Education

Meet the journalism professor who says NRA members are treasonous, should be executed

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In a bizarre op-ed in The Charleston Gazette last week, journalism professor Christopher Swindell argued that the National Rifle Association “advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America.”

Stirring words, to be sure, but Swindell was hardly done — not even close. He also said that the NRA is guilty of “treason” “worthy of the firing squad.”

“To support the new NRA president’s agenda of arming the populace for confrontation with the government is bloody treason,” Swindell charged in his wacky essay.

After briefly playing the race card and alluding to the Civil War, the professor suggested that the actions of Americans who belong to the NRA would be met with “an M1A Abrams tank, supported by an F22 Raptor squadron with Hellfire missiles.”

Swindell also managed to insult the people of the most populous of the Greek islands when he described opinions he doesn’t like as “knuckle-dragging Cretan talk.” Presumably, the fancypants professor was reaching for the word “cretin.”

Swindell is an associate professor of broadcast journalism at public, taxpayer-funded Marshall University. According to the school’s website, he has expertise in many areas including television news, media pop culture and automotive journalism.

The LinkedIn page that appears to belong to Swindell says that he was previously an instructor at the University of Kentucky. It also says that he had been a reporter at Lexington, Kentucky CBS-affiliate WKYT-TV for 12 years and a reporter at Hazard, Kentucky CBS-affiliate WYMT-TV for two years.

The Facebook page that appears to belong to Swindell was last updated on December 3, 2012.

“I’m back long enough to say goodbye,” the posting reads. “Facebook is not good for me. Before I checked out there, I was mad at everyone with the label republican [sic]. Now my anger is directed at John Boehner specifically.”

On October 26, Swindell said he called someone from Lexington “a racist” and charged that “Sarah Palin just proved she was a racist.”

On October 24, Swindell — a white male by all outward appearances — said, “White men are trying to tell women to go back to the kitchen and have babies. And married white women are letting them get away with it.”

Swindell’s Facebook likes include Harry Reid, LOLGOP, The Rachel Maddow Show, Left Action, Maya Angelou, Starbucks and, of course, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.

The Marshall professor also appears to have a YouTube channel containing three videos, where he opines on current events in front of an unkempt bookshelf.

One video is a tirade in favor of natural gas from West Virginia.

Another video is a diatribe calling for more college graduates in the state of West Virginia. In this video, Swindell calls the state a “national laughingstock.”

The third YouTube rant, dated Feb 15, 2011, concerns the contentious state of American politics. In this video, Swindell promised to “stop with the accusations and the name-calling.”

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