Pitts: The angry NRA defends the white to bear arms

Indeed, many observers saw the ad as a coded incitement to violence.

One gun owner, commenting on Facebook, called it “disgusting.” Another said the NRA was “hate-mongering.”

Still another called it a “terrorist” group.

Silence and hypocrisy

As you might imagine, progressive activists were also appalled. One of them, Tamika Mallory, an organizer of January’s Women’s March, posted an open letter to NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, calling the ad “irresponsible and dangerous” and “a direct attack on people of color (and) progressives.” She demanded it be taken down and that the NRA apologize.

In response, the NRA aggressively targeted — that verb is used advisedly — Mallory in a new ad that rejects any notion of an apology. “Get over it and grow up,” says the NRA’s Grant Stinchfield. “I’m talking to you, Tamika Mallory.” For good measure, an image of Mallory then appears on the screen. Somehow, they resisted putting crosshairs on her face.

All this sound and fury is telling, coming as it does on the heels of the NRA’s utter silence on a matter that you’d think would be a lot more pressing for a group calling itself “America’s foremost defender” of the right to bear arms. After all, it’s been one year, and the family of Philando Castile is still waiting for the NRA to speak up for this man who was killed by a panicky cop while legally exercising his right to bear arms.

For that matter, the families of Tamir Rice and John Crawford III, both killed while holding toy guns, are also waiting. But all three were black, so the wait will likely be long.

Apparently, the NRA doesn’t actually defend the right to bear arms — just the white to bear arms.

Hungry for power

But these videos reveal more than selective silence and rank hypocrisy.

Has anyone else noticed that the more power the extreme right wing amasses, the less satisfied it seems to be?

The more government they control, the more fearful and angry they become.

That, ultimately, is what’s so viscerally jarring about those videos, the reason even some gun owners are taken aback.

To watch them, you’d think a riot in Baltimore or a tasteless joke by Kathy Griffin was the end of the known world.

There is no vision there.

There is no hope.

There is only “they,” who are out to get “us.”

Tamika Mallory, then, should wear the NRA’s scorn with pride. Why would she crave the approval of people like this? Their scared and angry rhetoric condemns them.

Their cowardly silence does, too.