NRA’s video message to ‘elites’: ‘We’re coming for you’

The National Rifle Association ignited a fiery campaign directed towards ‘elites’ they say are committed to undoing the pro-gun group’s progress amidst pending legislation.

The political powerhouse put out a series of videos using a variety of combative language warnings such as ‘a shot across the bow’ and ‘we’re coming for you’ alongside the hashtags #counterresistance and #clenchedfistoftruth.

If the Hearing Protection Act is approved, the use of Silencers — a device that reduces noise emitted by internal combustion engine exhaust in guns — would be made more readily available to consumers.

Under the law, buyers would no longer be permitted to pay a ‘$200 tax, submit fingerprints and a photograph, notify law enforcement officers and wait about 10 months while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wades through a backlog to process the application and register the weapon,’ according to a USA Today report.

Buyers would still be required to pass an instant background check as a standard prerequisite for purchasing any firearm.

NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch didn’t bother censoring the furious memo when speaking on the matter in one NRA-TV video, which bashed Hollywood liberals.

‘The times are burning and media elites have been caught holding the match,’ she said in the footage, which shows folks in the back breaking into gun stores, fighting police and even burning the American flag.

NRA has begun a campaign not against pending legislation, but against what it sees as liberal forces bent on undoing the progress it’s made _ and the political powerhouse is resorting to language that some believe could incite violence

If the Hearing Protection Act is approved, the use of Silencers — a device reducing the amount of noise emitted by internal combustion engine exhaust — would be made more readily available to consumers

If the Hearing Protection Act is approved, the use of Silencers — a device reducing the amount of noise emitted by internal combustion engine exhaust — would be made more readily available to consumers

nder the law, buyers would no longer be permitted to pay a tax, submit a photograph and fingerprints and wait for a drawn-out registration process

nder the law, buyers would no longer be permitted to pay a tax, submit a photograph and fingerprints and wait for a drawn-out registration process

NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch (second from left) didn't hold back when speaking in one NRA-TV video and bashed Hollywood liberals

NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch (second from left) didn’t hold back when speaking in one NRA-TV video and bashed Hollywood liberals

Loesch specifically called out The New York Times as one of their targets, blaming ‘narratives, propaganda and fake news’ for continuous setbacks the NRA has faced.

‘We’ve had it with your constant protection of your Democrat overlords, your refusal to acknowledge any truth that upsets the fragile construct that you believe is real life. And we’ve had it with your tone-deaf assertion that you are in any way truth or fact-based journalism … Consider this the shot across your proverbial bow.’

Public Policy Director at the University of Pennsylvania, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, said the tone and language depicted in the messages ‘overwrought rhetoric’ and will likely be viewed as a threat initiated physical harm among some viewers. 

Gun lobbying groups have longtime been media critics, while anti-gun groups say the NRA uses the Trump-initiated ‘fake news’ mantra to attract supporters after gun sales took a downfall.  

‘They’re not inventing this hyperangry, nasty partisan tone but piggybacking on Trump’s approach. Of course, NRA voters by and large are Trump voters, so they would be sympathetic to that kind of message,’ said Robert Spitzer, chairman of the political science department at State University of New York at Cortland.

Spitzer, a member of the NRA who studies the firearms industry and Second Amendment, said it’s a pattern the group has exhibited as they evolved from an almost exclusive focus on gun safety into a political beacon for conservatives who fear changes to the Second Amendment and the gun industry.

‘It was Bill Clinton in the 1990s. In the early 2000s, it was John McCain. It was Hillary Clinton. It was the United Nations. They’ve held up the U.N. as ready to swoop in and take everybody’s guns,’ Spitzer said. ‘The focus of their ire has changed, but the basic message has been the same.’

The NRA declined to comment on the videos to The Associated Press, but the organization has produced videos saying the left and the media are out of control and feeding a false narrative that tea party conservatives are racists and Trump supporters are ‘toothless hillbillies.’

Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, said this month: ‘There is no longer any difference between our politicians and the elite media who report on them. … These elites threaten our very survival, and to them we say: We don’t trust you, we don’t fear you, and we don’t need you. Take your hands off our future.’

The NRA declined to comment on the videos to The Associated Press

The NRA declined to comment on the videos to The Associated Press

Public Policy Director at the University of Pennsylvania, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, said the tone and language depicted in the videos could be viewed as a threat for harm to some

Public Policy Director at the University of Pennsylvania, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, said the tone and language depicted in the videos could be viewed as a threat for harm to some

The NRA has produced videos saying the left and the media are out of control and feeding a false narrative that tea party conservatives are racists and Trump supporters are 'toothless hillbillies'

The NRA has produced videos saying the left and the media are out of control and feeding a false narrative that tea party conservatives are racists and Trump supporters are ‘toothless hillbillies’

Erich Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said it’s been a longtime frustration with journalists who, he contends, ‘ignore the violence and harsh rhetoric on the left while magnifying and twisting the words of those on the right.’

The NRA videos prompted Mike Nelson, a Democratic congressional candidate in Arkansas and self-described hunter and gun-rights supporter, to label them as ‘hate speech.’ Nelson, whose website lists the NRA among more than two dozen organization he’s supported, said he can no longer back the NRA.

In a Facebook post, Nelson wrote: ‘If the NRA does not stop their hate campaign, I will call them out on sedition. Sedition is the willful undermining of the legal authority, the Incitement of Violence.’  

Some gun owners have cheered the videos and said they give voice to conservatives weary of media attacks on Trump; others say the videos stray from the NRA’s original mission and that the NRA is inviting violence.

Joe Plenzler, a Marine veteran who served overseas and sometimes had reporters accompanying his unit, joined two other veterans in writing an opinion piece for The Daily Beast criticizing the videos.

‘The NRA props up the Second Amendment by undermining and vilifying the protections afforded in the First, and paints everyone who may disagree with the current administration, our country’s justice system, or the NRA’s partisan political position with a very dark and unjust broad brush,’ Plenzler wrote with Marine veterans Craig Tucker and Kyleanne Hunter.

Plenzler, who has since dropped his NRA membership, said he was disturbed by the videos.

‘Lately, it seems like they’ve gone well out of the bounds of any sort of sane responsible behavior. If you want to advocate for the Second Amendment, which I unapologetically believe in, that’s fine,’ he said. 

‘But I think at the point where you are going to demonize half the American population in a recruitment effort to get more members, I’ve got a big problem with that.’

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