A newly expanded version of the National Rifle Association's flagship magazine has already featured racist and sexist content, a claim that gun owners are the victim of “institutionalized discrimination,” and other inflammatory commentary.

In recent weeks, the NRA has rebranded its magazine America's 1st Freedom. While the magazine was previously available in a print and digital format, a newly-launched website has more content, including “F1rst Things First” ( “The Daily Threat Assessment for Your Firearm Freedoms” ), features by a wide range of NRA writers and outside contributors, and material from the NRA's lifestyle magazine NRA Sharp and the NRA News commentator series.

One thing that has not changed for America's 1st Freedom is the magazine's penchant for inflammatory commentary.

Former NRA Lobbyist Discuses Time He Would Have Been “Justified” In Pushing Homeless Person Who Was Bothering Him In Front Of A Bus

In a May 4 feature that promoted controversial “Stand Your Ground” self-defense laws, former NRA lobbyist Darren LaSorte, who now works for the NRA's ad agency Ackerman McQueen, described a past experience where he would have felt “clearly justified in [his] mind” to push a homeless man who was yelling at him and waving his hands around his waist in front of a bus. As it turns out, LaSorte was actually able to defuse the situation by crossing the street.

LaSorte recounted how "[o]n an evening walk home from work a while back, a mentally ill man picked me out of the crowd for whatever reason and things went south from there." According to LaSorte, the man yelled at him and came “contact-close” while "[h]is hands went from waving wildly in the air to down around his waistline."

He then recalled almost pushing the man into traffic (emphasis added): “I was about to launch him away from me with an explosive and instinctive push to his chest. Just at that moment out of my peripheral vision, I noticed a city bus speeding by in the nearest lane of traffic. I stopped at the last moment and instead moved off a couple of feet to my right. If I had pushed him away from me, I would have been clearly justified in my mind, but the government might have viewed it differently if this man had been severely injured or killed by the passing bus.”

Once the traffic light changed, LaSorte wrote that he walked across the street and the man did not follow him. Citing other instances of being approached by “someone suspicious,” LaSorte promoted the NRA's work in advancing “Stand Your Ground” laws. These laws actually increase the incidence of homicide, and a primary criticism leveled at such laws is that they needlessly escalate situations, resulting in lethal outcomes.

Contributor Argues Private Businesses Not Allowing Guns Is “Institutionalized Discrimination” Against Gun Owners

A May 3 column by conservative writer Brad Thor argued that private businesses posting signs not allowing firearms was tantamount to “institutionalized discrimination.”

Describing how he moved his family out of the Chicago area because of local gun laws, Thor wrote that a recent federal court decision mandating that Illinois allow people to carry concealed guns in public under some circumstances “actually seemed to increase the institutionalized discrimination against gun owners.”

According to Thor, businesses that posted “no guns” signs in the wake of the court ruling made it impossible for him to visit his favorite restaurant or for his wife “to run the family's daily errands.” (Thor's logic doesn't make much sense: before the court ruling, civilians were not allowed to carry guns in public, meaning that it would be illegal to bring a gun while shopping or going out to eat.)

Individual instances of private business owners banning guns in their establishments probably doesn't rise to the level of “institutional discrimination,” which is generally understood to include broad corporate or governmental programs and practices that target protected classes such as race, religion, or gender -- and not gun ownership status.

Column Says Court Ruling Adverse To Pro-Gun Crowd Is “Far More ... Insidious” Than Increase In Chicago Murders

America's 1st Freedom's creative director Clay Turner set up a May 6 column by writing that he would discuss something more insidious than reports of increased homicides in the Chicago area (emphasis original):

Something very disturbing happened in Highland Park, Ill., last week. We're not talking about the alarming rise in homicides in the Chicago area, which are up 140 percent over this time last year despite continued draconian gun restrictions. No, something far more ... insidious transpired.

The “insidious” event referenced by Turner was revealed to be a federal court ruling that upheld a Chicago suburb's ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Turner seized on language in the decision where a federal court ruled that a positive benefit of the ban is that it would make residents of the suburb feel safer in their community. According to Turner (emphasis original), the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “says the state is justified in banning firearms for no other reason than some people might feel safer. ... There is no right to feel safe guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, and the Seventh Court [sic] is wrong to attempt to establish one.”

Turner wildly distorted the ruling in his attempt to make it seem more insidious than an increase in murders -- the court found that the Second Amendment does not preclude local governments from regulating firearms, and that a reduction in crime and a perceived sense of safety in the community is “a substantial benefit” of such legislation. As the Chicago Tribune reported, “The ruling cited federal data showing that similar laws elsewhere reduced crimes involving assault weapons and stated that residents have many other options for self-defense.”

But contrary to Turner's claims, the court did not hold that the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to feel safe or that safety concerns necessarily trump gun owners' Second Amendment rights -- only that “the best way to evaluate the relation among assault weapons, crime, and self-defense is through the political process and scholarly debate.”

NRA Daily Digest Attacks Gun Safety Group For Shining A Light On Gun Accidents Involving Kids

A daily feature in America's 1st Freedom falsely accused gun violence prevention group Everytown for Gun Safety of deception because Everytown launched a website that “tracks every publicly reported incident in 2015 where a person age 17 or under unintentionally kills or injures someone with a gun.”

America's 1st Freedom wrote that Everytown used “bogus” statistics with the claim that “many” of the examples on Everytown's website “simply depict hunting or target-shooting accidents that did not produce life-threatening injuries. The guns in this category could in no way be said to be 'unsecured.'”

The inclusion of these incidents, however, is consistent with the methodology spelled out on the Everytown website -- the NRA is inventing the distinction of whether incidents should be included based on the severity of the injury or the circumstances under which the child obtained the gun. And contrary to the NRA's claim that “many” incidents did not involve unsecured firearms, according to the Everytown data, “More than two-thirds of these tragedies could be avoided if gun owners stored their guns responsibly and prevented children from accessing them.”

NRA “WarriorWire” Feature Includes Sexist Commentary On State Dept. Spokeswoman Marie Harf And A Racial Slur

In an April 28 column, NRA Life of Duty correspondent Chuck Holton made a series of sexist attacks on State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. In February, Harf caused controversy after an appearance on MSNBC where she linked terrorism to a lack of economic opportunity in the Middle East. (Similar statements had actually been made under the Bush administration.)

Holton described Harf as a “spokesperson barbie [sic],” suggested that her viewpoints on terrorism had been negatively influenced by a women's studies program, and described her as a “clueless, poorly accessorized mouthpiece” in his column. He also used the word “Hadji” -- a racial slur used to describe someone from the Middle East or India -- in attacking Harf's supposed cluelessness.