Is the NRA Finally on the Defensive?

[babylonsister]

http://prospect.org/article/nra-finally-on-defensive

Is the NRA Finally on the Defensive?
Paul Waldman
February 25, 2018
Even if you believe in gun rights, it's become hard not to see the NRA as a bunch of loony birds.

snip//

It's been building for years, but the Trump era has pushed the organization toward an even more extreme space than they occupied before. While in the not-too-distant past they actually supported some limited gun control measures, today the guiding philosophy of the group is that what we want is a society where as many people as possible have as many guns as possible and take them to as many places as possible.

Which leads them to oppose even something as widely supported as universal background checks, which were favored by 97 percent of respondents in a recent Quinnipiac poll. That makes the NRA not just more extreme than your average American, but more extreme than gun owners and even their own members.

Then there's the group's unhinged rhetoric. The change from a Democratic president to a Republican one necessitated a shift in emphasis; it's harder to argue that diabolical liberals in Washington are going to take away your guns any day now when Republicans are in total control of the government. But the NRA needs to tell its members that there is immediate peril which can only be met by buying more and more guns.

So they say two things. First, we live in a post-apocalyptic nightmare where the only question all of us should be asking is whether we have enough guns to see another day. This was part of their message before; as CEO Wayne LaPierre said in a 2014 speech, "We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and carjackers and knockout gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all."

Second, the NRA focuses on guns as more than a tool to fend off the Al Qaeda strike team that is probably coming to your house, if they're not hiding in your supermarket. Guns are also instruments of deep symbolic value, whose purchase is just about the best way to tell snooty liberals where they can stick it so you can fight the culture war. As Josh Marshall pointed out, "most of the NRA's public messaging isn't even about firearms anymore. It's mostly culture war agitprop about fake news, Trump, obedience to the flag, feral leftists, socialists, antifa street gangs and other similar incitement." To get a sense of it, you can watch some of NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch's videos of barely contained rage, many of which don't even mention guns.

We shouldn't go too far in interpreting what's happening; this moment could peter out as others have in the past. But it may just be possible that conservatives will be made uncomfortable by questions about their ties to the NRA. As Wayne LaPierre once said, "If I can borrow from Mr. Churchill [sic], we have nothing to fear but the absence of fear." The NRA might, at long last, have some reason to feel afraid.

[GreenEyedLefty]

1. The absence of fear.

They have awoken a generation of kids with nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose you have nothing to fear. We may be witnessing the birth of a revolution.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Short answer is yes.

Something we heard last night makes me think this is this. Granddaughter and her circle of friends are now engaged on Face Book by pushing back at the Gun Humpers. Funny thing,this same Granddaughter six months ago was wanting to buy a Gun. Not going to happen now.

Proud of these Kids,they are the future.

[zipplewrath]

3. At least back on their heals

Their rhetoric is not serving them well right now. It's sounding quite tone deaf. They'd do much better keeping their mouth shut for a while.

But I do think we're beginning to see the rise of a nation of voters that was raised with lock down drills and having been close to a mass shooting somewhere. Another 30 years, when they have kids in school, their votes could change things.

[poboy2]

4. The overflowing desire to be unrepentant DICKS supercedes any rationality or moderation. -eom