It’s generally recognized that the National Rifle Association has no decency, no shame and no class. We now have proof that this obnoxious organization has no sense, either:
Colion Noir, a commentator and web series host for the National Rifle Association (NRA), warned the parents of slain journalists Alison Parker and Adam Ward against becoming “so emotional” in response to the fatal shooting of their children that they channel their “grief-inspired advocacy” to the wrong effect.
The NRA and other opponents of stronger gun laws consistently argue that calls for new gun laws in the wake of a shooting tragedy are based on emotion rather than logic. Just hours after his daughter was killed, Andy Parker announced on national television that he would make it his “mission in life” to get stronger gun laws passed.
Parker’s mother, Barbara Parker, said during an interview on CNN, “We cannot be intimidated, we cannot be pushed aside, we cannot be told that this fight has been fought before and that we’re just one more grieving family trying to do something.”
On August 30, the NRA’s Noir posted a video response to the shocking August 26 murder of Parker and Ward, which happened while they were filming a live news report. The two journalists worked for Roanoke, Virginia ABC affiliate station WDBJ and were killed by a disgruntled former co-worker.
Noir, who is the face of an NRA effort to influence a younger demographic, said in his video post that while he has “no right to tell any parent how to grieve for the loss of their child,” “sometimes in a fight we can become so emotional everyone and thing starts looking like the enemy, even if they’re there to help us“…
Noir wasn’t as diplomatic throughout the rest of the video, saying at one point, “Turning this murder into a gun control dog-and-pony show minutes after the shooting because you can’t make sense of what just happened is ridiculous.“
Sick.
In the days before the GOP lost all vestiges of integrity, some Republicans would have pushed back against this sort of rancid rhetoric. It was only two decades ago that former President George H. W. Bush walked away from the NRA after the group demonized federal agents:
Former President George Bush has quit the National Rifle Assn. to protest a fund-raising letter sent out by the organization that labeled federal agents as “jackbooted thugs” and could roil the waters of the Republican presidential race.
Bush described himself as “outraged” by the organization’s failure to repudiate the letter, which points up the NRA’s vulnerability in the wake of the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. In a letter to NRA President Thomas Washington dated May 3 and made available by his office in Houston, the former GOP chief executive added: “To attack Secret Service agents or ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) people or any government law enforcement people as ‘wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms’ wanting to ‘attack law-abiding citizens’ is a vicious slander on good people.”
Bush was particularly irate because Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s chief lobbyist, defended the attack contained in the letter even after the Oklahoma City bombing. Asked if his language was excessive in view of the tragedy, LaPierre said: “That’s like saying the weather report in Florida on the hurricane caused the damage rather than the hurricane.”
These days, you’d probably find a Republican willing to defend Planned Parenthood before you’d find a Republican willing to condemn the NRA for this sleazy rhetorical assault on the Parker family. I guess it’s up to the rest of us to declare that the National Rifle Association deserves history’s strongest contempt and damnation.
UPDATE: More from Media Matters and the Washington Post.
