Flashback: One Year Ago NRA Agreed With President Trump That “Both Sides” Were to Blame for Violence in Charlottesville
8.10.2018
This weekend marks one year since the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. At the rally, the dangers of our nation’s lax gun laws – specifically open carry – were on full display. We saw how the most hateful among us can take advantage of weak gun laws to intimidate and silence free speech and marginalized communities. Open carry laws, combined with racism and anti-Semitism, are a toxic and terrifying mix.
In the weeks after the rally, the NRA stood nearly alone in latching onto President Donald Trump’s insistence that there was equivalency between the neo-Nazis and those protesting against them in Charlottesville:
- NRATV host Chuck Holton on President Trump’s claim that there was “blame on both sides” in Charlottesville: “What part of what POTUS said is untrue?”
- NRA national spokeswoman Dana Loesch warned, “Don’t think for one second that Antifa and Black Lives Matter are somehow more virtuous than the alt-right. It’s all the same stuff.”
- NRA committee member, surrogate and NRATV commentator, former Sheriff David Clarke, said he was “proud” of President Trump’s statement after Charlottesville because he “didn’t take sides like Obama in Ferguson riot.”
- NRATV host Dan Bongino compared Black Lives Matter to the violent neo-Nazis.
Since President Trump’s election, the NRA’s rhetoric has turned increasingly violent – going after the media and people of color with a so-called “#ClenchedFistofTruth.”
If you’d like to learn more about the NRA’s increasingly violent rhetoric or tacit support for militia groups and white nationalists, please don’t hesitate to reach out.