Few politicians can boast of bringing together 10,000 people at a hearing announced 48 hours in advance. One of them is Donald Trump . The president of the United States filled to the flag the auditorium of the Kay Baley Hutchinson Convention Center, in the city of Dallas, Texas, where the Annual Assembly of the National Rifle Association (NRA) started today. a group that only has four million members in a country in which 70 million people have firearms and the total population is around 325 million, but which sets the standard for politics in the world's leading power.
Trump, who was accompanied by the vice president, went, literally, to his faithful. The queue to see him in person had begun to form at 9 in the morning. The list to register for the event had been closed more than 24 hours before because there was no room for more public. The American president spoke to his army. Because there is nothing that better reflects Trump's electorate than the NRA: whites, evangelical Christians -like Trump, and like the members of Liberty University, whose 'stand' occupied a prominent position near the machine guns-, of educational level and of low income, and residents of rural areas.
The president signed today that the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which protects the right to bear arms, "will never be under siege" while he is president, while praising the NRA as "true patriots." The president thanked "the true American patriots of the NRA who defend our rights, our freedom, and our great flag of the United States."
An army, yes, unarmed. The NRA defends the use of firearms in all circumstances . And in Texas it is allowed to take it. That means that most of the 80,000 people who attend the Annual Assembly carry their gun, or rifle with them. They can carry it in many places. For example, in panties, or in the bodice. The stand 'Femme Fatale' sold exactly that: lingerie to carry the gun.
But, in what has been described by the critics of the NRA as an absolute contradiction of the organization, weapons were banned in the auditorium . The 10,000 people who queued patiently for hours to see the president had to go through metal detection arcs. But that did not matter to them in the least. "I'm sure he does not like that prohibition, but they will have imposed it on him," said John, 43, wearing a T-shirt that said, "I'm not a believer, I'm a Christian," and had traveled from the city of Tulsa, in neighboring Oklahoma, where he works in an oil services company, to be in the Assembly.
The 'Deep State', that is, the 'Deep State' - a strange amalgam formed by the FBI, the CIA, and all those who do not totally agree with Donald Trump - was, therefore, the culprit of the restrictions on the possession of weapons in the presence of the president. When the audience was asked about the fact that the other public agencies that act most to facilitate the use of firearms -the Congress and the Supreme Court- also do not let a private individual enter with a machine gun to greet a congressman or to see a magistrate, the reaction was one of irritation. "That's enough!" Exclaimed Todd, a 66-year-old Virginia businessman, upon hearing that argument. "We are fighting to recover our country, that is what is really important" .
The fighting mentality is key in the NRA. At the March 2014 Assembly, the president of the Association ended his speech proclaiming that "we are going to recover the Congress in November, and to recover the White House in 2016." Eight months later, the Republican Party swept the legislative elections. And in 2016, Donald Trump became president.
The NRA needs enemies. So Trump provided them. London is "a war zone," he said. And the only way to stop a terrorist like those who caused a massacre of innocents in Paris in 2015 is "a good guy with a gun" . Said in a room with 10,000 gun lovers who had been forbidden to carry weapons to protect whoever was saying that, it sounded a bit strange. In the end, the NRA is not just weapons; it is, also irony.
