Back in 1995, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre complained, “The government is full of jack-booted thugs in bucket helmets” trampling on our constitutional rights.
Now we see presumably federal government agents, this time in military camouflage, wearing no badges, forcing peaceable protesters into unmarked vehicles in Portland, Oregon.
Where is the NRA and all those who complained then? Our President Donald Trump has threatened to do the same in other cities, in spite of the objections by the mayor and governor of the place it has already happened.
Our president, his agency heads and the agents themselves swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. I took an oath to defend the Constitution, too. I’ve been retired from the Army almost a half century but two things upset me about this use of anonymous federal agents:
First, it is wrong. Second, camouflage is intended for fighting in the field; so, who dispatched agents into a city clad in that costume?
Iweloz on July 21st, 2020 at 17:36 UTC »
I hate to ask this, but what do people like Alex Jones say about this? If this was 2012 Jones would be spraying spit all over his studio about tyrannical Obama. This is the one thing that's pissing me off the most. I am 1000% against Trump, and honestly despise his supporters, but I would never accept or support them getting snatched off the streets like this, because I don't want to live in a dictatorship-EVEN IF THE DICTATOR IS ON MY SIDE! This is a HUGE fundamental difference between all of us, the inconsistency. To them, it's ok because BLM and Antifa. One day they hate the government over masks, the next they're cheering them on as they kidnap people and beat veterans in the street
Nano_Burger on July 21st, 2020 at 17:35 UTC »
2015 - JADE HELM! The feds are coming to kidnap us and put us into FEMA concentration camps!!!!
2020 - This is fine.
TheTurfinator on July 21st, 2020 at 17:24 UTC »
Wearing the uniforms.
Edit - Since some people seem to be confused about what I mean:
No. I don't. That's my point. That's why I made the post.
Given that hundreds of thousands of LEO's have been/are NRA members, I expect there are quite a few card-carrying, lifetime members under all that unmarked camo. It's not as if the NRA is some detached or even arm's-length party to the law enforcement community. This is the same NRA that established a specific Law Enforcement Division sixty years ago. You can read it all there--59,000 LEO instructors trained by the NRA. Newsletter, scholarships, grants, etc.--all benefits of membership (which is deeply discounted, of course). They have a deep investment in one another.
Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that the NRA has a deeply blase attitude toward serial law enforcement abuses against legal gun owners. As a gun owner myself, this bit says it all for me: " In short, the NRA seems to think we’re at risk of creeping tyranny and abuse of power from all sectors of government except from the men and women armed, badged and entrusted with the power to kill. That’s a problem, because if armed agents who enforce the laws on the ground aren’t required to respect our rights, our rights don’t really exist."
Its cozy relationship with law enforcement has deeply compromised the NRA's legitimacy as an advocate for Constitutional rights generally and Second Amendment rights more specifically. So when you're pitting federal law enforcement against unarmed protesters, no, I don't really need to wonder where the NRA is going to line up.