[ Among a swarm of GOP pols, the Orange Nazi memorably decried
yuge gangs of "communist maniacs" attacking "apartment stores" and
carting off refrigerators, air conditioners, "fur coats, not fur
coats, everything." No wonder they wanna vote for him.]
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LOYAL NRA FRIENDS VOW TO SAVE OUR GUNS AND FRIDGES  
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Abby Zimet
April 19, 2023
Common Dreams
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_ Among a swarm of GOP pols, the Orange Nazi memorably decried yuge
gangs of "communist maniacs" attacking "apartment stores" and carting
off refrigerators, air conditioners, "fur coats, not fur coats,
everything." No wonder they wanna vote for him. _

Another father grooms his son to love guns at the NRA convention. ,
Photo by Alex WROBLEWSKI / AFP

 

Celebrating a "freedom-filled weekend," gun freaks just flocked to
another NRA confab - Wall of Guns! Rifles for Two-Year-Olds! Defend
Against Radical Lunatics! - to champion their sacred right to add to
our bloody carnage. Among a swarm of GOP pols, the Orange Nazi
memorably decried yuge gangs of "communist maniacs" attacking
"apartment stores" and carting off refrigerators, air conditioners,
"fur coats, not fur coats, everything." No wonder they wanna vote for
him.

The weekend's three-day NRA convention
[[link removed]], held in
Indianapolis, featured
[[link removed]...] the usual
delights: National Prayer Breakfast, Youth Day, much merch 
[[link removed]]- I Am the NRA
t-shirts, Don't Tread On Me mugs, NRA: I Am Freedom stickers - and
acres of exhibits: Humvees, AR-15 Build Kits ($299), shiny new guns
like Colt's bolt-action TacHunter, mini-compact handguns, aluminum
M1911-style handguns with 11-round flush-fit magazine capacity, 2023's
Gun of the Year Springfield Armory SA-35 9mm with NRA Grips
[[link removed]]. Because, for
retailers, "NRA members are your best customers! Can you afford to not
be here?" Distressingly, there were also many, many, sweet Jesus too
many small children
[[link removed]] wistfully
fingering large guns. Outside the convention, protesters took
turns reading 
[[link removed]...]the names of
the roughly 1,600 American kids killed by guns last year. Organizer
Mary Tuttle noted that Indiana lawmakers just passed a bill banning
[[link removed]] gender-affirming
care for minors but declined to act on gun violence, though, "Zero
children have died from puberty blockers. Not one." Given that, in
part thanks to NRA
[[link removed]] lobbying,
Americans have stockpiled over 400 million guns - more weaponry than
the Armed Forces, Dept. of Homeland Security, and local police
agencies combined - attendees were also greeted by a billboard 
[[link removed]...]by Mad Dog PAC
reading, "The NRA Is A Terrorist Organization."

The convention, [[link removed]] its stage emblazoned with
"Defend Your Freedom," came days after mass shootings at a Nashville
school 
[[link removed]]and
a Louisville bank, 
[[link removed]]and
on the second anniversary of a mass shooting 
[[link removed]]at
an Indianapolis FedEx that killed nine people; last year's
ever-fearless NRA held their convention days after the school massacre
in Uvalde, Texas. Thoughts and prayers all around; the show must go
on. Still, NRA organizers boasted the convention was "the safest place
in the USA to be today" because - WTF - guns were banned as too
dangerous. Thus did GOP Presidential hopefuls comfortably,
dutifully assemble 
[[link removed]-...]to kiss the
blood-spattered ring of beleaguered 
[[link removed]]NRA CEO,
[[link removed]] ghoul
and thug Wayne LaPierre, who warned, “Gun-hating politicians should
never go to bed unafraid of what this association, and all of our
millions of members, can do to their political careers." Some pols
phoned it in: Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Ron DeathSantis, who fresh from
his pudding [[link removed]] bragged
that, even after the slaughter of 17 innocents at Parkland, he's
"resisted calls to take up gun control even when such a stand is
superficially unpopular,” as though Floridians are only
superficially opposed to being gunned down in America's usual killing
fields - schools, malls, synagogues, grocery stores etc. He also ran
an ad trashing 
[[link removed]]Trump
for evidently once suggesting - horrors - maybe the killing should
stop.

In person, a long list of mostly unknown speakers
[[link removed]...] echoed him;
those with higher profiles battled
[[link removed]..] to go ever
lower. Asa Hutchinson warned "Joe Biden and the gun-control extremists
(to) give up your pipe-dreams of gun compensation in this free
society. Stop endangering our lives with gun bans and stop tramping on
the rights of the American people every time tragedy happens." Vivek
Ramaswamy called for 
[[link removed]]more
firepower and less CRT in schools, and shutting down the FBI/ATF:
"What does the AR-15 stand for? It stands for freedom." New
Hampshire's Chris Sununu mocked Biden, bragged he vetoed a gun law -
cheers - and told the feds to "shove it." Mike Pence got booed
[[link removed].] in his own
state - "I love you too" - urged more armed guards, sent prayers to
the latest dead kids. South Dakota's newly big-lipped,
hair-extensioned Gov. Kristi Noem won cheers 
[[link removed]..]when she
declared "I am the NRA" to prove it's not just old white guys -
cameraman pans
[[link removed]...] to audience
of old white guys; ominously intoned, "Liberals and Joe Biden want our
guns because it will make it easier for them to infringe on all our
other rights"; proposed after massacres, "families gathered together
(and) prayed for wisdom and discernment on how to heal hearts and
minds"; and eerily boasted 
[[link removed]...]her 2-year-old
granddaughter "already owns a shotgun and rifle and soon will need
them." (_Twitter:_ "And my dog has three books and a calculator.")

But Trump, “the most pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment president,”
took the gun-nuttery cake, vowing, “I will be your loyal friend and
fearless champion," like during "the China virus" when "I
proudly designated  [[link removed]]gun dealers
as critical infrastructure." Before the _Die-Hard _revenge fantasies
[[link removed]...], he made
bombastic claims about his "epic struggle" against Dems who "want to
take away your guns while throwing open jailhouse doors and releasing
bloodthirsty criminals...to abolish your borders and impoverish your
families...to demonize patriots and persecute Christians while pushing
the transgender cult
[[link removed]].”
Whew. It was then he went on 
[[link removed]...]his
"refrigerator-theft blast" about "these gangs 
[[link removed]...]of hundreds of
young people (who) go and attack an apartment... department stores"
(in Dem-run cities) and "they’re running out carrying refrigerators
(and) air conditioners and big stuff. Big, little, everything. Fur
coats, not fur coats, everything...They empty out the stores."
And _then _the police
[[link removed]...] are "standing
there, they're shaking, they want to do their job, but they're not
allowed to do their job because of these radical lunatics," even
though they won't admit most violent crime is "committed by a brutal
class of hardened repeat criminals. That’s who’s doing it. In San
Francisco..." Also,
[[link removed]...] tents in D.C.
- "I had to take them down immediately" - and "incredible monuments"
and "beautiful lawns" and "the only one they want to prosecute is
Donald Trump, let's get him, it's unbelievable."

Yes. It is. This evil, inept, barking mad clown - who says our mass
slaughter "is not a gun problem" but a spiritual problem maybe abetted
by "genetically engineered cannabis" - is the leading GOP candidate
for president. _Twitter _had thoughts
[[link removed]...]: "Seems
totally real. In fact, many people strongly say they see people
running with 300-lb refrigerators strapped on their backs while
wearing fur coats...They don't even put the fridges under their coats
like the old days...They're taking gas stoves too just in case...With
tears in their eyes?...Never mind the diamonds and tablets - grab that
fridge!...They’re taking the refrigerators 'cause there isn’t
strong enough water pressure when they flush the toilets on account of
the birds being killed by windmills...I have seen peoople, thugs if
you will, carrying 1 fish, even 2 fish, I even saw them with a red
fish and a blue fish, just lawlessness everywhere...Since I'm
anti-fur, I would suggest the looters stick with 'non-fur' coats.
Also, Sub Zero is the fridge you want...They grab 16-ton weights,
moons, Mjollnir, everything. Sometimes they just pick up the store and
run with it!...And they take things that happened, that didn’t
happen, we'll take that for $500...And by the way, they’re coming
[[link removed]...] for you: the
liberals, the Blacks, the Jews. The drag queens want to steal your
children. Have you bought a gun today?"

All the while, in a broken country
[[link removed]...] where many
hateful, lost, white, straight men "stand back and stand by," hungry
for control - "Strength. Boots, smashing faces...My rifle is my best
friend - without it I am useless" - the shooting and killing 
[[link removed]...]goes on and on.
America's most lethal weekend
[[link removed]...] so far this
year, Feb. 17 through Feb. 19, saw 10 mass shootings
[[link removed]] of
over 50 victims: Nine children shot at a Georgia gas station, six
people killed in a Mississippi town, eleven people shot in Memphis,
five people shot in New Orleans, six people shot on a Chicago
expressway. This last week has been almost as bloody. Thursday night,
16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot in the head
[[link removed]...] in Kansas
City for knocking on a neighbor's door while black; miraculously, he
survived, and prosecutors Monday night charged 
[[link removed]...]an 85-year-old
white man with first-degree assault and armed criminal action. This
weekend, with the NRA's obscenity underway, 38 people were shot,
[[link removed]-...] eight
fatally, in gun violence across Chicago. Also this weekend, days after
the Louisville bank shooting that killed four, a mass shooting 
[[link removed]]at
a sweet 16 birthday party in Alabama killed
[[link removed]] four and injured
32; a shooting at a crowded Chickasaw Park 
[[link removed]]in Louisville
left two dead and four injured. On Saturday, Mayor Craig Greenberg
responded to the bloodshed with, "This is not who we are." Really?
Lookit these kids at the NRA fest. Thank God, at least none of them
got their hands on a book.

_Abby Zimet has written CD's Further column since 2008. A longtime,
award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early
70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, hauling water and
writing before moving to Portland. Having come of political age during
the Vietnam War, she has long been involved in women's, labor,
anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email:
[email protected]_

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