Dear NRA Members-at-Large,
Many of you are aware that back in the fifties and sixties, a certain Senator McCarthy decided that it was time to do something about all the communists he believed were in the United States at the time. This was Cold War America, and people were naturally suspicious and angry at the threat that communism was said to pose to American integrity. Senator McCarthy's solution to this problem was to compile a huge list of suspected communists which he publicized before the Senate and which gradually worked its way into American history. This "blacklist" had the names of many famous people, and also many not-so-famous people from nearly every walk of life. Many of these people were jailed. Many of them lost their livelihoods. A number of the celebrities on that list were forced to step down from their jobs, and it was never conclusively proven whether the people on that list were actually communist.
Now, while I was out surfing the net yesterday, I stumbled across your website. I was looking through your various policies, your politics, etc., and then I stumbled over this big list on your website. It's called FactSheets: National Organizations With Anti-Gun Policies. It proceeds to list a long series of organizations and individuals who have pledged their time, money, or political lobbying power to "anti-gun" laws. There's an entire list of celebrities on there, standing accused of having "lent their name and notoriety to anti-gun causes, speaking out for anti-gun legislation, and providing a voice for anti-gun organizations." I was thinking, maybe we should just review the most heinous offenders on your list...
Maya Angelou
Boyz II Men
Jon Bon Jovi
Mel Brooks
Julia Child
Sean Connery
Dustin Hoffman
Coretta Scott King
Mary Tyler Moore
Martin Sheen
Sigourney Weaver
The American Federation of Teachers
Central Conference of American Rabbis
Episcopal Church - Washington Office
League of Women Voters of the United States
National Education Association
National Association of Public Hospitals
National Organization for Women
National Urban Coalition
United States Catholic Conference
United Methodist Church
United Church of Christ
Tom Freston - MTV President
Richard Parsons - Time Warner President
Herb Scannel - Nickolodeon President
Kansas City Chiefs
Kansas City Royals
Levi Strauss & Co.
Sara Lee Corporation
And that's just a small sampling—there's more to be found on the website:
http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=15. How interesting indeed to see five churches (Judaism, Catholicism, Episcopal, Methodist, Church of Christ), many, many famous actors and celebrities, the presidents of three cable television networks, as well as the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, all on your anti-gun list. You'll forgive me for making the association, but this seems an awful lot like a blacklist.
So just like McCarthy, you make a big list of all the people you don't like and put it up in a public place with big negative connotations attached to it. McCarthy's blacklist ruined people's lives. It cost people everything they had worked so hard for. And you would repeat this mistake in your political agenda. All because these people and organizations, almost all of them highly respectable and intellectual people, are what you call "anti-gun."
And what does anti-gun mean? Does it mean that these people want to ban all guns in the United States? Forever? I don't seem to recall hearing that from any of these individuals or groups. Perhaps it might be a better choice of words to say "gun control" instead of "anti-gun," which implies that they're acting in direct violation of Constitutional rights.
Julia Child. What is she now, eighty-seven? Yeah, a little old French lady who teaches people how to cook on public broadcasting is a BIG DANGER to the NRA. That's what you would have people think. "Look, Julia Child and the teachers of America are going to take away our Second Amendment right to bear arms!" Don't any of you have trouble sleeping at night? Think you're taking this a little too far?
I think you have gone too far. Someone should stop you, NRA. At least warn you of the political shadow you're casting, and of the terrible time in American history you invoke by creating a blacklist in 2004 America.
You may be wondering how I managed to "stumble across" your little blacklist. I found it through
http://www.nrablacklist.com/. They are trying to stop you. They have a petition on their website. Its signers strongly believe that your "pro-gun" policies and McCarthyist politics are wrong. It also demands that our legislators show you all just how mistaken the idea of scaring people into supporting you really is. The petition asks you to put its signers on your blacklist.
I signed it.
Put ME on your blacklist. I dare you.
~Matthew White
