In the last month, we’ve heard a lot of horrible things about the NRA. It’s important to understand a few things that are taking place that may not be obvious, however. These are things that directly impact you as a gun owner and as a gun rights supporter.

First, let’s understand that when one of the Parkland kids or some other gun control advocate says “NRA,” they’re using that as a proxy. They mean every one of us. They lump us in as the NRA only because it’s the biggest group of us, but make no mistake; they’re talking about every single gun owner. After all, how many NRA supporters would stop support gun rights if they stopped being members? None. That’s because the NRA is reflective of the membership, not the other way around. They may or may not get that. But, it’s worth remembering that the NRA means all of us, regardless of membership.

So whenever someone says the NRA has blood on its hands, it means we have blood on our hands. When some progressive governor claims the NRA is a terrorist organization, he’s saying we are terrorists. These insults aimed at the NRA are really aimed at every single one of us.

And when they do talk about us directly, it’s rarely flattering. Progressives claim we’re “stockpiling” guns. They claim we’re doing it because we’re afraid of black people. Then again, a number still think we’re racist, too. Others will claim that we think gun control is an attack on our masculinity.

And they’re aimed at us for a specific purpose.

You see, they’re trying to stigmatize gun ownership. Progressives want to make it taboo to own a gun, or at least to talk about it. The idea is to shift public opinion to such a point that something once socially acceptable – owning a gun – is now socially unacceptable. Then, people will either keep quiet or they’ll be pushed out into the fringes of society.

Basically, to use their terminology, they’re trying to “other” us.

You see, when you successfully “other” a group, you’re capable of doing any horrible thing. You essentially classify a group as something other than human, thus it becomes easy to commit atrocities against those people. It’s how the Nazis were able to do such terrible things to the Jews. They’d already “othered” them to such a great degree.

The idea is to do the same to us.

The difference being, we’re a self-selected group. People choose to be gun owners. That means we can decide to be non-gun owners as well.

Thus, they try to demonize us. Progressives paint us as terrorists and child murderers. They claim we’re responsible for every atrocity despite the fact that the majority of us have done nothing wrong and vehemently oppose anyone committing these horrific crimes.

After that is accomplished, they try to silence us. They lash out and try to de-platform us, take away our ability to speak. Remember those walkouts earlier this week? Remember how it was all about kids exercising their free speech? It wasn’t about that. It was about pushing one particular line of argument that guns are bad. Look what happened when one kid tried to present a different viewpoint.

Kids at our school today walked out, in honor of the 17 students killed in Florida. Students held signs that said, “Arm our teachers” they had two signs. A student walked out without saying a word peacefully put up his sign which said “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” he was escorted off the property by our principal and threatened to be put into a police car. This violates the first amendment and makes me sick that they can do whatever they want. Please make this go viral. Location: New Prague High school, Minnesota. Posted by Kenny MacDonald on Wednesday, March 14, 2018

This wasn’t just a single case of this either. Conservative actor Nick Searcy reported a similar case on his Facebook page.

At my son's school, a student wearing a pro-2nd Amendment shirt on March 14th was sent to the office and received a… Posted by Nick Searcy on Thursday, March 15, 2018

In other words, it wasn’t about free speech. It was about a certain kind of speech. Those with a contrary point of view were punished. They’re trying to silence them.

It’s like people lashing out that the NRA had the nerve to post a pro-gun picture on Twitter on Wednesday. They’re supposed to be silent so they can be “othered,” for crying out loud.

Meanwhile, high school students are punished for posting pictures of themselves shooting at the range, completely in compliance with all applicable laws. This all because someone somewhere got the idea that they had the power to dictate what people can and can’t do in all aspects of their lives, especially when it came to firearms.

The goal is to purge the gun owner as a factor from American politics. Although, I’d be surprised to find many admitting it.

That’s why we have to step up and combat this. We need to let them know that we’re not going to move to any fringes quietly and we’re not about to let them have their way by getting rid of our guns.

When we say “not one more inch,” we mean it.