A Democratic congresswoman declared the National Rifle Association and conservative commentator Dana Loesch “domestic security threats” Thursday night.
“I’m just going to say it. #NRA & @DLoesch are quickly becoming domestic security threats under President Trump. We can’t ignore that,” New York Rep. Kathleen Rice tweeted out.
I’m just going to say it. #NRA & @DLoesch are quickly becoming domestic security threats under President Trump. We can’t ignore that.
— Kathleen Rice (@RepKathleenRice) August 11, 2017
It was a bold statement to make about a group that claims millions of Americans as members. Are all these citizens a threat to the country because they like gun rights? It appears this Democrat seems to think so.
Rice was likely claiming a security threat over the NRA’s recent ad featuring Loesch criticizing The New York Times. Several journalists and leftists considered the ad as tantamount to a threat of violence against the press — one of whom was Rep. Rice.
Beyond the pale. #NRA is a disgrace to the Constitution they claim to defend. Lunatics actively encouraging violence against free press. https://t.co/fh9kMPmWXS
— Kathleen Rice (@RepKathleenRice) August 4, 2017
It’s not uncommon for liberals to wildly claim law-abiding gun owners are a threat to America. It’s one of the core planks of the gun control agenda that the public supposedly can’t trust those gun nuts. They could turn out to be the next Timothy McVeigh, and, as liberals fervently believe, right-wing terrorists are a far bigger threat than Islamic radicals.
These are the lines repeated ad nauseam by liberal supporters of gun control in order to sow distrust for gun owners and the groups that represent their rights. Any time a shooting occurs and the triggerman was not a Muslim radical, the NRA is always blamed first for the carnage.
Rice’s attack is a little different, however. It wasn’t uttered in response to a mass shooting or some new gun restriction the NRA opposes. It was made over a video the Second Amendment rights group made about the media.
The ad, presented by Loesch, warns The New York Times that gun advocates are “coming for you.” “Consider this a shot across your proverbial bow,” the conservative commentator dramatically says. “We’re going to fisk The New York Times and find out just what deep rich means to this old gray hag.”
Over-the-top, for sure. A call for violence? You’d have to be blinded by ideology to think so.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of folks like Rep. Rice who fall into that category and construed it as a violent threat.
It didn’t help that several prominent journalists claimed to hear Loesch saying “fist” instead of “fisk,” and spread the botched interpretation all over on Twitter. “Fisting” the Times certainly sounds more violent than fisking the paper, but it mostly sounds like an act best left to the dark corners of the internet than a legitimate threat of physical violence.
To fisk means to debunk or correct news reporting. So the big threat, delivered in a bombastic manner, from the NRA was that it was going to correct The Times’ coverage of gun matters. The Gray Lady has a well-known reputation for supporting gun control, such as when the paper put an editorial in favor of firearm restrictions on its front page in 2015, so it makes sense for the NRA to take some issue with the outlet’s coverage.
Especially when another Times editorial regurgitated this year the debunked smear against Sarah Palin that claims the former Alaska governor directly inspired the Gabby Giffords shooting. (RELATED: NYT Uses GOP Shooting To Falsely Attack Sarah Palin With Debunked Conspiracy Theory)
Right now, there’s a particularly appealing narrative to liberals that the right-wing is encouraging violence and intimidation against journalists. The press has weirdly become a heroic and selfless industry to the Left in the age of Trump. Reporters are just there to report to the facts objectively, in spite of all the terrifying tweets they receive, according to the telling of the center-left.
So what difference if the NRA was saying “fisk” or “fist”? It makes for far better copy to imagine the gun rights group was inciting its millions of AR-15-toting followers to slaughter journalists rather than simply wanting greater scrutiny of the Times’ gun coverage.
Regardless of the facts, liberals like Rep. Rice will always view gun owners as “domestic security threats.” They represent the stereotypical right-wing Middle American that liberals so despise. The caricature of a gun owner is a white male who will never check his privilege. He may own a Confederate flag, and probably takes stands on social policy that would get him fired from Google.
Moreover, he owns at least one firearm — a deadly weapon that the Left believes only the state should possess. The gun to millions of Americans represents independence and the ability to protect oneself from threats to you and your family. To liberals, middle Americans who believe that are a dangerous menace to society because they represent open defiance towards left-wing dogma.
Stripping these wrong-thinking gun owners of their cherished weapon means that these folks have to rely more on the state, making it more likely that they will submit to the dictates of progressives.
The only way you can view law-abiding gun owners as a security threat is if you view them as dangerous reactionaries who would murder journalists on the basis of an internet ad.
It’s worth remembering the gun control issue as not of one of safety for liberals, but of power. Liberals want the state to be in control of the weapons, because they intrinsically distrust those who legally possess firearms.
Progressives would finally sleep better at night if they knew nobody in rural Georgia had access to a firearm anymore.
Well, just the Georgians who follow the law — that is.
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