Guns Guns Guns ... and More Guns: Texas Leads The Way In NRA's Armed Revolt

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas House approved a batch of bills Saturday to further soften gun laws that were already among the country's most firearms-friendly, allowing college students to carry handguns in class, putting potentially armed marshals in public schools and exempting the state from any future federal bans on assault rifles, high-capacity magazines or universal background checks.

Texas has exquisite timing: with all that pro-gun legislation coming at the same time that the NRA hosted the world's snazziest gun extravaganza in Houston, it was sure to surround itself with tens of thousands of Second Amendmenters who stood their ground on the nation's gun issues along with some opportunists straight out of a mockumentary:

Nine acres of exhibits at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston show off guns, scopes, grips, holsters, targets, magazines, cabinets, safes and antiques.And that's just the beginning.Zombie Industries sells $90 bleeding zombie targets. The human-scale targets can take thousands of rounds, and come in terrorist, Nazi, alien and zombie kangaroo varieties.

Added to holster bras and, well, you get the picture: it was a show to tell the world that America was "gun country" and that Texas is its capital.

But for all its bravado, Texas looks now looks like the stronghold of isolationism: of then 5 million members boasted by the NRA, most of them live in Texas. And most of them idolize isolationists like Glenn Beck. True, some form of revolt is in the air, but how many states are seriously considering it? How many are so rabidly pro-gun that they are willing to eradicate federal statutes?

What About The Children?

In a horrific accident Tuesday that shocked a rural area far removed from the national debate over gun control, the boy had killed his 2-year-old sister, Caroline, with a single shot to the chest.

The recent incident of 5-year-old Kristian and 2-year-old Caroline shocked the nation, not because so much because of the incident itself, but because it woke up to the fact that, for years, a gun manufacturer had been marketing guns for children. We've all seen children pictured with guns - even assault rifles - but assumed those guns were the property of their parents. "My First Rifle", manufactured by gun maker, Keystone, has been around for a number of years. It even markets to small girls with guns in stereotypical pink.

The NRA shrugged off the incident as a fluke, since "guns are passed down from generation to generation" in rural America and Keystone posturing as an advocate for gun safety.

But urban America is not buying it: the outcry has been horrendous, with Sandy Hook giving everyone visions of even younger assailants gunning down classmates. Try as it might, America cannot wrap its psyche around a child getting a gun as a gift ... at the age of four.

And in Texas, where "everybody carries a gun" (or at least seems to), guns for children seem as natural as toys.



Rick Perry - The Pride Of Gary Cass

"You can't be Christian and not own a gun," has been the rallying cry of sorts for Pastor Gary Cass, who, when following up his statement said that it would definitely go well in Texas. This is an aspect that governor Rick Perry focused on in his appearance at the NRA show-of-strength when he fired off an assault rifle. His appearance, in fact, gave the show a religious imprimatur: ever since he broadcast his Fundamentalist religiosity (along with his blatant homophobia) with a sponsored "prayer rally" in 2011, he has been the darling of the Christian Right.

He has also been the darling of Texas secessionists: his rumblings of revolt have always been heard in the distance, but the current gun debate has made his rumblings into a rather potent roar.

Beyond Glenn Beck

The gun debate has taken the country beyond the conspiracy theories of Glenn Beck: yes, Beck epitomizes the isolationism Texas is leaning towards, but Beck's hunker-down attitude is not what Americans see in the resolute state of Texas.

They see outright, armed revolt.

DJesus Uncrossed or Rambo Jesus? Aren't They The Same, Bryan Fischer?

For years, Bryan Fischer, the most righteously arrogant man on the planet, has touted a kind of Rambo Jesus - a Messiah who will come back to kick ass. He's also an ardent NRA supporter and rip-snortin' vigilante. So why is Bryan Fischer upset at SNL for DJesus Uncrossed? (See below). He's just warning, of course. Just warning. The man is actually salivating at the possibility that DU will come to pass. 

Such are the ways of the righteously arrogant.

Lauren Bacall Is Targeted On NRA Enemies List! And You May Be Too!

The NRA Enemies List is not exactly a "hit" list, but with the virulent anger of gun advocates against any form of gun control, it might as well be. Public figures have always been targets for "righteous assassination", but the latest list put out by the NRA is extensive enough to fill any paranoid malcontent's dream.

It's called the NRA-ILA National Organizations With Anti-Gun Policies list, and it's surprisingly extensive in scope and basically demonizes some of the most loved personages and organizations in the country. Granted, you wouldn't find any of these people at a dinner honoring Glenn Beck, but you have to wonder what the logic is in naming the United Church of Christ. Or the National Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officers.

Then again, anything considered "progressive"...

Anything or anyone.

The list of over 450 organizations, celebrities and media outlets demonstrates the innate paranoia the NRA has and enables throughout the country. They may be related (second cousins twice removed) to people who expressed a mild interest in gun control or worse, they may even be people who are actually FOR gun control (!) and as such should be lumped in with the Obamas who want to take our guns away and enslave us.

They are definitely not people who embrace guns as the only way of life (as it should be).

The list also shows its immense bias towards any personalities or organizations it considers "liberal demonspawn": it could have been put together by the likes of Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association or Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. Prominent progressives, teachers, psychologists, actors and cartoonists make more than half the list.*

Organizations - 133

Acronyms may (ironically) be too much for the NRA, so they spelled out organizations like the American Psychological Association and the American Bar Association, but made allowances for AARP and the AFL-CIO and the YWCA.

One seemingly odd entry is the American Firearms Association, but perhaps this is why:

"We reject the 'Armed Populace' doctrine of the NRA as misguided and unrealistic."

And while the NRA Organizations list doesn't look too racist, it does manage to include the Congress of National Black Churches and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference along with the NAACP. That may be enough.

And then there are the organizations with "American" in their names:

Ambulatory Pediatric Association
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Civil Liberties Union
American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing
American Medical Women`s Association
American Medical Student Association
American Medical Association
American Association for the Surgery of Trauma
American Trauma Society
American Federation of Teachers
American Association of School Administrators
American Alliance for Rights and Responsibilities
American Medical Association
American Bar Association
American Counseling Association
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Association for World Health
American Ethical Union
American Nurses Association
American Association of Neurological Surgeons
American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences
American Firearms Association
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
American Jewish Committee
American Trauma Society
American Psychological Association
American Jewish Congress
American Public Health Association
Americans for Democratic Action

Other Organization stand-outs: the Gray Panthers and the League of Women Voters.

Individuals and Celebrities - 203

Perhaps the reason Lauren Bacall's name stands out in particular is because she was involved in another list over 60 years ago: Joe McCarthy's list. The parallels are striking: the groups represented by individuals could have been culled from McCarthy's own notepad: Writers (8) fared better than actors (140) but not as well as NFL players (1). And the age of the invidious gun control personages is telling: 25 are above the age of 70, and some, like Nora Ephron are ... dead.

Some obvious and not so obvious:

Tony Bennet
Maya Angelou
Ed Asner
Alec Baldwin
Kevin Costner
Sean Connery
Pam Dawber
Fran Drescher
Sandy Duncan
Fannie Flag
Geraldo Rivera
Richard Gere
Hal Holbrook
Chaka Khan
Spike Lee
Bette Midler
May Tyler Moore
Jack Nicholson
Mary Lou Retton
Bonnie Raitt
Martin Sheen
Anne Rice
Neil Simon

Meryl Streep

Henry Winkler
Catherine Zeta-Jones

Oh, and Oprah (who's listed as an "entertainer')

National Figures - 29

Poor Ed Koch just missed knowing he was on the list, but C. Everett Koop must be proud since he's in the same group as Jimmy Carter.

National corporations - 43

"When you care enough to shoot the very worst" is evidently a sentiment the NRA would like to see on greeting cards. And it would probably like Ben & Jerry's to consider some kind of gun-friendly flavor ("Chocolate Bullet Hole"?), along with bullet-proof jeans from Levi's. Silly as these suggestions may seem, they and others might reach the ears of the companies' heads since along with the names of the companies, the names and contacts of their CEOs were also published. St. Louis University made this list - the only university to do so. One wonders why UC Berkeley was snubbed.

Media Outlets - 22
Journalists and Cartoonists - 35

The NRA list of anti-gun media outlets might be predictable if for one exception: Motorcyle Cruiser Magazine. And among cartoon titans, Gary Trudeau has been enshrined in the NRA's Hall of Horrors.

The Rest Of Us

Considering the size of the some of the corporations and organizations on the list (Southwestern Bell, American Medical Association and Sprint, e.g.), the NRA should have a hard time convincing the country that gun control is evil, but then again, it has persuasive pundits and personalities like Chuck Norris and Ann Coulter.

The Trigger-Happy Have Spoken

The impassioned pleas of Newtown parents for gun control were drowned out by NRA wingnuts at Hartford Connecticut's General Assembly meeting concerning the banning of assault weapons. 

In other words, PARANOIA REIGNED

Hypocrisy Hits The Skids: NRA Targets Protection Of President's Daughters

Media Matters 
Blog ››› January 16, 2013 3:09 PM EST ››› TIMOTHY JOHNSON
The National Rifle Association has released a four-and-a-half minute video in response to the proposals to curb gun violence unveiled by the Obama administration. Chock-full of fast cuts and given a heart-pounding soundtrack, the ad attacks members of the media for criticizing the NRA and calls Obama a hypocrite for protecting his children with armed guards.

In the Great Gun Debate, the NRA stands ...small: it's new efforts to engender more guns in schools has sparked a national furor and backfired against the organization.

We hope. But in all the furor over the NRA's criticism of Obama's Secret Service security for his two daughters Sasha and Malia, one factor has not yet been addressed: President Barack Obama has received more death threats than any other president and his family has received them as well.:

"...a woman who knew the Obamas' Hawaii vacation itinerary and threatened to "blow away" the First Lady was arrested a mile from where the First Family was staying. Others have threatened the Obama girls, Sasha and Malia."

Numerous death threats may be one reason why the President renewed a lifetime protection plan for himself and future presidents - a benefit that was stripped in 1994. Former President Bush now has more protection as well. 

Protection From Whom?

Ever since the assassination of President McKinley, the Secret Service has had the responsibility of protecting Presidents and their families from harm. Part of its duties is to monitor any threats against the families. There is no doubt, however, that the source of a majority of the threats against the lives of the current President and his family is racially and "survivalist" motivated: the paranoia of America has reached fever pitch and that has resulted in a greater number of threats.

From Imprecatory Prayers to Gun Site ads to Glenn Beck

Since 2008, Barack Obama has been called "demonspawn" and the "Anti-Christ" by Right wing pastors across the country. "Imprecatory prayers" (praying for the death or harm to come to someone) were voiced from pulpits (Faithful Word Baptist Church comes to mind) and more pastors have been pictured with guns as a statement of the Second Amendment than ever before.





Paranoia has hit the streets of America with pastors like Gary Cass ("You can't be Christian and not own a gun") and it is to pastors like Cass and Hagee that the President's protection of his family can be seen as a kind of reverse paranoia. In fact, with the likes of gun-toting pastors, it is surprising that the President is not even more suspicious of the Christian Right and its vehement adherence to the Second Amendment.

As well, Christian Right darlings like Sarah Palin have used gun sites and sharp-shooting promotions to foster animosity towards other politicians. The now infamous ad against Gabrielle Giffords using gun sites and a "hit list" sparked other ads against hated "liberal" politicians calling for stricter gun control laws.




The heated rhetoric of Right wing media such as Glenn Beck is also under scrutiny: the incident of an armed man about to blast away the ACLU and the Tides Foundation certainly indicated that President Obama was just as much as target in the minds of the Rowen Williamses of America.

Hypocrite?

The NRA as enabler for paranoia has been substantial. and well-documented. It's inability to correlate incidents such as the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, the arrest of Rowan Williams and the death threats to President Obama to its own demonizing is oddly pernicious to its own image, but also shows that it is slowly divorcing itself from reality:

the President and his family need protection from adherents of the NRA.

"I'm Gonna Start Killing People": Tactical Response "Patriot" Video Warns America.

Inviting the FBI to investigate you for threatening bodily harm to American citizens may not be the smartest thing to do.

Then again, nobody expects "Patriot Movement" or "survivalists" to be smart. Lock-and-load mentalities are what they are. And in the video below, we get to see a lock-and-load mentality at its most brutal and its most irrational: James Yeager, "CEO" of Tactical Response blatantly states that if President Obama tries to take away his assault weapons, he will act as a "patriot" and "start killing people."

The video has sparked a furor. "Unhinged" "Nutjob" "Anarchist" "Far too many fries short of a Happy Meal." but for all the response, it is REAL, and everyone must deal with it. The YouTube Channel for Tactical Response has since taken down the video and replaced it with "gonna start killing people" edited out, but the force of the video has shaken Americans to their very core.

It All Started With...

A FOX News Headline:

Biden to meet with NRA after suggestion White House could act on gun control 

without Congress

Which devolved into A Drudge Report headline featuring Hitler and Stalin:



Nice going, Drudge. Nazis, Commies, Dictators are all piled in a convoluted mess for the lock-and-load mind.

What FOX and Drudge failed to point out was that Biden's suggestion was in small attempts by the White House in gun control and that the White House does not have the power to exert executive orders concerning higher gun control (such as banning assault weapons). The WH might make a suggestion to the Congress on that matter, but James Yeager's representatives would have to vote on it: a far cry from "dictator".

The Old Paranoia Renewed

We began to see the results of the paranoia that struck after Sandy Hook. Yeager, a weapons salesman and trainer, is now the extreme result: "patriot movement" and "survivalist" hate groups have sprung up all over the country at an alarming rate in the past four years, with people like Yeager ready to blow at the slightest mention of curtailing Second Amendment rights.

And he followed on the tails of another ranter, Alex Jones. Jones and his tirade on Piers Morgan's CNN program and on Piers Morgan himself (he wants to have Piers deported for supporting gun control) went viral - but in the wrong direction, displaying the NRA as completely unhinged. What Yeager and Jones may have done, in fact,, is to sway the public away from the tenets of the NRA and more towards Obama's plans for greater gun control:

     "I can't think of a better advertisement for gun control than Alex Jones' interview last night," Morgan told CNN on Tuesday. "It was startling, it was terrifying in parts, it was completely deluded. It was based on a premise of making Americans so fearful that they all rush out to buy even more guns ... the kind of twisted way that he turned everything into this assault on the Second Amendment is exactly what the gun rights lobby people do."

It also drowns out NRA chief Wayne LaPierre's proposal that there should be more guns in schools: can you see a James Yeager standing guard at your local school with a "stand your ground" attitude? The image is one of frightening paranoia resulting in bloodshed. Greater if the school happens to be in an inner city. 

What of Yeager?

If James Yeager is questioned by the FBI, cries of Ruby Ridge will undoubtedly surface and he will become a "patriot" hero. If the NRA decides to take the quiet road, Yeager will be dismissed as a "nutjob" and "renegade". Sides will be taken, for sure and perhaps the ultimate loss will be sanity.

In an ironic promo for a Tactical Response gun training DVD:

"FINALLY - a DVD training system that trains the brain before the body!" 

 Right.

David Barton's Latest Virtue: Hatred. All He Needs To Do Now Is To Team Up With The NRA and Gary Cass

So we've got to get to the point where tolerance is seen as a sin because we're tolerating a lot stuff that destroys our families, that destroys our own character and we can't tolerate that stuff. We have to get back to the point where hate is a virtue, at least certain kinds of hate. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil and we need to have a hatred of things and get off this fence of having no passion about anything. You know, I tolerate anything, I'm not going to have a passion good or bad, I'm not going to hate anything ... We just can't do that and we've got to get back to that same type of intolerance, that we're going to be intolerant of liberalism. - DAVID BARTON

David Barton has said (ad nauseum) that America is a Christian nation. However, between Barton's lines (as well as lies - as in his book, The Jefferson Lies), it's evident that he has long been an advocate of a Christian ONLY nation. His Dominionism is so obvious it reeks. He also insists that EVERYTHING is mentioned in the Bible (somehow my computer got left out, but there you go). What has been lacking in Barton's ideology - until now - is the means for carrying out his Dominionism.

Let's hate liberalism is an open invitation to hate liberals (i.e. gays, feminists, pro-choice, etc.), but Barton's adherents may be too dense to get it. Let's hope that none of them listen to him and Gary "You-can't be Christian and not own a gun" Cass.