The N.R.A.’s Challenge to America

In case you missed the news—and I can’t really blame you for tuning it out—the National Rifle Association has gotten itself a new president. He’s a charming tub of a man by the name of Jim Porter, and Monday was officially his first day in his new job. But even before taking over at the N.R.A.’s headquarters, in Fairfax, Virginia, Porter clearly signalled his intentions.

Addressing the N.R.A.’s annual convention in Houston over the weekend, the sixty-four year-old Porter told the assembled firearms enthusiasts, survivalists, and Republican hangers-on that they were engaged in a “culture war” with the President, media élitists, Mayor Bloomberg, and anyone else who questioned the right of God-fearing Americans to arm themselves like members of an infantry battalion without a proper system of background checks on purchases. “This is not a battle about gun rights,” Porter declared at a breakfast meeting. “[You] here in this room are fighters for freedom. We are the protectors.”

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