for possible use against the United States government.
Two other things stand out about Porter. First, he appears to signal a doubling down on the NRA’s base among older, white male Southerners or to put it more frontally, to racists, calling the Civil War “the War of Northern Aggression.” Secondly, Porter’s background as an attorney defending firearms manufacturers from lawsuits points to what is many ways the organization’s real role as a trade organization for firearms manufacturers.
In any case, with Porter’s ascendency we seem to have moved a big step closer to the NRA leadership’s full embrace of milita-style rhetoric and increasingly open threats of violence against government officials and workers.
Just 2 quick observations:
(1) The call by and NRA spokesperson yesterday to keep guns in your children's rooms, when combined with this call for training to use military-style weapons are 2 excellent examples of what I always saw ascribed to Karl Rove regarding messaging and propaganda.
Mainly that one takes what may be an opponent's strength and make it a weakness: Children shooting other children to death because their parent allowed a 5 year-old to have a gun? No problem: Recommend guns in ALL children's room.
(2) I suspect the call for military style training is not limited JUST to the standard wingnut delusion of Obama coming for your guns and you need an arsenal to water the tree of liberty. This week a man emerged from his car at a traffic stop, leveled an AK-47 at 2 officers and opened fire. He was a terrible shot and thankfully only wounded the two officers who summarily terminated him there on the spot. Search of the vehicle produced a small library of hardcore violent wingnut shit, including books on disposing of dead people and manuals for 'rifle fighting' that come from "Tactical Response, another loose cannon in America.
Sounds nutty? Turn that frown upside down! Call on all Americans to be trained with military weapons to 'fend off' government aggression. That is exactly what this nuttiness from Preznit Porter is.
So when you have these ridiculous incidents, each of them SCREAMING for further gun regulation, the NRA just turns up the crazy, largely because there is nowhere to go. They HAVE to embrace the crazy.
And they get away with it with absolute impunity: I would be investigated for incitement had I said such a thing.
And I have to observe that at this point in time, every notable shooting incident is likely translating into GUN SALES.
The NRA is very good at its job.
And like the truest of capitalists, they are openly uncaring about your life or your family or the community at large.
Profit is what matters, not human life.
it is so very clear.