Texas Shooting: The NRA have effectively become a terrorist organisation

Police block a road in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on November 5, 2017, after a mass shooting at the the First Baptist Church (rear)

Texas Shooting: The NRA have effectively become a terrorist organisation

The National Rifle Association have perpetuated an ideology that is killings thousands of Americans yearly.

Texas Shooting: The NRA have effectively become a terrorist organisation

Police block a road in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on November 5, 2017, after a mass shooting at the the First Baptist Church (rear)

It takes the air out of your lungs when the ‘breaking news’ bar makes it’s way onto your TV or computer screens. You just know something incomprehensibly evil has happened. But yesterday’s Texas Shooting comes with added clout…

Devin Kelley, aged 26, picked off his victims at The First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs. The small community of 400 citizens saw 26 of their own killed, and a further 20 injured by the ‘semi-automatic fire’.

Within a month, the USA has seen its biggest ever mass shooting, and the most deadly gun attack in its largest state. That desperate, gasping feeling that washes over you when a tragedy like this strikes isn’t just sadness though. It’s anger. It’s the hair-tearing frustration of seeing the same avoidable mess happen time and time again.

The President’s reaction says it all

Whilst on an extended tour of Asia, Donald Trump gave a stately address in reaction to the Texas Shooting. Without having a go at him personally, we can safely say it was utterly toothless. At best, it was tinged with hypocrisy.

The President immediately stated it was a ‘mental health problem’, and ‘not a guns issue’. It’s a far, far cry from last week. When a migrant ploughed his car into a New York City crowd and killed eight people, The Tweeter-in-Chief was quick to register his disgust, even calling for the assailant to get ‘the death penalty‘.

Nice work. I’m sure that will have no legal ramifications whatsoever, i,e getting a fair trial, in the near future. What is more, there is no way either of these men were mentally sound. But why only offer that defence for Mr Kelley? Easy. Because he committed his crime with a gun…

The NRA and their political agenda

The gun fanatics are America’s most prolific lobbyists. They are able to buy political influence, and offer financial rewards for Senators who defend their operational rights in the House of Congress. How that’s still legal, we’re not quite sure.

They are heavily dependant on Republican senators, as their conservative values are best reflected by the current ruling party. The NRA are at their most influential under a Republican government, but they are never really ‘on the back foot’.

For any new gun control legislation, a bill would have to pass through the Senate. This is usually a chamber with enough Republican members in to oppose new controls. Quite simply, the NRA use their considerable wealth (they spend around $250m a year to push their agenda) to have Republicans defend their ‘rights’.

What makes the NRA like a terrorist group?

Let’s get one thing straight. Despite their claims that they represent the constitutional right for Americans to ‘bear arms’, they aren’t the champions of civil liberties. They are the oppositie. The NRA have a clear, dominant agenda that absolutely no restrictions must be laid down on guns. Because that would be bad for business.

So, we have a politically motivated agenda. But do you know what else we have with this lot? A sustained campaign of brainwashing within a toxic culture. In the same way ISIS influence their members to believe in a culture of a caliphate, the NRA have become very good at pushing their distorted vision onto US citizens.

Texas Shooting perpetrator ‘brainwashed’ by gun culture

The NRA have fetishised guns. They have successfully lobbied for the last 140 years that guns ‘must be a normal part of life’. Now, in what other developed country is that ideology acceptable? In what other similar country is wilfully arming its citizens seen as progressive?

ISIS strap machine guns to their recruits. The NRA fight for every man, woman and child to have their choice of automatic weapons and be fully backed by the letter of the law.

When Devin Kelley opened fire, with weaponry he was able to buy and use because of the NRA’s influence on American politics, he became a terrorist. He was enabled by a terrorist network that made it all possible.

Whilst there is terror, there is profit…

We already know this incident won’t change anything. At Sandy Hook in 2012 scores of children were gunned down, and a majority of gun owners were more concerned about keeping hold of their ‘second amendment rights’. The government barely flinched as 59 party-goers were picked off by the Vegas shooter last month.

If neither of these can motivate change – in society, or in the Senate – then the NRA will be free to suppress America, and keep telling everyone they need their guns. Whilst bodies are being dragged out of churches and schoolyards, business will continue to boom.

Mass shootings are good for the NRA, which is why they won’t even agree to limit the amount of ammunition or type of weapons that people can by. They profit from those who feel like they need to further arm themselves for heightened security. In what state is this healthy? In what state is this normal?

It isn’t. Not anywhere else. But if your country is at the mercy of those who profit from the terror they’re enabling, then yes. Things like this Texas Shooting are accepted as ‘normal.’