The obvious reason the NRA isn’t commenting on the Philando Castile police shooting

[AntiBank]

Gun ownership in America — down to the NRA’s messaging — is largely built on white identity.

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/7/12123040/philando-castile-nra-guns-police-shooting

On Wednesday night, police officers shot and killed reportedly legal gun owner Philando Castile — and although the details remain unclear, it seems the officers may have panicked and shot Castile to death when Castile reached for his driver’s license, after disclosing he had a gun. This would seem like a standard case for the National Rifle Association: A legal gun owner was shot for doing everything you’re supposed to do — reportedly getting his concealed carry permit and telling an officer during a traffic stop that a gun was present in the car. But the NRA’s position official position so far is “no comment.” Why?

One possible explanation is the NRA has an uneasy alliance with police. Both police unions and the NRA are conservative groups, and many police officers are also gun owners and NRA members. The NRA, then, has an interest in not upsetting police — especially since the facts of the shooting remain unclear due to the lack of video of the shooting itself. (Still, the NRA has consistently decried the heightened scrutiny of police officers following the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.)

But there’s another, more obvious explanation: Castile was black, and gun ownership in America — down to the NRA’s messaging — is largely built on white identity.

The connection between white identity and guns

The link between white identity and gun ownership has been shown by researchers: A 2015 study, published in the journal Political Behavior, looked at survey data going back to the 1990s, finding a strong correlation between opposition to gun control and levels of racial resentment.

But the results only found a correlation, so the researchers dug deeper. They asked nearly 1,200 white participants a series of questions online about gun laws. But one half of the group first looked at pictures of white and black people from an implicit association test — to make them think about race — while the other half did not.


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lots of hyperlinks in the article

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Try this on for size.

This shooting happened in a State that has a Governor who loves to hunt and fish. And when he was the states AG,he was known as Mr. Clean.