{"id":21607,"date":"2022-06-06T08:56:47","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T08:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=21607"},"modified":"2022-06-06T08:56:47","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T08:56:47","slug":"the-nra-exists-to-keep-profits-booming-and-guns-in-the-hands-of-the-state-and-right-wing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2022\/06\/06\/the-nra-exists-to-keep-profits-booming-and-guns-in-the-hands-of-the-state-and-right-wing\/","title":{"rendered":"The NRA exists to keep profits booming and guns in the hands of the state and right wing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article, written by Ezra Bain, addressing the right wing nature of the National Rifle Association, was posted by Left Voice (USA)<\/a> in the aftermath of the shooting of 19 children and 2 adults in Uvalde, Texas and 10 adults by a white supremacist in Buffalo, New York .<\/strong><\/p>\n

THE NRA EXISTS RO KEEP PROFITS BOOMING AND GUNS IN THE HANDS OF THE STATE AND THE RIGHT WING<\/strong><\/p>\n


\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today, a group of right-wingers are gathering to fetishize guns. The cast of characters includes a former president, multiple sitting congresspeople, and the\u00a0senator<\/a>\u00a0of a state which just saw the fourth deadliest school shooting in American history. There also will be members of the far-right group the\u00a0Oath Keepers<\/a>,\u00a0people who attempted<\/a>\u00a0to overturn the results of the last election,\u00a0weapons<\/a>\u00a0manufacturers,\u00a0people<\/a>\u00a0who call queer people \u201cdegenerates,\u201d and an\u00a0actor<\/a>\u00a0who once played Superman. And that\u2019s just the\u00a0board members.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The National Rifle Association (NRA) hosts their annual convention this weekend just a few days after\u00a0a school shooting in Uvalde<\/a>\u00a0left 19 children and two adults dead and a few weeks after a white supremacist fatally shot 10 peoplein a\u00a0supermarket in Buffalo<\/a>. Yet, the convention \u2014 the Association\u2019s first since the pandemic began \u2014 is proceeding as normal, complete with a keynote speech from Donald Trump. The event will also feature speeches from multiple members of the\u00a0military<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0police<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While the NRA has the audacity to tout itself as \u201cAmerica\u2019s longest-standing civil rights organization,\u201d in actuality it\u2019s a devoutly right-wing organization which works to protect the profits of the gun manufacturers who\u00a0fund them<\/a>. Indeed, the NRA functions as the\u00a0primary lobbying arm<\/a>\u00a0of the entire gun industry and donates in\u00a0huge numbers<\/a>\u00a0to politicians \u2014 and not just far-right Trumpist politicians. In fact, the NRA has donated\u00a0millions<\/a>\u00a0to North Carolina Senator Richard Burr, who voted to convict Trump in the impeachment trial, Senate Majority Leader \u2014 and Trump opponent \u2014\u00a0Mitch McConnell<\/a>, and even a\u00a0handful<\/a>\u00a0of Democrats.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the NRA spent\u00a0$250 million<\/a>\u00a0in 2020, largely on lobbying and donations to stop even attempts at discussing gun policy. This is indicative of the way that lobbying works under the current system: corporations give off-shoot lobby organizations huge swaths of cash which they then use to \u201cinfluence\u201d policy by passing that money on to politicians. Politicians of both parties are happy to accept this money and, in return, do the bidding of whichever industry has bankrolled them. This is such a bipartisan phenomenon that in 2022, Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is currently the\u00a0top recipient<\/a>\u00a0of lobbying money, by a pretty wide margin.<\/p>\n

Yet, for all of their blustering about protecting gun rights, the NRA has consistently failed to even\u00a0make a statement<\/a>when the most policed group of gun owners is targeted by the state. There\u2019s a reason for this, of course, and it\u2019s that the gun owners who face the most repression are Black. But the NRA isn\u2019t interested in them. Not when the police killed Philando Castile in front of his child for having a\u00a0legal and licensed gun<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>in his glove compartment \u2014 which he\u00a0informed<\/a>\u00a0the police he had a license to carry. Not when Tamir Rice was killed for having a toy gun.\u00a0Not when<\/a>\u00a0Kenneth Walker, Breonna Taylor\u2019s partner, fired his\u00a0legal and licensed gun\u00a0<\/em>to protect himself from a home invasion and was then\u00a0arrested<\/a>. Not even when Gaige Grosskreutz, a white gun owner and BLM protester, was shot while attempting to be a \u201cgood guy with a gun\u201d against active shooter Kyle Rittenhouse. Instead, the NRA tweeted\u00a0text of the 2nd amendment in\u00a0support<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>of Rittenhouse immediately after his acquittal and never spoke of Grosskreutz at all. The list of the NRA\u2019s refusal to support Black gun owners\u00a0goes on and on and on<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In fact, rather than show any support for the Black Lives Matter Movement \u2014 a movement which featured the actualization of the famous NRA hypothetical of \u201cjack-booted<\/a>\u00a0government thugs [taking] away our constitutional rights \u2026 and even injur[ing] or kill[ing] us,\u201d \u2014 leaders of the NRA spoke\u00a0against\u00a0<\/em>the movement.\u00a0One board member<\/a>called BLM a \u201crancid evil,\u201d a former NRATV host called Castile a\u00a0\u201cgun-toting thug,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and another NRA board member wrote\u00a0multiple<\/a>\u00a0op-eds<\/a>\u00a0against the movement. Indeed, the NRA is so pro-cop and that they even have a\u00a0special division<\/a>\u00a0for law enforcement.<\/p>\n

But the NRA\u2019s racism isn\u2019t anything new. They supported\u00a0George Zimmerman<\/a>\u00a0and, most damningly,\u00a0even supported gun control laws<\/a>\u00a0when it was aimed at\u00a0disarming the Black Panther Party<\/a>. The 1967 Mulford Act was a California state law (pushed through by then-governor Ronald Reagan) which was a direct reaction to the Black Panther\u2019s policy of arming themselves. The law banned open carry of loaded firearms and banned all loaded firearms inside the state capital. This was a direct response to, amongst other things, a 1967 occupation of the state capitol by 30 armed Black Panthers. Compare the NRA\u2019s response to this to their response to the January 6 riots and it is clear who the NRA is interested in advocating for.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s convention will feature many grand speeches about freedom, liberty, civil rights, and the Constitution. But the NRA is little more than a front group for the gun industry which has cunningly used the rhetoric of freedom and resisting state repression to work in tandem with the state to ensure that guns are kept in the hands of a privileged minority \u2014 specifically middle- and upper-class white people. For all their talk about \u201cjackbooted thugs,\u201d the NRA has not only welcomed those thugs but given them their own special division within the organization and multiple speaking slots at their convention.<\/p>\n

The NRA isn\u2019t interested in protecting gun rights for the oppressed, they\u2019re interested in protecting gun rights for right-wingers and ensuring that the state keeps its monopoly on violence. It\u2019s not a civil rights group \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s a group of heavily armed bigots<\/p>\n

27.5.22<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following article, written by Ezra Bain, addressing the right wing nature of the National Rifle Association, was posted by Left Voice (USA) in the aftermath of the shooting of 19 children and 2 adults in Uvalde, Texas and 10 adults by a white supremacist in Buffalo, New York . THE NRA EXISTS RO KEEP…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1843,1858,1861,1845,1868,8975],"tags":[9105],"class_list":["post-21607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-capitalists-organise","category-oppression-liberation","category-alienation-self-determination","category-us-imperialism","category-against-imperialism","category-black-liberation","tag-author-ezra-bain"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"views":7843,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21609,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21607\/revisions\/21609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}