January 22, 2013 5:31 AM

The NRA: A wholly-owned subsidiary of Paranoid Wackjobs of America

[T]he Sandy Hook “truther” movement isn’t quite like birtherism, or like vintage 9/11 trutherism. Both of those manias grew out of partisanship. As my colleague Jeremy Stahl proved, 9/11 trutherism flourished thanks to “general unhappiness with the war in Iraq and a small but deep strain of Bush hatred.” Birtherism mushroomed when conservatives got desperate about ousting Obama. Gun massacre trutherism isn’t tied to election results. It bubbles over after every massacre. Sandy Hook is moving public opinion like no massacre since Virginia Tech—and its truther movement, naturally, is growing faster. Every shooting that involves a mentally ill loner invites speculation that the loner was programmed by the government. After the mass casualties at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater, Alex Jones’ InfoWars, a conspiracy news hub that got a recent boost from CNN’s Piers Morgan, asked readers to consider the shooter’s “work as a graduate student in a government-funded neuroscience program that specifically researched altered perception of time and reality.”

I find it difficult to consider conspiracy theories without fighting the urge to let loose with a few guffaws. Then I realize that these aren’t just people examining a theory for the comic relief potential…these people SERIOUSLY believe the the federal government is an evil, malevolent cancer which trains crazed loners to execute its own people.

Really? WTF??

It’s not surprising, then, that there’s a sizable and serious community which considers the Sandy Hook massacre another act in a long-running play in which the government is plotting ways to destroy Americans and institute…well, I’m not at ll certain what, to be honest. I suppose that very special and sick sort of crazy is de riguer in the Internet Age. What I find tremendously disturbing about the Sandy Hook conspiracy theories is that many, if not most, have been fed and/or actively encouraged by the National Rifle Association.

I know; quelle surprise, non?? Whodathunkit? Then again, when you consider the cabal of moral midgets at the helm of the NRA, no reasonable person could have expected much else.

The idea that the government is one short step away from a gun ban is actually integral to the lobby’s pitch. It’s implicit when the lobby brags about ammo sales at gun shows or AR-15s disappearing from the shelves. And give the NRA this: It’s not entirely wrong about the momentum of politics. At the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference, LaPierre warned that the first-term Obama administration’s “lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term.”

“We see the president’s strategy crystal clear,” said LaPierre. “Get re-elected and, with no more elections to worry about, get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms’ freedom, erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights and excise it from the U.S. Constitution.”

Right…what’s crystal clear is that LaPierre, the Executive Vice President and face of the NRA, is heavily invested in spreading ridiculous propaganda and fear-mongering in order to bolster the fortunes of gun nuts and the gun industry. It’s tough to get people to seriously discuss gun control when they’re convinced that the government is determined to destroy the 2nd Amendment and turn us into slaves.

I don’t expect to agree with the NRA on anything more controversial than a breakfast menu. Still, I don’t think it’s too much to expect the NRA’s leadership to conduct themselves responsibly and refrain from feeding and cultivating the fevered paranoia that characterizes the day to day mindset of conspiracy theorists.

If we’re to have any realistic shot at achieving real, meaningful gun control, the NRA is going to have to be destroyed. There; I said it…someone needed to. I don’t mean physically, though I probably wouldn’t object to that. No, I mean the NRA must be exposed for the cabal of unreasonable, inflammatory, anti-democratic zealots they are and then ridiculed until their funding dries up and blows away.

I’d like to see the day when the NRA has to hold a bake sale in order to rent a space to hold a press conference. I’d also like to see Wayne LaPierre reduced to managing a Jack-in-the-Box in Falls Church…but absent that, I’d settle for meaningful gun control that reduces the likelihood that more children will die from gun violence. Because when you get right down to it, the NRA is flogging the Sandy Hook conspiracy theories so the wackjobs won’t consider the truth that the NRA’s intransigence is partially responsible for the epidemic of gun violence…and yes, that includes Sandy Hook.

Not Barack Obama. Not the federal government. The NRA.

When you value guns, lies, character assassination, fear mongering, and paranoid conspiracy theories more than human life…you’re the NRA.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on January 22, 2013 5:31 AM.

Another reason why every day is Gun Appreciation Day was the previous entry in this blog.

Everything you need to know about the sorry state of American journalism is the next entry in this blog.

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