Last updated on February 7th, 2013 at 08:47 pm
Rep. Richard Nolan is the first Democratic to go the record describing the thinly veiled threats that he is getting from NRA members who are being misled on gun control.
Here is the video from Up with Chris Hayes:
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Rep Nolan (D-MN) said, “Chris, I think it would be a mistake, however, to underestimate the kind of toxic effect that the NRA is having. I have never, ever in all my life feared for my security, and I’m not fearful of it now. But I’m a little more than I ever had been before. We’ve been getting a lot of not very thinly veiled threats and calls into my office. You know, things like, ‘you tell Nolan he better watch his back. Nobody has actually come out and said they’re gunning for me, but the messages are quite angry, vitriolic, and a little bit frightening to people at my front desk who have been taking the calls. So, I’m a little nervous about it. I’ve never been nervous before. They’re very toxic in the effect they’re having on the American public.”
This is straight out of the right’s playbook. We have now moved on to the part of the process when the Republican base has been whipped into fear by the NRA and their Fox News led conservative media, so they are now threatening Democratic members of Congress.
Since the Gabby Giffords shooting any member of Congress would have to be crazy not to take these threats seriously, but Rep. Nolan did a great job of expressing concern, while not being intimidated by the NRA’s fear campaign. Fear is really what all of this is about.
The NRA has tactically planted completely unfounded fears of gun confiscation, and now the emotionally guided far right are trying to terrorize anyone who they think is going to take away their guns.
The gun control debate is following the same path as the great right wing Obamacare freak out of 2009-2010. Gun confiscation has replaced death panels in the right wing mind.
NRA members are trying to use the fear that most members of congress must have after the Gabby Giffords shooting to scare them away from gun control. Deplorable and despicable behavior is nothing new for NRA, but the times are changing, public opinion is against them, and the one sure way to make even stronger gun control than what’s being proposed a reality is to have one of these subhumans try to follow through on their threats.
The tactics that the NRA has chosen have put them on the path to a fight that they can’t win. They have to hope that they can scare Democrats and Independents into backing down. But after Newtown, the majority of this nation doesn’t fear the NRA and won’t be backing down.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
