Why I'm Giving Up My NRA Membership

No one would argue that the NRA had a particularly good week, clearly they are under siege. Unfortunately, in panic, NRA leader Wayne LaPierre has made a bad situation far worse.

It is less shooting yourself in the foot and more taking a double-barrelled shotgun with buckshot to shoot your own behind. The NRA held a press conference that would make any PR person cringe in agony. It wasn’t one gaffe, but one long extended one.

It was so bad that the main point of the press conference, whatever merits it might hold, was lost in the chaos of the ignorant rant. Security seemed to be inept as well, as no less than two code pink protesters managed to unfurl their signs claiming the NRA has “blood on their hands.” Irony, of course, it that LePierre was making just as idiotic claims from the podium.

Instead of concentrating on the mental health problems of Lanza and the lack of help for him and his family, LaPierre ranted about video games, movies, and culture. Despite the fact there is zero evidence linking playing violent video games and mass shootings, he made that defamatory link. Furthermore his “researchers” dug up some obscure game (if it actually exists) no one has ever heard of called “Kindergarden Killers” that is somewhere online so he could look emotional and caring. LePierre is probably too dense to realize he just advertised this game no one has ever heard of to millions of people, many of whom will download it out of spite.

Instead of concentrating on the warped bit of evil that killed all those children, he was doing exactly what the NRA’s worst critics are doing. Rather than blaming the real perpetrator, he is blaming video game, movie, and music companies for the killings. It is just the sort of cloth-eared rant that the GOP goes in for that demonstrates how completely out of touch they are. Instead of defending the right to bear arms, he called for censorship of music, media, and games. So instead of authoritarianism on the subject of guns, we need it on culture and the creative arts?

I am not renewing my membership in the NRA after the clusterfuck of a press conference.   The insipid, ignorant, patronizing and out of touch rant is unhelpful at best. They do not speak for me and they are an incompetent spokesman for the Second Amendment.