NRA News Uses Boko Haram Kidnapping To Plug The NRA

Special Programs Guns & Public Safety

Written by Timothy Johnson

Published

NRA News host Cam Edwards tied the kidnapping of scores of Nigerian schoolgirls by terrorist organization Boko Haram to the National Rifle Association's recent annual meeting. According to Edwards, the girls' would-be rescuers are not "Pajama Boy" or fans of MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes, but instead are men “who look like they just came from the NRA annual meeting.”

The NRA frequently interjects itself into seemingly-unrelated situations involving heroism or sacrifice to enhance the NRA's brand. Just days after the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, NRA board member Ted Nugent claimed that the heroism of first responders to the attack “represents what the NRA is.” A January 2012 NRA fundraising email marked the anniversary of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster and also featured an image of President John F. Kennedy with the assassinated president's quote, “The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it.” The NRA also used the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks to solicit donations.

From the May 8 edition of NRA News show Cam & Company:

KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEWS HOST: I think [Fox's] Dana Perino said it best this week, too. She gets criticized a lot for wanting to go, you know, do things and prevent those things from happening. But, you know, this is the fact of the world, you know, there is evil in the world and someone has to stop it. And who do they always call? Us, because we're the ones willing to do it, and capable of doing it, and we're the good guys and so, you know, it's interesting to keep in mind that when people say they don't want to get involved, until of course something happens, and then all of a sudden it's, we have to get involved.

EDWARDS: Absolutely. But I would go one step further and say that, you know, when they ask the U.S. for help, we don't send Pajama Boy to do the job, Katie.

PAVLICH: Right, no.

EDWARDS: Probably not a lot of people who know and use the [Twitter] hashtag “inners” [fans of MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes] going over to Nigeria to rescue, hopefully, those girls.

PAVLICH: Yeah.

EDWARDS: There are a lot of guys who look like -- who look like they just came from the NRA annual meeting, frankly, who will be going over there and trying to rescue those girls.