A near-ritual around the time of the National Rifle Association's annual meeting -- of which I've been to way too many -- is "the big announcement." Ideally, "the big announcement" gets strong mainstream press coverage on the NRA's terms, helps activate the NRA's base, and positions the NRA as thumping the chest of those who support strong gun controls.
Probably the best example of this occurred in 2000, when on the opening day of its annual meeting, the NRA announced palans for an "NRA Cafe" in New York's Times Square. Despite promises by NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre that the organization planned to spend more than six million dollars to build the cafe, dubbed NRASports Blast, near Broadway and Seventh Avenue, after all the hoo ha, nothing happened. But the NRA's mission had been accomplished. LaPierre got to stand in the middle of Times Square and be interviewed on the Today Show, coming across as Teddy Roosevelt, Donald Trump, and Colonel Sanders all rolled into one. NRA members got to sit around and fantasize about their own special oasis right in the heart of gun control-land (one could only imagine: Next stop, San Francisco! Washington, DC! Chicago!) and look forward to asking snooty New Yorkers, "Which way to the NRA Cafe, pal?"
Well, that never happened.
This week the NRA's annual meeting opens in Milwaukee, and the "big announcement" is that the NRA is launching a nationwide campaign today under the battle cry of "Remember New Orleans" targeting mayors and police chiefs to pledge to never confiscate firearms in the wake of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. Not only does the campaign meet all the criteria of "the big announcement," but the NRA sees it as having two additional benefits. First, it can be used as a tool to blunt the growing cry by big-city mayors and police chiefs to halt illegal gun trafficking into their cities. And second, it can bring in the dollars. As LaPierre said in a November 2005 interview with National Journal regarding the NRA's focus on police actions during Hurricane Katrina: "This will probably mint money for us."
While the NRA Cafe played to the animosity many gun owners hold toward "East Coast liberals" and their "big city" ways, this latest campaign exploits a far more dangerous component of the pro-gun hard core: its anti-law enforcement fringe. The NRA's Katrina campaign marks a return to the fear tactics the organization embraced in the early 1990s during the Clinton Administration, when the organization adopted the language of the anti-government militia movement, warning that "The Final War Has Begun," calling federal agents "jack booted government thugs" and "storm troopers," and comparing the FBI to goose-stepping Nazis. The NRA abandoned the campaign after former NRA member Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, killing 168 people.
Written attacks on law enforcement are common on pro-gun web sites and discussion forums. A web site -- www.keepandbeararms.com -- owned by the Second Amendment Foundation, which filed a suit against the City of New Orleans with the NRA challenging gun confiscations during Katrina, regularly has posted comments attacking law enforcement. The web site even has a section titled "The Authorities" which features alleged government intrusions on gun ownership and police misconduct. Posts on the site that appeared following Hurricane Katrina and reports of weapon confiscations were in general agreement that there was too much "talk, talk, talk" and not enough "shoot, shoot, shoot" --
o "I do not care who you are, or what authority you claim to possess. If you attempt to disarm me, I will kill you. It is becoming increasingly clear that the government will use any tragedy or excuse to violate our rights and further expand their totalitarian regime....When the government begins to violate the rights of citizens under the auspices of keeping order, hunt down and kill all who follow such illegal orders. Only in this way will liberty prevail."
o "Twenty JBT's [jack-booted thugs] outside your house may be bullet proof but they're not fire proof."
o "I hear that some JBTs [jack-booted thugs] enjoy cocktails after work. One cocktail they wouldn't enjoy would be a molotov cocktail."
o "From my upstairs window, I can cover the front yards of three neighbors. I make head shots at that range freehand all the time. With .223 fmj [full-metal jacket] and up, vest penetration shouldn't be a problem, either."
o "I have read several accounts, that if it were me, there would have been gun play. I don't say that lightly, however, I would not willingly be illegally disarmed and/or have my dogs shot. I may go down, but I guarantee that I would take more than one of the bastards with me. It is not too much of a stretch with superior weapons to take down a few rogue police.
o "I will let the government (city, state, or federal) take my firearms one round at a time, after a good sight picture and trigger squeeze. Give me liberty or give me DEATH!!!
While it's easy to dismiss such comments as the puffed-up blather of New World Order fantasists, the danger of the NRA's campaign is that -- just like its anti-law enforcement campaign of the 1990s -- it validates these views, with the proven potential to turn isolated cranks into violent "patriots" like Timothy McVeigh.