Radical light skinned "freedom fighters" declare "culture war" against Americans
Several predominately "light skinned" men at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Houston this weekend terrified millions of Americans with extreme rhetoric advocating armed violence against mainstream American culture. Calling themselves freedom fighters, their senior leaders thundered that they were engaging in a "culture war" and urged their supporters to "stand and fight," presumably against the American government.
Alarmed by these developments, most Americans searched for explanations for this violent radicalism. Many asked in puzzlement, "Why do they hate us? How did they come here?" Several light-skinned people were also seriously concerned that they might be racially profiled based on the aberrant and extreme behavior of these paranoid white men.
Most mainstream organizations of light-skinned people were quick to deny any connections between their communities and the well-organized radical extremists in light of the recent spate of mass shootings committed by white males. An official light-skinned spokesman stated: "While we mourn for the victims of such terror, we cannot emphasize enough that the white ETHNIC European males who committed these acts were self-radicalized and seriously mentally ill random criminals. Their actions do not speak for all light skinned citizens: we are Americans too, and we stand ready to cooperate with any law enforcement investigation into the reach of violent extremism in our community."
Nevertheless, the general American population remains unnerved by what seems to be a frequent pattern of such radical actions by light-skinned males. An anonymous observer said: "Sure, not all light-skinned males say and do these extreme things, but most people who do are light-skinned males." Meanwhile, preliminary reports speculate that these radical extremists might have infiltrated all levels of government, major media outlets, large corporations, and the highest courts of the land.
Many worried Americans are now wondering if they should also "stand and fight" in order to protect their civil rights against the threat posed by these extremists. However some leaders are urging wisdom and compassion. A coalition of community groups released the following statement: "Clearly if we give in to their demands and arm ourselves, the extremists will have won. In these difficult times, we must remind ourselves of the truly inclusive message of America. While we sometimes only see light skinned people as greedy bankers or soulless corporate lawyers, they also live among us as hard-working neighbors: they are our soccer coaches and our librarians, our teachers and our firefighters. What is needed now is not more hate but more outreach: to bring those who distrust us out of the shadows, and put them on a path to genuine American citizenship."
The extremist rhetoric from the NRA would be laughably absurd if it were not for so many gun-related fatalities in America. In the last 30 years there have been 62 mass shootings resulting in 513 dead and 494 injured. And the pace of mass shootings is increasing: 25 of those 62 shootings happened since 2006, and there were 7 mass shootings in 2012 alone. Meanwhile, since 1980 over 900,000 people have died in America due to gun violence, compared to over 3,400 due to terrorism.
Such radical rhetoric would also provoke quite different reactions if the organization or leaders in charge were "dark skinned" or "Muslim": their ideologies would immediately be labeled as 'jihadist' and the actions of mass shooters who were 'Muslim' would be treated as 'terrorism'. Instead, evidence shows that since 9/11 acts of terror committed by mass shooters caused more deaths than 'Islamic' homegrown terrorists: 261 people died due to mass shootings since 9/11, compared to 33 due to 'jihadists'.
The radical violence-driven message of the predominately white men (and women) who lead the NRA seems to advocate for a terrifying vision of America as a society armed to the teeth. NRA members are fond of quoting from the science-fiction writing of Robert Heinlein that "an armed society is a polite society," an idea of society that more reality-based commentators have astutely pointed out is not really a free society. However, the NRA has consistently promoted that vision through extreme anti-government paranoia. A recent poll found that over 44% of Republicans now feel that armed revolution is needed to protect their rights.
So here's a thought experiment: would the NRA approve of such a violent vision if it were advocated by "dark skinned" or "Muslim" groups? What if a large group of Muslim-Americans decided to hold a gun rights rally to recognize and celebrate their 2nd Amendment rights? What if major Muslim-American leaders exhorted their supporters to "stand and fight" against "tyranny"? What if a poll found that 44% of Muslim-Americans felt that an armed revolution was necessary? Would the same Republican leaders who spoke at the NRA convention this weekend agree to headline a Muslim-American gun rights convention? Something tells me they would have a very different response.
Indeed, the history of gun rights in America shows a stance by "light skinned" leaders to systematically take away guns from minorities who were labeled as 'militants' if they took up arms as part of their struggle for civil rights. For example, the 2nd Amendment traces its roots partially to the demands of Southern states for Constitutional guarantees that the Federal government would not infringe on the rights of Southern white militias to arm themselves in order to suppress slave rebellions. Ironically, some (predominately "light skinned") gun rights supporters today claim that slaves would have been free if only they had been armed.
Meanwhile, the powerful leaders of the NRA and other organizations (like Fox News and Republican legislative bodies) continue to block evidence-based attempts at reasoning with extremist ideological propaganda.
NRA leaders and their allies incite fear and paranoia through repeated claims that the "government" is out to "take our guns," especially since Obama's inauguration in 2009. However, in the four years since 2009, 99 laws have been passed by federal and state governments making it easier for people to own, carry, and conceal guns.
NRA leaders and their allies repeatedly claim that the only solution to mass shootings is more guns in more places. This is despite the facts that (a) many of the mass shootings occurred in places where armed guards were nearby, such as Virginia Tech and the Ft. Hood (army base!) killings; (b) armed civilians actually make things worse by wounding/killing themselves or other civilians; and (c) law enforcement officials uniformly disapprove of having armed civilians in an active crime scene, where they interfere with the work of highly trained officers.
NRA leaders and their allies continually scoff at arguments for gun control by saying "where's the proof?" Hypocritically, these same leaders have been responsible for eliminating any federal funding for research into gun violence. They have convinced lawmakers that simply asking questions about gun violence is a violation of the 2nd amendment. No other research activity is as severely curtailed as research into gun violence. As a result, there is a dearth of scientific data on how many guns are owned by Americans and on how many deaths are a result of gun violence. However, even the limited data thus available still shows that gun violence is the second leading cause of deaths of young people in America, behind car accidents.
While 44 of the 62 mass shootings in the last 30 years were caused by white males, many with right-wing extremist or white supremacist connections, NRA leaders and their allies persistently dismiss any efforts to study patterns in these shootings. Instead, they highlight only one common thread: the majority of perpetrators were mentally ill. Even so, the NRA and its allies dismiss any efforts to study the connections between mental illness and gun violence.
The NRA and its allies also perpetuate demonstrably nonsensical arguments such as "criminals don't follow laws" (to which Jon Stewart succinctly pointed out that even though people who steal do not follow our laws against stealing, "we still have them!" ), or "you can't stop a criminal from getting a gun illegally" (although 80% of mass shooters acquired their weapons legally), or that high-capacity magazines and assault-style weapons are not to blame for mass shootings (although a majority of the 62 mass shooters used these kinds of weapons), or that gun control is a slippery slope to Prohibition and Tyranny (when the data shows instead that if there is a slippery slope it has been well lubricated toward the side of gun proliferation and deregulation of gun laws).
Finally, the NRA and its allies rail against any effort to restrict the purchase of weapons of mass violence, claiming that doing so would somehow reduce the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves (although they would still be able to buy more reasonable guns). They ask, in outrage, "Whose side are you on?!" However, Americans owned about 200 million guns in 1995 compared to over 300 million in 2012, a jump of over 100 million guns in 17 years. In the same time frame, the NRA's messaging and ads shifted from promoting the use of guns for hunting and sportsmanship to a more ominous anti-government anti-crime fear-mongering. Meanwhile, since 1980, over 900,000 people died due to gun fatalities. Given the only possible benefactor of such increased sales in weapons and the resulting deaths, it's fair for millions of ordinary Americans of every color and ideology to ask of the NRA and their allies, "Just whose side are they on?!"
[Inspired by Timothy Koechlin's excellent brofile The "Light-Skinned" Men Threat To America. Also inspired by these Onion articles: Crazed Sociopaths Enter Congressional Chambers, and Unstable Man Plots to Bring Guns to Schools.]