The Soft Power of the NRA (Rather long)
For all the concern about the NRA and its weird control over political discourse regarding guns, the one thing that people tend to ignore (and IMO is a big mistake) is the NRA''s soft power.
I spent the past few days going through NRA website and its affiliates and sites that support or link to the NRA (and there are a lot). The thing that is most interesting and disturbing (chillingly disturbing) is the amount of soft power they generate.
For clarification, hard power are things like donations from the NRA, lobbyists who visit, cajole, threaten legislators, governors, councilmen, etc and rallies they hold.
Soft Power is in the form of advertising, publications and programming. And lordy, do they have a lot of publications. Starting at their website, I found no less than 7 NRA publications (American Rifleman, American Hunter, America's First Freedom, Shooting Illustrated, Shooting Sports USA, NRA Family, Standing Guard) in addition to the President's Column, Regional Report and Political Report.
The NRA also has it's very own television network and radio network. Dana Loesch, Cam Edwards and Grant Stinchfield headline most of the homepage for the network. The also have four channels: NRANews (sponsored by Ruger), NRAWomen (Smith & Wesson), NRA Country and NRA Hunting. Not surprisingly, all their advertisers (partners) manufacture guns or ammo.
Why is this problematic?
Well, it's not new. Look at the x-tian reich. There are a half dozen x-tian networks on cable, hundreds on youtube and various networks on the internet. For over three decades networks like the 700 Club and Trinity Broadcasting have been piping in daily propaganda on how reich wing x-tians are being persecuted, how liberals are destroying the country, how the media is not presenting the true nature of the despair they are suffering and what the good reich wing x-tian can do about it -- often it involves sending money to the network.
It's effective and we shouldn't be surprised. It's an everyday event, they don't wait for something to happen, they pipe it over the TV every single day. The gloom and doom is mixed with uplifting stories about how prayer cured someone's cancer, made them rich or raised them from the dead (okay. I made the last one up. I've never seen or heard one where they were raised. But, they claim it has happened).
These hucksters become trusted 'friends' to the viewer. What they say resonates, not just because they parrot the viewer or listeners dissatisfaction, but because they provide answers, the provide hope and guidance. It's very comforting.
For people like you and I who find them exasperatingly annoying, it doesn't matter because we are not the target audience, we are not the chosen ones, our views are skewed by the MSM and so on.
The NRA has taken the fundie TV vision and turned it into a pro-gun, arm yourself for the zombie apocalypse and mixed that with the NRA Family: Dad, Mom, Brother, Sister and the AR-15 or Ruger. They show happy families out on a day of shooting. Women who are learning how to properly load, fire and clean their weapons. Yes, there is a show devoted to moms learning how to use a pistol. The women comment about how empowered and how safe their new firearm makes them feel -- Oh, and it's really cool, too. Oh, and they will sprinkle in Persons of Color to show that everyone can love having a gun.
Their opponents, advocates for some form of gun control, do not have that. There is no network devoted to the dangers of a heavily armed populace, anymore than there are numerous television networks devoted to Atheism on television. And this is where the NRA (and the x-tian fundies) win. This is why it's difficult to reach many of them, anymore than you can reach Alex Jones viewers, because they go to these networks everyday. They see shows devoted to 'responsible gun ownership' (the NRAs definition), that ordinary moms, dads and kids use guns safely (which is true) and it throws out enough propaganda in the form of wholesome family friendly talk, "I love my gun. I use it responsibly. I store it safely. We've never had anyone in our family shot be our gun. I feel safer knowing I can protect my children and my property. Etc."
After every major shooting, interest wanes and dies as people move on with their lives or a natural disaster or whatever happens. While the NRA Network continue pouring out publication and show about how swell weapons are, giving their viewers stories about the good guy with a gun (see below, they're promoting the guy in Texas), how you can be just like Bruce Willis in Die Hard and save dozens of people from a terrorist and or movie theater shooting and so on.
Below Are From Some of Their Publications I Rummaged Through on Line. These are not a complete list, nor are they all the stories. But, they're some examples of how they use propaganda.
In the publication America's First Freedom, which interestingly, has nothing to do with Speech, Assembly or Religion, but rather, yes guns we are (ahem) treated to a story on Stephen Willeford, that 'good guy with a gun' with the NRA loves to tout who tried to stop the guy who shot up the Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church in Texas.
For the record: The guy killed himself after his car careened off into a ditch while being chased by Willeford and another man
The article in giant letters throws in "But while their anti-gun narratives prevented most mainstream media outlets from acknowledging his actions, Willeford is a prime example of a good guy with a gun stopping a very bad guy with a gun." (Gotta get that talking point in).
The article goes on to castigate anti-gun groups, the media for their bias against guns. Taking great pains to show how Willeford because of his training and competence didn't freeze up. And that he 'may have' prevented this bad guy with a gun from killing others
This article, which is the first in a string of articles is clearly designed to provide talking points to their supporters and make them feel better about owning guns.
The sickly twisted story, which you have to scroll through the banner to find is the one titled, 'Enforce Existing Guns Laws to Reduce Criminal Violence.' I didn't read the article, I didn't see anywhere in the article where the NRA pointed out that it has done everything it can to gut and/or prevent these laws from seeing the light of day.
They also have an unlinked story titled, 'A Sacrifice Must Be Made.' I am uncertain what the story is about, since there doesn't seem to be a story.
America's First also has 'NRA American Warrior', 'Armed Citizen' and 'Legend in Arms.'
American Hunter and American Rifleman seem to be pretty much full of stories that hock weaponry. Though American Rifleman does have several stories on the history of various kinds of rifles used in warfare. Oh... and a picture of actor and water thief Tom Selleck looking at a gun
NRA Family is mildly interesting in that it spotlights a lot of younger women; Katie Harris, Tori Nonaka, Janae Sarabia and Molly Smith are featured in one article, they talk about how they started shooting and their choice of weapon. Courtney Smith headlines the selection of stories and Dania Rizzi, the 'rising shooting star' is in another. And Wendy Lefebvre has an article that encourages everyone to go hunting because it's just so wonderful.
