Days after Deadly Insurrection, Recent NRA Fundraising Letter Bragging about “Win[ing] Knock-Down Brawls on Capitol Hill” Is Revealed

Just days after a violent pro-Trump mob breached the U.S. Capitol in an attempted coup that resulted in the deaths of at least five individuals including a Capitol police officer, an apparently recent direct mail letter from the NRA has been unearthed, which states, “only the NRA has the strength to win knock-down brawls on Capitol Hill.”

In the fundraising appeal, LaPierre engages in the same false, conspiratorial fear-mongering that has fueled the rise of armed extremism in this country: “Unless you fight back starting now, you’ll soon face the real threat of having your guns forcibly confiscated along with your right to self-defense. … I’m talking about armed government agents storming your house, taking your guns, and hauling you off to prison.”

Since President-elect Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in the presidential election, some NRA board members have parroted false claims suggesting that the election was stolen and that the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol was actually Antifa.

NRA board member Ted Nugent shared a link to a conspiracy website, which at the time read, “It is not over. The mob was Antifa and it was an inside job with DC and Capitol Police complicity. Pence and every Member of Congress complicit in the proven election fraud sedition is now eligible for arrest, Tribunal, and execution by firing squad.”

The NRA has long fanned the flames of right wing extremism in America, fear mongering during the pandemic in order to sell more guns, while its board members encouraged anti-quarantine protests that have included extremists openly carrying firearms, across the country.

Read more background in Everytown’s report on the rise of violent, right-wing extremism in American and its connection to the gun lobby and President Trump’s rhetoric.