This means that the NRA will now be fighting a war on two fronts, because in a speech in 2012, Porter indicated that the "war of northern aggression,"which most Americans thought of as the Civil War, was apparently still going on. Most Americans thought we, the United States of America, won that war. Apparently not. Porter was speaking against the reelection of Barack Obama, who is one of the unfortunate consequences of the north winning that costly war.
Porter told the audience at a 2012 New York Rifle and Pistol Association that the NRA was "fightin, scratchin, head buttin" to protect Second Amendment rights. He stood there on the platform looking as if his pants, straining to constrain his ample girth, were on fire, telling his noisy audience that the NRA was established to "teach and train civilians in the use of the standard military firearm...so when they're ready to fight tyranny they're ready to do it." Tyranny being the black guy in the White House.
Porter told his appreciative audience that he gets "sick and tired of all these people with this fake president," saying that Obama hasn't done anything harmful to gun owners. "Let me tell you," he said, "his entire administration is anti-gun, anti-freedom, anti-Second Amendment." Porter went on to claim that the president believes that animals have rights and "if you go out there and hunt them they oughta have the right to sue you for aubusement (sic); that's the kinda thinkin they are" (I'm not making this up -- look at the video, if you can stomach it).
The NRA's agenda under Porter won't be limited to protecting Second Amendment rights, not by a long shot. And speaking of shot, Porter tells his audience in 2012 that the organization is on the war path with the EPA (a third war front?) to protect hunters' right to use lead shot. Lead shot is deadly to wildlife in ways that have nothing to do with sport hunting, but the NRA doesn't want anyone telling them what kind of ammunition they can or can't use -- it's the principle of the thing.
Porter also took US Attorney General [and African-American] Eric Holder to task as "rapidly anti-gun, rabidly anti-American." And Porter went on to include on the NRA's enemies list the United Nations and [at the time] Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who signed the UN arms trade treaty, which arms traders vehemently oppose, because it hurts business. The NRA claims the treaty will deny Americans their Second Amendment right to bear arms. In fact,the treaty applies only to international transfers of conventional arms and specifically reaffirms “the sovereign right of any State to regulate and control conventional arms” within its territory. In other words, the NRA is lying (surprised?), but why? Because they are in bed with the arms industry. The gun lobby is not just a bunch of paranoid Second Amendment crazies, it’s a coalition of organizations that make a lot of money manufacturing and selling guns and ammunition, including to kids.
I have to agree with James Porter on one thing. The American people are in a culture war with the NRA and their minions, and cohorts, and promoters, and backers, and those who only stand and wait with their hands out, the complicit Congress. It's a war against fear and paranoia, against belligerence and intimidation, against greed, racism, ethnocentrism, and ignorance. It's a war that must be won to prevent the senseless slaughter of thousands of Americans -- men, women, and children -- who are shot and killed or injured every year, year after year, because those of us on the side of light have been so far unable to overcome the forces of darkness. That has to change.
No comments:
Post a Comment