Bullies: Obama Administration Summons NRA to White House

Vice President Joe Biden, who is heading up the President’s task force on gun control proposals, announced Tuesday that he would be meeting this week with the National Rifle Association, among other groups. 

And his timing is just a bit suspect; the day before meeting with the NRA, Biden will be meeting with gun control organizations and shooting victims. Presumably, his welcome for the NRA will be somewhat less hearty.

The NRA, under heavy public pressure thanks to the White House’s bully tactics after the Sandy Hook massacre, said it would visit the White House to “hear what they have to say.”

This is all a dog and pony show, of course. The Washington Post has already reported that the administration wants a broad swath of gun legislation; Democratic Congresspeople proposed eight separate gun bills on the first day of the term; and Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston, who co-chairs Mayors Against Illegal Guns with nanny Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said that Biden promised him action before the end of January.

So why is the NRA visiting? Because the White House has given them no other public relations choice. President Obama has singled the group out for criticism. The White House’s media lackeys, including David Gregory of NBC News, have grilled the NRA, asking them to back off their organization’s stated mission.

It remains inexplicable why the White House and the media focus so heavily on the NRA when it is members of Congress who must make votes. Obama’s team and the media have targeted the NRA for fire over the NRA’s support for broad Second Amendment rights. But while Joe Biden is also inviting members of the entertainment community to the White House to talk about violence in media, he isn’t inviting the American Civil Liberties Union to bash them over their broad interpretation of the First Amendment.

It’s obvious that the White House sees the NRA – not actually saving lives in places like Sandy Hook – as their fundamental target. If they can use Sandy Hook to break a major piece of the conservative infrastructure, they will.

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News, and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).