NRA Clown Posse — Show of Unforced Stupidity

Seth Herald/Reuters

I’m sure there are many NRA members who aren’t idiots. Unfortunately for the organization, those members don’t make news. And regardless of one’s opinion of the NRA, the appearance of gun-toting goofballs at the protests against decrees to prevent the spread of the coronavirus makes me wonder: Why are they bringing assault weapons to these protests?  The decrees aren’t restricting the rights to bear arms, although some decrees have shuttered shooting ranges where the bored or insecure gather to enjoy themselves or feel powerful unloading on paper tigers or whatever their inert and harmless targets happen to be. Are they planning to assault the legislators? Their governors? Counter-protesters? They not only like walking about carrying a big stick, but wish to yell loudly with childish displays of their dearest possessions. “I took my AR-57 into the rotunda, baby. Boy, I showed them. No one’s gonna tell me what to do. And this mask isn’t keeping me from this overhyped virus shit — it’s keeping me from being identified by the deep state.” That would be the deep state that keeps sending their grandmas checks every month, makes hamburger edible, lakes fishable, air breathable, water drinkable, modern live livable, and yet doesn’t seem to mind if citizens stroll about in public with oversized badges of dimwittery. Like anxious grammarians who believe the world is going to hell in a handbasket with every split infinitive, they believe it’s going to hell because they can’t figure out who made them so stupid in the first place. Even that is beyond the ken of the state, however deep.