Editor’s Note: This piece has been cross-posted from AllenBWest.com and was originally published on February 24.

I am the NRA, and I am freedom’s safest place. That isn’t just a cute commercial slogan, it’s how I feel as a Patriot Life Benefactor Member and Board Member of the National Rifle Association. Right now, I’m fuming with this insidious assault by the left and the pressure being levied by these so-called companies who want to break ties with the nation’s oldest civil rights organization. Last night, as I awaited going on with Laura Ingraham, one of the makeup ladies asked me who I was and why I was there. I explained to her, and told her that I was a Board Member of the NRA. She stated that she wanted to ask me some questions as she admitted she’d NEVER met anyone associated with the NRA.

I took my time and answered all her questions and explained the Parkland, Florida tragedy, which she’d not heard explained. Upon her departing, she had a completely different perspective, and gave me her thanks for being open and candid as I answered her questions.

You see, when you have socialist chuckleheads like Van Jones going out and making absurd assertions such as he made, it’s not surprising people begin to believe the nonsense.

As reported by Townhall.com:

CNN commentator Van Jones claimed Thursday that a “whole generation of young people” now sees the National Rifle Association (NRA) as the KKK because of the NRA’s “destructive role” in the debate on gun control. Van Jones began by arguing that the NRA “has played a net destructive role for people who are trying to solve this problem.” He added that “there is a sense of fear and terror among people who are in elected office that if they even entertain certain notions that the NRA is going to drop a ton of bricks on them.” Due to this fear, he said, “we haven’t had the kind of innovation, experimentation, trying of things—I don’t know of any of the things being proposed would make any difference at all yet, but we should know more than we know right now. We should have been able to try things and we haven’t been able to.” “You have a whole generation of young people who essentially see the NRA as their enemy,” he then argued. “To them the NRA is like the KKK; it’s just some hostile force that is against them, that’s risking their lives.” Jones said, “these kids, they’re not fighting for their future—they’re fighting for their right to survive, to have a future. They do not see the NRA as a friend in that fight.”

For Van Jones, Hugo Chavez and his gun ban in Venezuela is far more attractive. To have a tyrannical government gunning down its citizens is just fine with him. Let me make something very clear to ol’ Van.

Stephen Willeford is an NRA member. Willeford is an NRA trained firearms instructor. It was Stephen Willeford, an NRA member, who ended the shooting rampage in Sutherland Springs, Texas, armed with an AR-15. However, it was the Broward Sheriff Office who failed to protect young people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. It was Sheriff Scott Israel who withheld information as to the fact no one from his agency responded to the shooter, Nikolas Cruz, and his evil rampage.

So, why the heck is Van Jones referring to an organization that supported blacks to have gun rights to defend themselves during Reconstruction from the KKK, as the KKK? Perhaps Jones forgot it was the Democrat Party that started the KKK to intimidate blacks into not voting and enjoying their newfound freedoms…and the NRA, founded in 1871 to improve marksmanship, which aided them in enjoying their Second Amendment rights. It was the NRA who supported a black man named Otis McDonald to sue the city of Chicago so he could have a firearm in his home to defend himself. And it is the NRA that made me, a son of Atlanta, Georgia, a southern American black man one of its board members. The damn NAACP has never asked me to join, and no wonder, it was founded by three white socialists.

I’m doggone tired of CNN and all these liberal progressive media outlets that refuse to tell the truth. But the real truth is that the antics of the left is enlarging the membership of the National Rifle Association, and that membership is made up of everyday Americans who realize they have a right to defend themselves. That right is against criminals, and tyrants like a Van Jones.

It is so very disingenuous that the leftist media is saying nothing about the failures at so many levels that resulted in the deaths of those seventeen Americans at Stoneman Douglas. The FBI failed. The Broward Sheriff Office failed. The Broward School District failed. And these chuckleheads want to demonize the NRA. No, I ain’t taking this crap.

Sheriff Scott Israel must resign, he has known since last week Wednesday, February 14th, that his School Resource Officer did not respond. Sheriff Israel also knew that the video surveillance cameras at the school had a 20 minute delay, so updated information was not being fed to officials. The School Resource Officer, Scott Peterson, should be charged with dereliction of duty and criminal negligence…he certainly should not be allowed to retire with benefits. And how freaking odd that there are officers guarding him in his home, when he failed to safeguard those students.

There were some 39 visits, complaints, and tips to the FBI that went unheeded about Nikolas Cruz — anyone with a hand in this should be investigated for dereliction of duty. The Broward County Superintendent and School Board need to be held accountable for not ensuring there is adequate security at the schools. To have only one SRO for a student body of 3,000 is unconscionable, and that one SRO turned out to be a ROAD (retired on active duty) Sheriff’s Deputy.

And with all of this, these demented, delusional progressive socialists want to blame the NRA?

I am laying down a marker. I told the idiot Dallas City Councilman, Dwaine Caraway I’d debate him. Well, I am telling Van Jones that I will debate him as well on our Second Amendment right, and viable solutions for school safety. My feeling is that both of these gents are just as cowardly as the officer at Stoneman Douglas High School who hunkered down and did nothing to assist those kids, those young people. I would have.

This is an important moment. The NRA is not to blame, and certainly is not the enemy of young people. The folks who let the young people down are the ones who are supposed to serve and protect them. Sheriff Scott Israel showed his butt off at the CNN Townhall…all the while knowing the truth. He’s an incompetent political ideologue, not a qualified law enforcement officer, like the former Broward County Sheriff, my friend Al Lamberti…under whom, this would never have happened.

Van Jones, leave the NRA alone, focus your attention on Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel — that is, if you have the principled courage to do so.