The NRA feeds our fears, the fast track to political power in America

Larry Kummer, Editor

12 years ago

Summary: Both Left and Right motivate us by fear. They’re professionals at propaganda and manipulation. They choose fear as a theme for good reason: because it works. We’ve looked at many examples from the Left (see the links in the last section). Today we look at an unusually vivid example from the Right. Our weakness makes us easy to lead. But we can do better. Let’s not let fear so easily guide us. The path to reform starts with each of us, as individuals.

“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
— Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)

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Another day in America, another mass shooting. Today’s is in Cobb, GA. Six casualties, plus the dead gunman. This does not happen in other developed nations. The NRA’s CEO explains why it happens so often in America.

Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the NRA

Speaking at Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)
6 April 2014

Much of this speech is inspiration and strikes home truths; I wish others would echo his call to action in defense of America. Much is factually incorrect (e.g., crime rates have been falling for 2 decades). Much is quite mad. It’s 100% professional-quality fear-mongering, by a powerful organization with a steel grip on an important piece of US public policy

See the video. Excerpt from the transcript:

Freedom has never needed our defense more than now. Almost everywhere you look, something has gone wrong. You feel it in your heart, you know it in your gut. Something has gone wrong. The core values we believe in, the things we care about most, are changing. Eroding. Our right to speak. Our right to gather. Our right to privacy. The freedom to work, and practice our religion, and raise and protect our families the way we see fit.

… They are core freedoms. The core values that have always defined us as a nation and we feel them — we feel them — slipping away. All across America, everywhere I go, people come up to me and say, “Wayne, I’ve never been worried about this country — until now.” Not with anger, but with sadness in their eyes.

… We fear for the safety of our families — it’s why neighborhood streets that were once filled with bicycles and skateboards, laughter in the air, now sit empty and silent. In virtually every way, for the things we care about most, we feel profound loss.

We are sad not because we fear something IS going wrong , but because we know something already HAS gone wrong. It’s why more and more Americans are buying firearms and ammunition — not to cause trouble, but because we sense that America is already IN trouble. We know that, sooner or later, reckless government actions and policies have consequences. That when government corrupts the truth and breaks faith with the American people, the entire fabric of our society — everything we believe in and count on — is in jeopardy.

… The IRS is now a weapon. A weapon to punish anyone who disagrees with them, and that mean s every one of you. They try to regulate our religion . They collect our cell phone and email data. They give us Solyndra, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Obamacare, massive unemployment, a debt that will choke our grandchildren and one executive order on top of another.

… We trust our freedom. In this uncertain world, surrounded by lies and corruption, there is no greater freedom than the right to survive , to protect our families with all the rifles, shotguns and handguns we want . We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and car-jackers and knock-out gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all. I ask you. Do you trust this government to protect you?

We are on our own. That is a certainty, no less certain than the absolute truth — a fact the powerful political and media elites continue to deny, just as sure as they would deny our right to save our very lives. The life or death truth that when you’re on your own, the surest way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun! …

He concluded with …

(a) a recruiting pitch:

NRA members — those great Americans — THEY are the real muscle of NRA’s clout. Become one of THEM. … Join the NRA movement to reclaim our nation and restore our core American values.

(b) And the lyrics “I’m bulletproof, nothin’ to lose, fire away, fire away” from David Guetta’s “Titanium Lyrics”:
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Some facts about the plague of gun violence in America

From the website of the Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence:

We lose on average 32 people a day to gun murders in the U.S.

The homicide rate in the U.S. is 6.9 times higher than 22 other high-income, high population countries, combined.

» Click here for a list of mass shootings 2005 2012. {64 pages long!}

For More Information about fear

(a) Posts about gun rights