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The NRA Enemies List is not exactly a "hit" list, but with the virulent anger of gun advocates against any form of gun control, it might as well be. Public figures have always been targets for "righteous assassination", but the latest list put out by the NRA is extensive enough to fill any paranoid malcontent's dream.
It's called the NRA-ILA National Organizations With Anti-Gun Policies list, and it's surprisingly extensive in scope and basically demonizes some of the most loved personages and organizations in the country. Granted, you wouldn't find any of these people at a dinner honoring Glenn Beck, but you have to wonder what the logic is in naming the United Church of Christ. Or the National Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officers.
Then again, anything considered "progressive"...
Anything or anyone.
The list of over 450 organizations, celebrities and media outlets demonstrates the innate paranoia the NRA has and enables throughout the country. They may be related (second cousins twice removed) to people who expressed a mild interest in gun control or worse, they may even be people who are actually FOR gun control (!) and as such should be lumped in with the Obamas who want to take our guns away and enslave us.
They are definitely not people who embrace guns as the only way of life (as it should be).
The list also shows its immense bias towards any personalities or organizations it considers "liberal demonspawn": it could have been put together by the likes of Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association or Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. Prominent progressives, teachers, psychologists, actors and cartoonists make more than half the list.*
Organizations - 133
Acronyms may (ironically) be too much for the NRA, so they spelled out organizations like the American Psychological Association and the American Bar Association, but made allowances for AARP and the AFL-CIO and the YWCA.
One seemingly odd entry is the American Firearms Association, but perhaps this is why:
"We reject the
'Armed Populace' doctrine of the NRA as misguided and unrealistic."
And while the NRA Organizations list doesn't look too racist, it does manage to
include the Congress of National Black Churches and the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference along with the NAACP. That may be enough.
And then there are the organizations with "American" in their names:
Ambulatory Pediatric Association
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Civil Liberties Union
American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing
American Medical Women's Association
American Medical Student Association
American Medical Association
American Association for the Surgery of Trauma
American Trauma Society
American Federation of Teachers
American Association of School Administrators
American Alliance for Rights and Responsibilities
American Medical Association
American Bar Association
American Counseling Association
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Association for World Health
American Ethical Union
American Nurses Association
American Association of Neurological Surgeons
American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences
American Firearms Association
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
American Jewish Committee
American Trauma Society
American Psychological Association
American Jewish Congress
American Public Health Association
Americans for Democratic Action
Other Organization stand-outs: the Gray Panthers and the League of Women
Voters.
Individuals and Celebrities - 203
Perhaps the reason Lauren Bacall's name stands out in particular is because she
was involved in another list over 60 years ago: Joe McCarthy's list. The
parallels are striking: the groups represented by individuals could have been
culled from McCarthy's own notepad: Writers (8) fared better than actors (140)
but not as well as NFL players (1). And the age of the invidious gun control
personages is telling: 25 are above the age of 70, and some, like Nora Ephron
are ... dead.
Some obvious and not so obvious:
Tony Bennet
Maya Angelou
Ed Asner
Alec Baldwin
Kevin Costner
Sean Connery
Pam Dawber
Fran Drescher
Sandy Duncan
Fannie Flag
Geraldo Rivera
Richard Gere
Hal Holbrook
Chaka Khan
Spike Lee
Bette Midler
May Tyler Moore
Jack Nicholson
Mary Lou Retton
Bonnie Raitt
Martin Sheen
Anne Rice
Neil Simon
Meryl Streep
Henry Winkler
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Oh, and Oprah (who's listed as an "entertainer')
National Figures - 29
Poor
Ed Koch just missed knowing he was on the list, but C. Everett Koop must be
proud since he's in the same group as Jimmy Carter.
National corporations - 43
"When you care enough to shoot the very worst" is evidently a
sentiment the NRA would like to see on greeting cards. And it would probably
like Ben & Jerry's to consider some kind of gun-friendly flavor
("Chocolate Bullet Hole"?), along with bullet-proof jeans from
Levi's. Silly as these suggestions may seem, they and others might reach the
ears of the companies' heads since along with the names of the companies, the
names and contacts of their CEOs were also published. St. Louis University made
this list - the only university to do so. One wonders why UC Berkeley was
snubbed.
Media Outlets - 22
Journalists and Cartoonists - 35
The NRA list of anti-gun media outlets might be predictable if for one
exception: Motorcyle Cruiser
Magazine. And among cartoon titans, Gary Trudeau has been enshrined in the
NRA's Hall of Horrors.
The Rest Of Us
Considering the size of the some of the corporations and organizations on the
list (Southwestern Bell, American Medical Association and Sprint, e.g.), the
NRA should have a hard time convincing the country that gun control is evil,
but then again, it has persuasive pundits and personalities like Chuck Norris
and Ann Coulter.
