Vivek Murthy, the NRA and the politics of fear

March 20, 2014 01:00

The National Rifle Administration knows the power of fear. After all, its entire business model is based on it. When the organization's chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, goes before an audience and proclaims, "We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and car-jackers and knock-out gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all,' he's not trying to give a reasoned assessment of contemporary challenges.

(In the real world, crime has been steadily declining for two decades.) LaPierre is trying to make his audience as afraid as possible, because fear is great for his business.

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