JEANINE PIRRO (5/3/2013): Welcome to the United States of America, where a dead terrorist bomber from Chechnya has more rights than an American citizen.
SARAH PALIN (5/3/2013): This is a fight for the future of freedom!
WAYNE LaPIERRE (5/4/2013): Lying in wait right now is a terrorist, a deranged school shooter, a kidnapper, a rapist, a murderer. Waiting and planning and plotting.
(audience cheering and applause)
Yeah, he's talking about you people!
Yep, there's a terrorist and criminals waiting and plotting, and because of this guy, they can get a gun on the Internet with no background checks! You're welcome, everybody!
But of course, these types of contradictions — "they use fear, we use fear" — are not an anomaly, not a bug in the NRA system, but a feature. At the heart of the NRA message is, "Don't let liberals say it's a dangerous world and scare you into gun control. Let us say it's a dangerous world, and scare you into gun-a-palooza!"
....
In fact, these guys aren't too sure about the difference between democracy and tyranny either.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (5/4/2013): Well I'll tell ya, I was proud to join with my friends, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) ... in writing a short and simple letter to Harry Reid that said we will filibuster any legislation that undermines the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. (wild NRA audience cheering and applause)
Woo! They did it. And their filibuster was able to defeat the Senate gun control bill, including the Manchin-Toomey bipartisan background check amendment, supported by 90% of Americans, and 55 out of 100 Senators. Get it? 55 out of 100. That's democracy.
Here's tyranny, in the same speech, three minutes earlier, Cruz talking about a gun rights bill he supported.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (5/4/2013): That bill got 52 votes in the U.S. Senate, including nine Democrats. ... And what happened? Harry Reid and the rest of the Democrats filibustered the bill and killed it, demanding 60 votes. (NRA audience boos the filibuster)
You know it's the same fucking thing, right?
Look, here's what crazy. We all want the same thing — bad guys not to have guns. Some people, including myself, believe a good way to do that, at least to start, is to check who's buying them. Or make the guns somewhat traceable, so when the bad guys get them, we can figure out how. Not, wait for a bad guy to draw, and then draw faster. Which, by the way, if that's what you want, OK. We'll have that debate. But stop pretending that background checks are the last barrier standing between a free America, and Obama-sponsored government mom rape. (wild audience cheering and applause)
I hope you guys had a good weekend. I had a very nice weekend. I spent a good two minutes of it watching the Kentucky Derby. The rest of it, I spent watching the 142nd Annual Convention of the National Rifle Association held this year in Park Slope, Brook... uh, no, I mean... I'm sorry, Houston, Texas, where high-velocity projectile lovers of one stripe came together to raise their hands in the air. Not to party like they just don't care, but to high-five each other with their non-gun holding hand. It was to celebrate the single issue that binds members of the National Rifle Association.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (5/4/2013): The Obama liberals want to disregard the Tenth Amendment, and are trying to implement Obamacare and take away our liberties.
I'm sorry, General Patton, I um.... Anyway, I guess Obama's health care reform is designed to take your liberties, but we're really focusing on gun and rifle related issues, so....
RICK SANTORUM (5/3/2013): Why are they going after chaplains in the military, saying they can't evangelize and prostelicize (sic)?
(audience laughter)
My guess is that word does not mean what I think it might mean. Again, very important, the war on Christians there, but getting back to guns?
5/3/2013:
RICK PERRY: We're creating jobs, day in and day out in this state.
JOHN BOLTON: ... in Benghazi, on September the 11th of last year ...
SARAH PALIN: The mayor of New York now wants to ban public displays of legal tobacco products.
Yes, yes, yes, I know how upset you get, Sarah Palin, when you're in New York, and walk into a bodega, and can't find your Phillies Blunts. Look, you've been here twice — twice — and once because McCain made you, so nyaaaah!
Wait a minute, all these people... this is the same lineup with the same laundry list of conservative grievances that we saw at CPAC a month and a half ago, just with better introductions.
5/3/2013:
(video of Rick Perry shooting at targets and looking tough)
RICK PERRY: Yeah! Welcome to Texas, ladies and gentlemen!
Wow. If that dude doesn't have a CMT show by tomorrow, Lock, Stock, &... Umm... Umm...
RICK PERRY (11/9/2011): Now let's see... I can't, the third one I can't. Sorry. Oops.
Yeah, oops. That's what it is, it's Lock, Stock, &... Umm... Umm... I Forgot the Third One, Oops. That's what the name of the show is.
I swear, these conservative guys, they're like carnies. They're the sausage and pepper trucks at street fairs. That's what you do when you want to make a local reference that people know. It's like when you go to San Gennaro, there's that Italian sausage & pepper guy, and you're like "great". You buy a sandwich. You think, "Wow, what a special festival this is." Then you go to the Upper Broadway Harvest Festival, and you're like, "Hey look, it's the same fucking sausage & pepper guy!" Then you go to the Puerto Rican Day Parade, and the St. Patrick's Day Parade, and Chinese New Year, any New York cultural event you go to, you're going to see the same sausage truck!
Except for that one, that's a different parade. It's a different, that's different. (wild audience cheering and applause)
I believe you can get peppers with that as well.
Look, eventually, the speakers did get to guns, and how upset they are at the way that their opponents are fighting.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (5/4/2013): The President is fond of using emotion ... and unfortunately disregarding the facts.
SARAH PALIN (5/3/2013): We have leaders who practice the politics of emotion.
GLENN BECK (5/4/2013): We will fight their tactics of fear, we will fight their tactics of darkness.
(in Yoda voice) "Yes, yes, yes, fight their darkness you will. Yes, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to hate-fucking. How this quote ends, I do not know."
All right, Luke Skywalker. Glenn Beck, fearmongering is wrong, you're right. Please make your point about guns in a rational and calm way.
GLENN BECK (5/4/2013): The only difference between your mom and sister getting raped and then walking home unmolested is a gun.
(disgusted audience response turning to boos)
You are aware that fear is an emotion, right? I mean, it's one of the big ones, along with, ah, there's three of them: guilt, and fear, and... ah... um... um... I forgot the third. Oops.
But continue, NRA convention, with your Vulcan-like appeal to reason. Tryin' to mix some Star Wars and Star Trek up in this bitch, yo!
JEANINE PIRRO (5/3/2013): Welcome to the United States of America, where a dead terrorist bomber from Chechnya has more rights than an American citizen.
SARAH PALIN (5/3/2013): This is a fight for the future of freedom!
WAYNE LaPIERRE (5/4/2013): Lying in wait right now is a terrorist, a deranged school shooter, a kidnapper, a rapist, a murderer. Waiting and planning and plotting.
(audience cheering and applause)
Yeah, he's talking about you people!
Yep, there's a terrorist and criminals waiting and plotting, and because of this guy, they can get a gun on the Internet with no background checks! You're welcome, everybody!
But of course, these types of contradictions — "they use fear, we use fear" — are not an anomaly, not a bug in the NRA system, but a feature. At the heart of the NRA message is, "Don't let liberals say it's a dangerous world and scare you into gun control. Let us say it's a dangerous world, and scare you into gun-a-palooza!"
But here's the problem. Their message is a simple one.
WAYNE LaPIERRE (5/4/2013): The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
I don't know about the only way. But even if that's right, this is a question of how do you determine the bad guy and the good guy, because the good guy might be a good guy, and then he turns into a bad guy, and you've already given him a gun, or you know, how do you know a bad guy won't become a good guy and then become a bad guy again, he also has a gun, you've already given him a gun! No gun!
So who are the bad guys?
GLENN BECK (5/4/2013): The Founders also warned about a time when government would take the guns. ... They knew that happens to governments, and governments turn against their people because the people go to sleep. ... Tyranny, then, would go undefeated.
By the way, Monopoly of Violence? Worst Monopoly game yet.
So we got it, government's the bad guy. Gotta have guns as a bulwark against tyranny.
WAYNE LaPIERRE (5/4/2013): Boston proves it. When brave law enforcement officers did their jobs in that city so courageously, good guys with guns stopped terrorists with guns.
Got it, government's the good... wait. So the police are the good guys, and who do they work for? The government! So you have no idea who the good guys are and the bad guys are. In fact, these guys aren't too sure about the difference between democracy and tyranny either.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (5/4/2013): Well I'll tell ya, I was proud to join with my friends, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) ... in writing a short and simple letter to Harry Reid that said we will filibuster any legislation that undermines the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. (wild NRA audience cheering and applause)
Woo! They did it. And their filibuster was able to defeat the Senate gun control bill, including the Manchin-Toomey bipartisan background check amendment, supported by 90% of Americans, and 55 out of 100 Senators. Get it? 55 out of 100. That's democracy.
Here's tyranny, in the same speech, three minutes earlier, Cruz talking about a gun rights bill he supported.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TX (5/4/2013): That bill got 52 votes in the U.S. Senate, including nine Democrats. ... And what happened? Harry Reid and the rest of the Democrats filibustered the bill and killed it, demanding 60 votes. (NRA audience boos the filibuster)
You know it's the same fucking thing, right?
Look, here's what crazy. We all want the same thing — bad guys not to have guns. Some people, including myself, believe a good way to do that, at least to start, is to check who's buying them. Or make the guns somewhat traceable, so when the bad guys get them, we can figure out how. Not, wait for a bad guy to draw, and then draw faster. Which, by the way, if that's what you want, OK. We'll have that debate. But stop pretending that background checks are the last barrier standing between a free America, and Obama-sponsored government mom rape. (wild audience cheering and applause) We'll be right back.
.
in their ad.