Are gun sales down a bit lately? No foreign rebels to arm in order for them to make war on some poor defenseless country? Never fear, the NRA is here with its latest idea: mandatory gun instruction for kids in the public education system.
Just like sex education except with no opt-out and a free gun? I don't think that would end well. Evidently, reaction was a little bit more than they expected, so they put out a misleading video where they "forgot" to play the controversial part. Oopsie.
The National Rifle Association is trying to smooth over the extreme ideas presented in a recent video suggesting children should have to receive mandatory gun training "to advance to the next grade" by mischaracterizing the video and airing a deceptively cropped version of it on NRA News.
In a July 21 NRA News video titled "Everyone Gets A Gun," NRA News commentator Billy Johnson imagined a compulsory education system that would require children to become proficient with firearms, just like "reading and writing," even "if they didn't want to learn" as a requirement to advance in school:
JOHNSON: Gun policy driven by our need for guns would insist that we introduce young people to guns early and that we'd give them the skills to use firearms safely. Just like we teach them reading and writing, necessary skills. We would teach shooting and firearm competency. It wouldn't matter if a child's parents weren't good at it. We'd find them a mentor. It wouldn't matter if they didn't want to learn. We would make it necessary to advance to the next grade.
Johnson's suggestion children would have to become proficient with a gun to move on in school was widelyridiculed. Now the NRA is responding to critics with the misleading suggestion that Johnson was merely talking about the importance of teaching children gun safety.
The naked cynicism evident in the proposal and their coverup is enough to make me want to revoke their tax-exempt status.
