So here I was, getting’ all ready to drive down to Nashville next month for the NRA show, and America’s ‘first civil rights organization’ cancels the show.  I went to my first NRA jamboree in 1980 – it was held (believe it or not) in Philadelphia and a Presidential candidate named Ronald Reagan showed up to give a speech. I don’t remember anyone actually walking away from the exhibition area to listen to the speech. After all, how can you compare the joys of eating a nice, greasy corn dog to some political pandering about a ‘welfare queen?’

That was then – this is now. What I find so impressive and even somewhat quaint about the NRA show is how little things change from year to year. The guns are the same, the appeals to liberty, freedom and all the other patriotic co-branding is the same, the food is the same (nothing that could remotely be considered ‘health food’ is sold at the show) and the t-shirts are the same.

Most of all, the people are the same,
and if there is one concession I would love to have at an NRA show, it’s
the renting of those little, electric carts which allow people to ride around
who otherwise can’t walk. Oh, you say, it’s too bad that so many gun owners have
been crippled by some kind of accident or disease. Wrong. They can’t walk
because they are too fat. You’ll never see so many huge people in one public
space at the same time.

Thanks to the ‘Chinese’ virus
(Trump’s use of that word is the single, most disgusting thing that any
American President has ever said) I’ll have to wait until 2021 to visit with
all my friends at the NRA. But my visit to next year’s show assumes
there will be a show. And the way things are going for the organization of
which I happen to be a Hall of Fame, Defender of Freedom, Benefactor Member, I’m
not sure there will be a 2021 show that I can attend.

I was even hoping to wear the NRA
Patriot’s Medal I received after I sent Wayne-o some extra cash. But from
reports that have recently surfaced in the media about all kinds of
cash-flow problems in the Fairfax home office, even the organization’s top
leadership is feeling the crunch. Staff have been laid off, some temporarily,
some permanently. Local meetings and get-togethers have been cancelled as well.
Until last week, you couldn’t go to a gun show anywhere in the United States
without seeing a big Welcome! Banner from the NRA. Now
there are no gun shows.

What caught my eye in the NRA’s
shut-down announcement, however, was not the fact that their remaining staff is
going to be working from home. Rather, it was a comment in Wayne-o’s letter sent to the
entire organization which told employees to “contact any germane state or federal
agency to determine eligibility for any additional aid.”

Hey, wait a
minute! Just wait one gol dern minute! I thought the only people who ever go to
the government for ‘aid’ are the welfare cheats, the illegals scamming the food
stamp system, all those good-for-nothings who steal hard-earned money grabbed by
the government from honest, decent, law-abiding folks like you and me. The NRA
is now saying that the same government whose jack-booted thugs assaulted legal gun
owners is the same government that can be trusted to hand out financial aid?
What?

If the Covid-19 virus had stayed in China like
it was supposed to, the NRA would have held its annual meeting in
Nashville and welcomed another visit by our ‘wartime President’ who would have
reminded his adoring audience that he could always be counted on to defend
their 2nd-Amendment ‘rights.’ He would have trashed all those
‘Socialists’ on the other side, probably thrown in a few curse words as well,
and then run off to hold one of his Nuremberg rallies in another friendly,
red-blooded state.

No wonder Trump is considering
lifting the ban on stay-at-home orders. He’s the last person who ever stays
home.