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The NRA and Russia
Jul. 18th, 2018 09:51 amIn yesterday's post, I promised to address the NRA's fascination with what should have been an obvious Russian spy, Mariia Butina. Here I go.
First, the NRA is ran by people who really like guns. (In other news, water is wet! Video at 10!) They really want everybody, world-wide, to run around packing maximal heat. As such, it doesn't take a lot to convince them that somebody from a foreign country might want to spread that right back home. It helps if that somebody has good, er, posture (yeah, posture - that's the ticket!) and is willing to sit raptly while men old enough to be her father tell her how Things Get Done.
Second, the NRA is ran by Americans. They don't understand that the world is not composed of Americans, and so they don't understand a lot of either why the US became so gun-happy nor how Things Get Done Over There. I'm sure a lot of NRA figures never even thought to ask why Butina, if she was advocating changing Russian law, wasn't getting harassed half to death by the Russian government. The only viable answer is of course that she was working for the government. Which meant that the whole Right to Bear Arms organization she was "running" was a scam.
Third, a sizable portion of the NRA membership and leadership see themselves as "sheepdogs." (More here - summary is sheepdogs are here defined as scary people with a capacity for violence who protect the sheep from the wolves.) Putin has positioned himself as a sheepdog protecting (white) Christians from (brown) Islamic terrorists. Working with Putin is not a deal-breaker to them, although if they realized the Russian gun movement was bogus, it might be.
In short, much like Trump, the Russians found some not-bright people and sent an appealing package to tell them what they wanted to hear.
First, the NRA is ran by people who really like guns. (In other news, water is wet! Video at 10!) They really want everybody, world-wide, to run around packing maximal heat. As such, it doesn't take a lot to convince them that somebody from a foreign country might want to spread that right back home. It helps if that somebody has good, er, posture (yeah, posture - that's the ticket!) and is willing to sit raptly while men old enough to be her father tell her how Things Get Done.
Second, the NRA is ran by Americans. They don't understand that the world is not composed of Americans, and so they don't understand a lot of either why the US became so gun-happy nor how Things Get Done Over There. I'm sure a lot of NRA figures never even thought to ask why Butina, if she was advocating changing Russian law, wasn't getting harassed half to death by the Russian government. The only viable answer is of course that she was working for the government. Which meant that the whole Right to Bear Arms organization she was "running" was a scam.
Third, a sizable portion of the NRA membership and leadership see themselves as "sheepdogs." (More here - summary is sheepdogs are here defined as scary people with a capacity for violence who protect the sheep from the wolves.) Putin has positioned himself as a sheepdog protecting (white) Christians from (brown) Islamic terrorists. Working with Putin is not a deal-breaker to them, although if they realized the Russian gun movement was bogus, it might be.
In short, much like Trump, the Russians found some not-bright people and sent an appealing package to tell them what they wanted to hear.
