The NRA is a Terrorist Organization

With the horrendous situation in Israel front of mind for the world, the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” are being flung about again. Having written about that situation yesterday, naturally I am feeling the ire of both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian voices today. So be it. Given that I wrote that terrorism a tactic, not an organization, somebody asked me if I still believe the National Rifle Association is a terrorist organization. I do. The National Rifle Association is a terrorist organization.

Naturally, people are turned off by this characterization but I believe it is the correct one. When we think of “terrorist organizations,” we normally think of political groups: these are entities who have a stated political position, and use terrorism as a tactic to achieve that position. The NRA is different insomuch as their primary objectives are financial instead of political, but it amounts to the same thing. To achieve their financial aim of putting as many guns into the hands of as many Americans as possible, the NRA uses many tactics but fear is their primary one.

When they warn you that Democrats are coming to take away your guns, or that criminals are waiting to kill or rape you, or when they exploit mass shootings to gin up gun sales, they are using your fear - fear, which they create - to artificially inflate the market for firearms. Doing so, as they know, makes further gun violence inevitable. The new violence is used by the NRA to stoke more fear, which creates more gun violence, etc. Gun sales always rise after spectacular incidents of gun violence. The more of these incidents occur, the more guns they sell. It’s a vicious cycle, which they create. Their brand is terror and their primary tactic is terrorism.

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Like all terrorist organizations, fear may be their primary tactic but it is not their only tactic. They also provide material support for people, just as the NRA provides material support to politicians. ISIS and the NRA both have educational arms (spending on the NRA’s educational wing has diminished as their finances have worsened) They both have a strong social media presence. They attempt to persuade; when that doesn’t work, they intimidate. Further, both groups create conditions in which violence is a necessary and inevitable component of their work. Perhaps worst of all is the way both group pervert religion to get what they want.

Speaking to CPAC in 2018, LaPierre said about the Second Amendment: “It's not bestowed by man, but granted by God to all Americans as our American birthright. So I call right now today on every citizen who loves this country and who treasures this freedom to stand and unflinchingly defend the Second Amendment, the one freedom that protects us all.”

This is a neat trick, wrapping God, gun ownership and the preservation of the homeland itself into a new Holy Trinity. It is no different from the words of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, who said the following in 2014 when declaring the restoration of the caliphate:

“The time has come for those generations that were drowning in oceans of disgrace, being nursed on the milk of humiliation, and being ruled by the vilest of all people, after their long slumber in the darkness of neglect—the time has come for them to rise…The sun of jihad has risen. The glad tidings of good are shining. Triumph looms on the horizon. The signs of victory have appeared. Here the flag of the Islamic State, the flag of tawhid  rises and flutters.”

The imagery from both is similar: God, flag, guns. Why? Because the messaging is effective, the outcome inevitable. In the meantime, dollars flow along with the blood.

Thankfully, ISIS and the NRA have both seen their power diminish in recent years. In the case of ISIS, they have been beaten back militarily. In the case of the NRA, their wounds are more of the self-inflicted variety, ironic given that about half of the annual gun deaths in the US are suicides.

Just because the NRA is in dire straits does not mean that their messaging is going away, nor does it mean that another group will not rise to take their, using the same terroristic tactics, should the NRA succumb to their injuries. After all, the NRA is merely a marketing arm of the gun manufacturers. They are in place to take the slings and arrows for the gun makers. If the NRA goes down, the arms dealers will simply prop up another group to take their place. Already, groups like Gun Owners of America and The Second Amendment Foundation are picking up the NRA’s slack.

We do not like to think of prominent American 501(c)(3) nonprofits as terrorist organizations. After all, they filled out all the paperwork, they hold conventions, they are members in good standing with much of the American polite elite. But just because they are “respectable” does not mean they aren’t also guilty of aiding and abetting the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Americans over the last several decades. They are. By leveraging their financial clout to buy politicians, standing in the way of gun-control legislation, and fearmongering (terror), they have soaked America in the blood of its citizens, and, cynically, used their own guilt and complicity to draw even more blood. They are propagandists, peddlers of disinformation and lies, and they are guilty of creating the conditions for mass shootings. The NRA is a terrorist organization.