NRA Cult Loses Key Acolytes Today. Abbott, Patrick Cancel Amid Mounting Fury, Cornyn Hides In D.C.

The GOP gun lobby is like a group of very slow children. They just don’t seem to get it that you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. The number of assault rifles in this country has increased from 400,000 in 1994 to 20,000,000 today. From less than half a million to twenty million in less than thirty years. That is some kind of a cultural shift. If you were researching American culture in the past half century and the only stat you had was that one, it would be more than sufficient to let you know that something incredibly alarming had taken place in this land.

Be that as it may, the GOP is oblivious. They’re oblivious to the statistic and what it translates as. They believe that they can have the money and placate — nay, delight — the powerful gun lobby, and yet the other side of the equation, the violence, will just disappear. It is an illogical, irrational stance, which has led to pain and misery in this country which beggar description.

One of the most moving sub-tragedies, arising out of the general tragedy of the Uvalde shooting, is that of the Garcia family, Joe and Irma. Irma was one of the two teachers gunned down in Tuesday’s massacre. Joe, her husband, had a fatal heart attack less than 48 hours later. They leave behind four children. Four children were orphaned this week, the course of their lives irreparably altered, by the most evil corporate interests that have ever existed in the history of this nation.

The NRA is having its annual gun and testosterone festival in Houston this week. It should have been outright canceled, but as a half measure, Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick are shrinking into the shadows, along with many others, and here’s what is left of this dark event. New York Times:

The most high-profile event of the three-day conference will begin at 2 p.m. Central on Friday. Scheduled speakers include former President Donald J. Trump, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina. It will also feature two top N.R.A. officials: Jason Ouimet, the executive director of the N.R.A.’s Institute for Legislative Action, and Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A. vice president.

On Thursday, Gov. Abbott canceled plans to attend and will instead address the conference in prerecorded remarks while he returns to Uvalde.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas pulled out because he has to be in Washington for personal reasons, his office told Politico. Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas told Fox News he canceled his appearance because he would not be back from a visit to Ukraine in time. Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, backed out of his speech at a breakfast on Friday because “I would not want my appearance today to bring any additional pain or grief to the families and all those suffering in Uvalde,” he said in a statement.

A musical performance scheduled for Saturday that was to feature several country music stars was in doubt after most of the artists backed out. Don McLean, Larry Gatlin and Larry Stewart withdrew on Thursday, followed by Lee Greenwood and T. Graham Brown.

Mr. Greenwood said in a statement that he canceled his appearance “out of respect for those mourning the loss of those innocent children and teachers in Uvalde.”

The N.R.A. said its “deepest sympathies are with the families and victims involved in this horrific and evil crime” and blamed it on “a lone, deranged criminal.”

This is and should be a time of national mourning and Texans should all be wearing black this weekend, but only the most aware are. It will be intriguing to see if the NRA does its usual cowboy mentality level of speech, how the Second Amendment makes them all into John Wayne or better yet Charlton Heston protecting their family from the apes, which by the way is you and me.

I don’t know whether to say too bad Rush Limbaugh isn’t there this weekend, or thank God, he’s not, because he was the one who, for a lot of money, started telling the right-wing rubes back in the 1990’s that the government was coming for your guns and then for you. Ronnie Raygun was stupid to say, “government is the problem,” because all that did was give Limbaugh the jump start he needed and here we are.

Let’s see what gets said at the NRA gun fetish convention this weekend, not even a week after the worst school shooting since Sandy Hook.

Since Sandy Hook, the nation has suffered more than 3500 mass shootings, and Republicans have excused them by claiming they didn’t actually happen, or by insisting we need more guns so there will be “a good guy with a gun” to take out a shooter, or that we need to “harden targets,” or that we need more police in the schools (which has simply led to more student arrests), or as Senator Ted Cruz said today, to limit the number of doors in schools, or, as a guest on Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity’s show said, to put “mantraps” and trip wires in the schools.

Those are the words of Heather Cox Richardson. Let’s see what words Kristi Noem and the rest of the gang come up with this weekend. I want to hear them all spin what a wonderful things guns are, and how they don’t hurt people, it’s just these lone deranged criminals who can obtain an AR-15 easier than they can obtain a bottle of scotch who are the problem.

Let’s see how it goes. Wayne LaPierre should have pulled the plug on Tuesday, but his greed and avarice trumped any moral considerations, no surprise there and so now the games begin. Let’s see if the NRA doesn’t end up regretting this choice more than any other they’ve made recently.