Ted Nugent, the controversial rocker-turned-gun rights advocate, is quite the fan of violent rhetoric, as was evident again this week during an interview on the NRA News program "Cam & Co."
Throughout the course of an interview loosely focused on the latest Congressional gun control efforts, Nugent riffed on several of his common talking points, including his disapproval of President Barack Obama and his distrust of any form of gun control legislation.
Show host Cam Edwards helped fan the flames, suggesting that the version of universal background checks legislation being debated in the Senate is essentially “the Ban Ted Nugent Act of 2013" and could lead to felony convictions for using a borrowed gun.
"It's time to take a side," Nugent said, referring to moderates.
Nugent also reminded Edwards of comments he made in April of 2012, when he vowed to "either be dead or in jail by this time next year" if Obama was reelected.
"The left dominates the public discourse," Nugent told the host. "And here we are, with the Chicago gangster, ACORN rip-off, scam artist-in-chief because we, who know better, were silent... But when I kick the door down to the enemy's camp, would you help me shoot somebody? Just help me clear the room."
However, Nugent was quick to clarify that his "shoot somebody" terminology was merely a metaphor on "how to counter punch the enemy."
Throughout the past few years, the aging musician has re-invented himself as one of the far right's most outrageous provocateurs, blaming the Sandy Hook massacre on the "politically correct" mentality in American culture, saying Obama "represents everything bad about humanity" and boasting that he killed more than 400 pigs with a machine gun.
Still, America seems to be growing more and more intolerant of violent political metaphors -- something Sarah Palin found out the hard way after her "crosshairs" map sparked a firestorm of protest in 2010.
More recently, Colorado gun rights lobbyist Dudley Brown drew criticism for telling NPR the next election would be a "time to hunt Democrats."
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