On Friday, Wayne LaPierre gave a speech at CPAC where he told the crowd that liberal protesters are paid, militant, angry, and willing to use violence against the Right. He called us fascists. And he said the NRA would mount a counter-resistance – a well-armed counter resistance, presumably to fight – with violence – people like women wearing pink hats marching peacefully by the millions, people of color asking for accountability of police in their neighborhoods, transgender youth asking for the right to exist in public spaces, scientists asking the government to stop erasing data, and citizens calling for and attending meetings with their elected representatives.
We can ignore the fact that this speech came the day after a white man shot two Indian men, yelling at them to “go back to their country.” We can ignore the fact that this came a day after a white man became the first person in Pennsylvania sentenced under a federal hate crime statute – for beating a black man unconscious at a subway station. We can ignore the fact that this speech came in the same week where Vice-President Pence helped clean and repair a Jewish cemetery where hundreds of graves were violated – which is just another horrid event in a string of threats against Jewish organizations and anti-Semitic crimes over the past few months. We can ignore the fact that this came on the day that a Mosque in Tampa was damaged by arson, the second such arson attack in recent months in Florida. We can ignore the fact that this came on the day that media outlets which have spoken out against the current occupant of the White House were banned from a press conference there. What we can’t ignore is that the leader of a group that is supposed to be focused on only one issue – supporting the Second Amendment – just declared war on people who are standing up to the very tyranny and oppression that the Second is supposed to protect against.
The Liberal Gun Club stands against such rhetoric of violence and suppression of rights. We will support the rights of all Americans to keep and bear arms. We will continue to teach people of all races, religions, genders, sexualities, and national origins how to safely and legally own and operate firearms. We will continue to support a free press and seek out and grant interviews with media outlets who support fair and open journalism. We will continue to speak for root cause mitigation of the real ills that exist in our country while supporting the First Amendment rights of citizens to express their disagreements. We will continue to speak out when those on both sides of the aisle try to restrict our Constitutional rights – any and all of our Constitutional rights – because if we don’t support the rest of the Constitution, the Second Amendment becomes meaningless.