After the shooting at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, Calif., in which four people were wounded before the shooter, 39-year-old Nasim Najafi Aghdam, took her own life, many liberals had already jumped to the conclusion as soon as the news broke that the National Rifle Association was behind the attack.
Take this Michael Ian Black tweet for instance.
Another shooting.
I’m going to politicize the fuck out of it, and so should you.
The NRA is a terrorist organization. https://t.co/UsoQBIxWpf— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) April 3, 2018
Actress Alyssa Milano tweeted that if the NRA had been run by people of any other skin color other than white that they would be labeled as “terrorists.”
If @NRA or @NRATv were run by brown or black people, it would be labeled a terrorist organization with hate propaganda programming that incites violence. https://t.co/xnSyKXP8yk
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) April 3, 2018
Look, the NRA isn’t the ideal organization given all the times they metaphorically shoot themselves in the foot, but in no way are they a terrorist organization. Liberals are beginning to bastardize the term “terrorist” and water down its meaning. It’s part of a not-so-subtle and very tyrannical tendency on the Left to criminalize opposing views — something that usually comes up when we talk about political correctness.
According to its website, the NRA was formed to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis” because its founders, Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate, were dismayed over the lack of marksmanship shown by their troops fighting the Confederacy during the Civil War. Of course, the NRA has rapidly changed since and is primarily focused on defending the civil rights of gun owners, with particular respect to the Second Amendment, and they have an expansive lobbying arm to advance their legislative agenda and a television channel.
Compare this to the most prominent terrorist organization the U.S. is currently fighting, the Islamic State, which occupies territory in Iraq and Syria — however, their power and presence is quickly shrinking after establishing a caliphate in 2014. The Islamic State engages in human rights atrocities in which they both target religious and ethnic minorities and indiscriminately kill anyone they consider a threat to their political and purported religious ends. They engage in beheadings, crucifixions, rape, and slavery.
One key difference between the NRA and the Islamic State is that the NRA isn’t directing its members to go out and kill people in the name of their agenda or for a higher power. The Islamic State, however, is and proudly claims responsibility for attacks even when the evidence contradicts them (i.e. the 2017 Las Vegas massacre).
So, criticize the NRA for the way they handle their operations, but until they start preaching to their members to go out and kill as many people as possible to advance their agenda, stop calling them a “terrorist organization.”
