The annual NRA convention held in Dallas last week wasn’t just a chance to brandish guns or boast about the Second Amendment. For at least one Hollywood celebrity, it was a chance to get caught up in a little bit of hypocrisy of her own making.
Alyssa Milano showed up at the convention on Saturday, at NoRA, an event meant to protest the National Rifle Association and the organization’s unabashed support for the Second Amendment. However, it was clear that she was accompanied by some form of private security, likely associated officially with the protest or with herself — and that security was armed. A man named Will Haraway, an NRA member, asked a member of Milano’s security detail if he was armed, which he was. The guard then firmly asked Haraway to move away from the protest, backing into him so he was forced to walk backwards onto the sidewalk, even though Haraway had every right to attend the protest.
Another journalist, Ben Howe, formerly of Redstate, caught a short portion of the scene here.
This is Will Haraway a CCW @nra member. He asked @Alyssa_Milano’s security if he was armed (he was) and then asked Alyssa about it. Here’s what happened. (She comes to talk to him after this and I will post that longer video shortly). pic.twitter.com/qMsq6rbzDd
— Ben (@BenHowe) May 5, 2018
The Hollywood starlet took to Twitter to criticize the NRA and Howe’s tape, claiming it had been edited to make her look bad. Other affiliated organizations who are opposed to the NRA claimed there was a conspiracy between Howe and Haraway to catch the hypocrisy and expose it. Unfortunately for liberals, the two who had just met that day.
It’s one thing to protest the NRA’s annual convention — that would certainly be Milano’s right, even if it’s not in her best interest. No one argues that. But it’s incredibly disingenuous of her to attend the protest with armed security, whether that’s her own private bodyguard or armed event personnel who were already present. While no organization would be more committed to gun safety than the NRA, and neither they nor any sane conservative would wish harm upon her — and frankly I can’t think of an event where she would be safer — showing up at a protest where armed security detail is ensuring her safety seems even more hypocritical than the average movie star who brandishes firearms in movies while calling on the NRA to disband.
In an interview at the protest, Milano told a news organization, “I have nothing against the NRA members that are law-abiding gun owners. My problem is with the NRA and how they are the gun lobby that has bought off our government and therefore threatened our democracy and our safety as American people and our children’s safety.”
Of course, the NRA has neither “bought off our government” and certainly doesn’t threaten our democracy — rather, it protects it. This point could not have been made more clear by a Hollywood celebrity showing up at a gun convention to protest guns while an armed man ensures she remains safe by carrying a gun.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
