This week, America continues to mourn the death of former president George H.W. Bush, yet another reminder that this country currently does not have a real president, or someone that is even close to measuring up to his predecessors.
Bush had many defining moments of his presidency, but one particular moment has resurfaced as the country is more disgusted than ever about the inaction of Donald Trump and the GOP when it comes to gun control. Despite new mass shootings happening every week all over the country, the Republican Party refuses to stand up to the NRA and take action — and now people are using Bush as a prime example of how far the GOP has fallen from any decency.
Bush himself was a member of the NRA until 1995, when he sent the organization a powerful resignation letter. This came after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, in which then-NRA president Wayne LaPierre compared federal agents to Nazis because he was upset about President Bill Clinton’s ban on assault weapons.
This prompted Bush to write a resignation letter, writing to LaPierre:
To attack Secret Service agents or [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] people or any government law enforcement people as ‘wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms’ wanting to ‘attack law abiding citizens’ is a vicious slander on good people.”
Bush ended his note with a fiery resignation to the NRA:
I am a gun owner and an avid hunter. Over the years I have agreed with most of N.R.A.’s objectives, particularly your educational and training efforts, and your fundamental stance in favor of owning guns. However, your broadside against Federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor; and it offends my concept of service to country. It indirectly slanders a wide array of government law enforcement officials, who are out there, day and night, laying their lives on the line for all of us. You have not repudiated Mr. LaPierre’s unwarranted attack. Therefore, I resign as a Life Member of N.R.A., said resignation to be effective upon your receipt of this letter. Please remove my name from your membership list. Sincerely, George Bush”
Here is George HW Bush’s resignation letter from the NRA. #NRAIsATerroristOrganization pic.twitter.com/eC46zxDy50
— ETXDem (@easttexasdem) December 2, 2018
If only the Republican Party still had this decency — it would not be the mess it is today, and we would not have lost as many innocent lives.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons
