On Tuesday, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors unanimously declared the National Rifle Association to be a “domestic terrorist organization” and urged the city to re-evaluate its financial commitments to organizations that conduct business with the interest group.
City leaders labeled the gun rights group that represents nearly five million members a “terrorist” group in response to several mass shootings that took place this summer, including one that took place at a food festival in Gilroy, California killing three people just south of San Francisco.
“The National Rifle Association musters its considerable wealth and organizational strength to promote gun ownership and incite gun owners to acts of violence,” the supervisors declared in the resolution. “The National Rifle Association spreads propaganda that misinforms and aims to deceive the public about the dangers of gun violence, and…through its advocacy has armed those individuals who would and have committed acts of terrorism.”
The board of supervisors continued in the resolution to recommend that the city assess its financial relationships with companies that work with the NRA, and urged other cities, states, and the federal government to do the same.
The NRA has been vilified by Democratic politicians and elites in the wake of nearly every mass shooting as wrongly responsible for killing sprees by crazy people. But San Francisco’s declaration of the gun-advocacy group as a “domestic terrorist” organization has taken this vilification to new heights.
In declaring the NRA a “domestic terrorist group,” San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors have shed further light on where extreme politics have taken the country. Rather than engaging in a productive dialogue on gun violence, San Francisco’s city leaders have instead declared their political opponents are something worse than enemies: “domestic terrorists.” This is a gross mischaracterization of an organization of more than five million people and illustrates a growing culture of contempt destroying American civility.
“Terrorism” is defined as “the systemic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.” In order to be a terrorist organization, then, the NRA would need to be encouraging violent attacks on U.S. citizens with the purpose of harnessing fear to promote its mission. Certainly, the NRA is no terrorist group.
While San Francisco leaders label the law-abiding citizens of the NRA as terrorists, will they do the same with Antifa? Antifa certainly fits the criteria of a domestic terrorist group, launching violent attacks on its opponents and journalists to harness fear against President Donald Trump and pursue a far-left political agenda.
Here’s a video of Antifa attacking conservative journalist Andy Ngo at a protest in Portland, Oregon:
Ngo was more than a little “roughed up.” Ngo suffered a traumatic brain injury from the assault.
Here is another video of Antifa violently attacking opponents:
Is Antifa not worth condemnation as a terrorist group?
San Francisco’s demonization of the NRA showcases the cancer that is contempt in American politics, where even leaders are seemingly incapable of engaging in civil dialogue and instead use extreme labels to characterize their opponents.
