Does the NRA know there are gun owners who aren’t chest-beating hard-right conservatives? Seemingly not, because they’ve done a good job of scaring those people away.
Case in point: Sarah Palin’s keynote address at this year’s annual meeting.
Her speech was a collection of cliched slogans delivered in a way to best work the crowd, but little of it had anything to do with the 2nd Amendment. Instead, she used the podium as an opportunity to bash various White House policies, bemoan the lack of prayer in schools, and demean “clownish little ‘Kumbaya’-humming fairy-tale-inhaling liberals.”
Just when the crowd was fawning over her, she delivered the coup de grace, saying “if I was in charge, they would know waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists. [07:15]”
What the ☠☠☠☠? No, really, what the ☠☠☠☠? Who cleared this? I’m sure it sounded witty when she rehearsed it for the Local Tea Party 118 in the dressing room, but it just gives our opponents ammunition to mock us.
This is an embarrassment. This is why potential supporters, some of whom have money and influence, shy away from us. Where was Colion Noir? Tom Selleck? Emily Miller? Nope, the board seems to have preferred someone who rants about “intolerant, anti-freedom leftist liberals.”
This is how we insulate ourselves and alienate allies, and it has to stop.
4 thoughts on “Good Thing I Skipped Indianapolis”
Fortunately, attendance at the big rally/country music concert was not, in fact, mandatory.
Great trade show; like SHOT with less hustling. Should have come up.
I’m an NRA member, liberal, and a Wiccan, and Sarah Palin can keep her baptism. I’ll cling to my guns and my (own) religion, thank you very much.
When the NRA lets things like this happen by getting Sarah Palin to speak, it’s no wonder that all my friends think that only socially conservative Republicans should join the NRA. This makes the NRA’s mission much harder.
Where as I’m on of those Conservatives that skews libertarian, I got a deep chuckle out of Palin’s remarks. Until I started thinking that she probably wasn’t being facetious.
*Head desk*
As a secular moralist, atheist, and gun owner; it is exactly this kind of moronic dribble that gives everyone involved a bad name. I’m a NRA member because my range is NRA sponsored so it’s mandatory, but I sent them an e-mail letting them know that until they get this kind of ‘tardery sorted they aren’t getting another dime.
I suppose I should preemptively begin my search for a new range, because the chances of excising this type of psychotic rhetoric are likely near-zero.