Veterans slam NRA for exploiting troops at border to sell memberships

Veterans are slamming the NRA for using the deployment of military troops at sites like the U.S.-Mexico border to sell memberships.

The NRA released a video appeal starring NRA President Oliver North, who states, “As we gather with loved ones this holiday season, tens of thousands of American soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen, and Marines won’t be home this year.”

In honor of those deployments, North said viewers should buy NRA memberships to protect freedoms “under siege from powerful, wealthy oligarchs who are financing a disarm-America movement.”

In a statement to Shareblue Media, Will Fischer, Marine veteran and VoteVets director of government relations, said, “At a time when the NRA is battling mounting evidence that they were involved with Maria Butina and when Donald Trump is forcing troops to waste time on the border, instead of being with their families during the holidays, let’s just say this is the second most dishonest thing Ollie North has ever done.”

North was a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal during the 1980s.

He now heads the NRA and advocates for the increased availability of guns across America with no regard for the thousands of lives lost to gun violence every year.

The appeal in question is particularly distasteful because thousands of troops have been deployed to the southern border as part of Trump’s indulgence of racism. He sent them there ahead of the election as part of a concerted fear-mongering campaign that demonized migrant refugee “caravans” escaping oppression and violence.

The deployed soldiers missed spending the Thanksgiving holiday with their families, and those on site will also miss Christmas Day. Instead of spending time with loved ones, they have been forced to do tasks like shoveling manure so Trump can continue to demonize a large group of Latinos for venal political gain.

Now the NRA wants to use them for gain too, in the form of money.

The NRA has had a bad year. The candidates the organization backed for office lost all over the country, often to Democrats running in favor of gun safety. It also reported financial issues, and has been forced to cut back on staff within the organization, particularly at its propaganda arm, NRA TV.

It also emerged that Russian money flowed into the NRA’s accounts during the 2016 election cycle. Meanwhile, an admitted Russian spy has acknowledged in court that she sought to use the NRA and its influence within Republican circles as vehicle for Russia to influence American politics.

The use of troop deployments to nakedly grab for cash seems to be a particularly grotesque response to the problems of the last year, and veterans are shaming the NRA for its dirty deeds.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.