Is the National Rifle Association a type of fundamentalist organization?

[Hardheaded1]

On the Deism note, we all do well to remember that in colonial America, just like today, the leadership and the followers were two different classes of people entirely. Whereas statesmen, land owners, slave owners, smugglers, and nobles were all a-twitter with the new clothes of Enlightenment and Industrialization, the common man and woman was still hauling out the chamber pot, boiling clothes in pot over a fire to wash them, and working by the sweat of their brow.

Deism was never the philosophy of the average American. There was a lot of agnosticism or even atheism on the frontier as it moved from the East Coast to the West Coast, but settled towns and farms were overwhelming Christian, be that good, bad, or ugly.

Even the premise that America was "founded" by Deists is flawed, as it ignores all the waves of religious refugees who set up their own para-theocracies with state churches in the colonies. Rich, white aristocrats often dallied with the new ideas of the philosophies-du-jour, but the governors themselves, whether executives, legislators, or paper pushers, were plain old Christians.

Today, we do see a healthier rise of true pluralism, the Christian Right's efforts notwithstanding, but it is the Left today who just as eagerly grasp at straws when trying to unwrite America's very plain history in the evolution of religion.

I speak this as a social liberal, a religious moderate, and a political leftist.

[LJay]

I understand what you are saying, hardheaded1. I just think that "...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..." is a long way from Jesus Saves.

[JackTX]

From the perspective of a Canadian observer......the NRA has emerged as a full blown right wing cult umbrella, fueled by tithes from the armaments industry and feeding off the paranoia that all the good white folks is going to be shot in their beds by marauding gangs of 'other'.

Indeed.

The NRA seem to be largely a shield for the gun manufacturers at this point. Every time there's a shooting, they come out to be the public face of the guns, playing down the event (it's ALWAYS mental illness, don'cha know??), taking all of the heat. No one ever goes after the manufacturers because the loudmouth spokesman of the NRA reliably provides a juicy, distracting target. And he gets paid exceedingly well to do it.

I'm not sure about the religion connection but there are probably more than an average share of fundies in the NRA since it's a right-oriented group.

[Hardheaded1]

I understand what you are saying, hardheaded1. I just think that "...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..." is a long way from Jesus Saves.

Respectfully, I think religion is a minor reference in our charters. It is a background given in the society of that time, and in the popular mind.

Our world and religion are greatly different today, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly reinterpreted it to accommodate those evolutions. I thank God most sincerely every time they reiterate the division between Church and State. Noble calling, that.

[LJay]

Respectfully, I think religion is a minor reference in our charters. It is a background given in the society of that time, and in the popular mind.

Our world and religion are greatly different today, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly reinterpreted it to accommodate those evolutions. I thank God most sincerely every time they reiterate the division between Church and State. Noble calling,that.

Absolutely!