{"id":247003,"date":"2016-05-31T18:50:56","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T18:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/opportunist-trump-meets-fanatical-nra\/"},"modified":"2016-05-31T18:50:56","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T18:50:56","slug":"opportunist-trump-meets-fanatical-nra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/opportunist-trump-meets-fanatical-nra\/","title":{"rendered":"Opportunist Trump Meets Fanatical NRA"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"203.74364690147\">\n<p>By accepting the NRA\u2019s presidential endorsement, Donald Trump bought into the gun lobby\u2019s paranoid view of government and its distorted interpretation of the Second Amendment, writes Lawrence Davidson.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-19633\"\/>By Lawrence Davidson<\/p>\n<p>What do opportunists and fanatics have in common? They both chronically exaggerate \u2013 the former often to con folks into doing their bidding, and the latter most often because they have already been conned by their own grossly distorted worldview.<\/p>\n<p>There are plenty of both types of people in today\u2019s America, and the uncertain political environment has brought a lot of them out of the woodwork. The recent marriage of convenience of the National Rifle Association (NRA) leadership (fanatics) and Donald Trump (opportunist) is a case in point.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_6385\" style=\"width: 269px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" readability=\"34\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/waynelapierre.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6385\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/waynelapierre-259x300.jpg\" alt=\"Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2011. (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)\" width=\"259\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/waynelapierre-259x300.jpg 259w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/waynelapierre.jpg 519w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 259px) 100vw, 259px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6385\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/waynelapierre-259x300.jpg\" alt=\"Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2011. (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)\" width=\"259\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/waynelapierre-259x300.jpg 259w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/waynelapierre.jpg 519w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 259px) 100vw, 259px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2011. (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The NRA is one of the country\u2019s most influential advocacy organizations, with a membership of over 3 million. Its worldview, which can be neatly summed up as \u201cfreedom equals unrestricted gun ownership,\u201d almost certainly carries weight beyond its membership numbers. In the wilds of places such as Minnesota, Wyoming and Alabama, NRA principles might carry more weight than the Bible.<\/p>\n<p>Wayne LaPierre is the NRA\u2019s executive vice president and Chris Cox is the NRA\u2019s executive director for legislative action. LaPierre and Cox are typical of NRA stalwarts and we can see them as representative of a good percentage of the organization\u2019s members.<\/p>\n<p>On May 20, both men gave speeches before the NRA convention in Kentucky announcing the association\u2019s endorsement of Donald Trump for president. In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2016\/05\/nra-trump-endorsement-223422\"><u>his speech, Cox<\/u><\/a> spent a lot of time painting a picture of the United States as a place about to lose its \u201cfreedoms\u201d if Hillary Clinton gets elected.<\/p>\n<p>Here is how Cox put it: the present political environment in the U.S. is mired in \u201cdishonesty, corruption and contempt for everyday Americans\u201d and the only thing that stands between those \u201ceveryday Americans\u201d and \u201cthe end of individual freedom in this country\u201d are \u201cgun owners,\u201d who must turn out&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2016\/05\/31\/opportunist-trump-meets-fanatical-nra\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By accepting the NRA\u2019s presidential endorsement, Donald Trump bought into the gun lobby\u2019s paranoid view of government and its distorted interpretation of the Second Amendment, writes Lawrence Davidson. By Lawrence Davidson What do opportunists and fanatics have in common? They both chronically exaggerate \u2013 the former often to con folks into doing their bidding, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-247003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247003\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}