Justice

John Legend Perfectly Captures the Hypocrisy of the NRA

July 7th 2016

John Legend's tweet about this weeks' police shootings reveals a big problem with the National Rifle Association's rhetoric about the Second Amendment. The NRA fiercely defends the right to bear arms and encourages state laws that allow citizens to carry firearms in public.

However, after police shot and killed a Black man, who reportedly had a gun in his possession, the NRA has been quiet. John Legend pointed that out on Twitter.

John Legend's tweet about the NRA. Twitter/@johnlegend - twitter.com

Philando Castile reportedly had a gun, but a witness account claims the gun was not in his hand.

Castile was killed in Minnesota, which allows citizens to carry guns if they have a permit.

Castile's girlfriend Lavish Reynolds (who also goes by Diamond), who witnessed the shooting and live-streamed the aftermath on Facebook, and other family members made statements that Castile had a permit to carry his gun.

Other people on Twitter noticed that the NRA has been quiet about gun carry rights during the shooting of Castile.

Although he has yet to address this week's police shooting, NRA President Wayne LaPierre has repeatedly encouraged laws that support public firearm possession in the wake of mass shootings. "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," said LaPierre for the first time in 2012 after the Newtown shooting.

"Wayne LaPierre on 'Face The Nation.'"Youtube/NRA - youtube.com

After the Orlando shooting last month, LaPierre said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that people should be able to own guns to protect themselves.

"I think that we're talking about the fact law-abiding people need to be able to own firearms to protect themselves," he said. "I think we need national carry reciprocity."

However, as of Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. PST the NRA's most recent tweets were about a homeowner shooting an intruder, California gun control laws, and Matt Damon. There is nothing about Castile.

The NRA's silence this week could be attributed to demographics of the organization and its relationship with police officers. The base of the association's support comes from white and rural members, according to The Washington Post. Black urban gun owners like Castile do not represent a political power base for them. Also the NRA has taken a stance against police criticism and aligned themselves with police departments.

 2016 NRA-ILA Leadership Forum"Youtube/NRA - youtube.com

In May, at the NRA's national convention in Kentucky, the associations top lobbyist Chris Cox said that American values have been perverted against cops.

“Can you imagine growing up in a country where everyone from movie stars to the president tells you to be suspicious of police officers?” he said. “Everything we’ve always known to be good and right and true has been twisted, perverted, and repackaged to our kids as wrong, backwards, and abnormal.”

ATTN: reached out to the NRA for comment and will update if they respond.

RELATED: Donald Trump Speaks at NRA's National Convention

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