NRA Fear Brokers

Out of the blue last weekend, I get an NRA "Membership Acceptance" certificate in the mail. I've never applied. I've never signed up. I have purchased ammo using a credit card, and in AZ you do have to fill out a registration card when you purchase a fire arm - which I think is a sound logical step to register a legal fire arm.

But Nooooooooo! To read this NRA Platform survey, you'd like that President Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi were coming to take my gun away, throw me in a re-education camp, and make me pay a tax to the IRS for owning a gun every year on my income tax return. It's classic fear mongering, just as Christian[TM] fundamentalists have been using to rally their congregations for years.

Part of me wants to actually sign up, to see what kind of complete BS that Wayne LaPierre spouts out - and I get a "free" roll on duffel bag... but I really don't want to cozy up to such jingoistic reactionary thugs. Guilt by association is an American tradition. It's sort of like how I was approached by some plant security personnel when I first began working in South Carolina, to remind me that they were "having a meeting" that weekend, and to "Bring your sheet. If you ain't got one, we can give you one". Being a transplanted Hoosier, I was confused by reference to a "sheet" but the mentioning of "lighting up a cross" clarified it to me, and I politely declined, telling the security guard supervisor that I'd be out of town. He assured me I had a standing invite to future meetings.

The week that I quit working there, I told the security guard supervisor that I was Jewish and married a Black Catholic, hoping to see his head explode.