Scary
Charles Cotton has been an NRA board member for over a decade, and he really hopes he won't have to shoot your kid. He really hopes! He can't guarantee it, of course; I mean, having a gun that can pump bullets into children is a patriotic option he absolutely refuses to take off his or anyone else's table, but he thinks it'd be better if someone just beat the shit out of your kid first.
No, wait. He's not a monster. He'd like government employees to do it for you.
"Form an orderly queue; I have enough ass-kickings for everyone."
TPM reports that he wrote "Perhaps a good paddling in school may keep me from having to put a bullet in later." Which definitely sounds like someone who should be equipped to decide if everyone within his line of sight lives or dies on a moment-by-moment basis.
Fellow board member Don Young, a congressman from Alaska, described the BP Gulf oil spill as a "natural phenomena," successfully voted to increase the allowed mercury emissions from incinerators in a way the government knows will cause tens of thousands of deaths, and thinks wolves would be a great solution to the homelessness problem. And, in a Disney-villain twist, that's only because he wants to kill the wolves as well.
"I should have voted for Neeson!"
The Washington Post reports that Young told Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, "I'd like to introduce in your district. If I introduced them in your district, you wouldn't have a homeless problem anymore." Wait, that's not explaining. That's gibbering. Frothing, maybe, which would at least offer an explanation for why he's so rabidly lycancidal. His idea was that his army of imaginary wolves would attack humans, and so they should lose their endangered status. And then he can shoot them. Which seems to be his real master plan. Instead of illegally collecting money for campaign contributions, a House Ethics Committee concluded, he improperly used campaign contributions to fund his hunting trips. Apparently his political career is only a cover for more excuses to shoot things. If we told him Jurassic Park was a possibility he'd boost science funding. And at least then it would be sane to co-sponsor doomed bills protecting armor-piercing ammunition.
If you have a few hours, NRA board members are an endless parade of saying ridiculous shit.
They're Pretty Racist
When all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When all you've got is a long-distance killing machine, everyone else should be terrified. The NRA's 2015 annual meeting featured a presentation on how whole swathes of American cities had been turned into Muslim "no-go zones," areas where there are so many Muslims that even SWAT teams fear to tread. Historical note: Even Hercules never had to deal with this much horseshit.
"Don't get NRA propaganda on your hooves."
This is terrifying on more levels than a roller coaster through Dante's Inferno, which at least punished people for more than "not being white." That's the kind of racism where you see men leaving the room sadly shaking their white hoods. The ground assumption was that "lots of Muslim people" was a problem that didn't need further explanation when presented to large groups unified only by gun ownership. That further explanation rhymes with "bucking face-cysts." And is even less pleasant to see.
NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre used his speech at the 2015 annual NRA meeting to talk about the secret terror cells in every city. Because otherwise having assault weapons on every street corner would be lunacy. His annual talks always emphasize the increasing dangers inside America, and the threat of other countries' growing financial success, but never quite manage to mention why none of those other countries face the same dangers. Why could that be? Hang on, let me call.
"What ho, pip pip, well in Blighty we don't have warehouses selling lethal weapons, old boy."
He continued with:
"Demographically symbolic" is a masterpiece. Nine syllables that would be less obvious if he'd just screamed, "Racism sexism racism!" It's a code word, but not a disguised code word; it's the launch code word for giant white penis missiles. He officially classifies anyone who isn't Caucasian male as an inhuman rune, a market-share representation, a puzzling population novelty.
He went on to blame the president for all problems, to describe how guns solve all problems, and to explain, "For that right, NRA will always fight and, believe me, the fight is coming." Of course, there's no possible problem with the leader of an armed group blaming a single named individual for all the problems in the world in public and insisting "the fight is coming." Not even in a country where a Cracked writer can be placed on the No-Fly list for writing a satirical article. Right now the only difference between NRA talks and Al-Qaeda videos is production value.
They Blame Victims (And Everything Else)
Is there anything NRA board members won't do to distract people?
No. If Cotton so much as swept popcorn from cinema aisles he'd be fired after public comments like this, but an NRA board member's real job isn't just to show the NRA is OK with comments like this; it's to make comments like this. And it always has been. NRA spokesperson Chuck Norris also weighed in to comment that maybe churches should put their faith in guns, and to prove that the Internet really needs to get over his stupid ass.
Charlton Heston blamed the Columbine shootings on the fact that the shooters were able to wear trenchcoats, not on how they were able to get guns. NRA lobbyist Chris Cox blamed the Isla Vista shootings on gun control, possibly in an attempt to destroy the logical thought processes of anyone opposing him. After Sandy Hook, Wayne LaPierre blamed music videos, movies, video games -- they're on course to blame every object in existence for shootings except for objects that actually shoot.
"These killer fruit provide potassium, which can be used to send impulses to trigger fingers."
Blaming everything except the gun is their only job, and the angrier it makes people, the better it works. First, the NRA board decoys discussion with patently ridiculous claims, then absorbs the resulting anger instead of the gun industry. Their sole function is to prevent rational debate. They're a responsibility crumple zone, prepared to fire themselves into public spaces as violently and repeatedly as it takes to distract attention from the weapons manufacturers making millions by selling lethal weaponry to civilians. The NRA is what happens when the Westboro Baptist Church settles down to get a corporate job.
They've used political payments and public bullshit to push the gun control debate so far over any possible line that the middle ground ends up with their supporters armed with assault weaponry in every major U.S. city. Which is exactly where they are. They've buried the country under so much bullshit that even intelligent Americans start talking about individual rights and waiting periods, as if there was any sane sequence of words that ends with a peacetime civilian holding an AR-15 other than, "OK, Mr. Schwarzenegger, and action!"
As if immediate national change shouldn't be triggered by the phrase "killed by celebratory gunfire."
Check out more NRA nutcasery with 3 Reasons It's Time To Stop Taking The NRA Seriously and The 4 Most Meaningless Arguments Against Gun Control.
Enjoy imaginary worlds where guns make sense with The Strange History Of Terminator Games and The Greatest Video Game Gun Of All Time.
Luke has a website, tumbles, and responds to every single tweet.
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