The NRA, once a champion of gun safety and environmental conservation, has turned into a right wing propaganda machine that uses the Second Amendment as a launching platform to gain political power. It does this by fueling fear and skepticism about our government to raise money for right wing candidates and disinformation advertisements filled with lies and guile, which leads to more money and more power. It’s like an MLM or pyramid marketing scheme that feeds off the conspiracies that it creates. Clever really, but this isn’t anything new.

As the gun control issue has become heated, the NRA has, predictably, emerged as the champion of the Right to bear arms. On its face I have no problem with this even though I wholeheartedly disagree with its message of arming teachers and blaming video games and opposing any legislation on the idea that we can’t stop all gun violence so we shouldn’t even try. Look, this is a debate that is long over due in America, we absolutely should be having this national conversation, and the NRA deserves to have a voice, as we all do. It certainly doesn’t need my approval, or anybody else’s, to be heard. This is how America works. This is, in part, what the First Amendment is about, and we must be grateful for it.

Alright, so what’s new?

The NRA help a press conference at the National Press Club, in Washington D.C., to unveil its twisted plans to arm teachers in schools around the country. The National Press Club had been informed of the NRA’s intentions to bring a small security staff (you know, because Journalists are known for plotting violent attacks?) along, so it was expected. What happened next was not.

The NRA sent former U.S. Representative Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) to make the case that guns, apparently, are now safety equipment. To help make his point, he was escorted by over 20 armed men who searched journalists bags, denied some entrance (in their own private club), then stood as intimidating armed sentinels over shocked journalists as Hutchinson spilled his tripe from the podium… Wait? What?

WOW!

The NRA, using the our First Amendment Rights to advance its views about our Second Amendment Rights, trampled the Rights of Journalists in their own house. Searching, seizing, and usurping the freedom of the press, only to continue the abuse through intimidation, using fear tactics to make a point.

In our new found reality, where every right winger is a Constitutional Scholar, I’ve got to ask where is the outrage?