NRA-ILA FAX ALERT

Special Alert 11/16/99

NBC’s “SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE” STEPS WAY OVER THE LINE — Parodies Mass Shooting at NRA Headquarters

Just when we thought the national, anti-gun media couldn’t sink any lower, NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) proved us wrong.

Saturday evening’s (Nov. 13) show opened with the regular broadcast of SNL being interrupted by a mock, special NBC News report. The mock report was
coverage of a mass shooting at NRA headquarters in Washington, D.C. (leave it to NBC to not even do the most basic research to correctly identify our
headquarters as being located in Fairfax, Va.).

As if making a mockery of a mass shooting at your NRA headquarters was not tasteless enough, the show went even further by portraying NRA President
Charlton Heston and other staff as being impressed with the shooter’s marksmanship skills. In noting that NRA officials would not press charges against the shooter, the mock news interviewer questioned the shooter, who was holding a trophy “awarded” to him by NRA officials.

This skit, coupled with the media’s reporting on recent mass shootings at schools and businesses, conveys the troubling image that, while these
latter incidents are to be met with grief, shock, and horror, portraying such a scenario at NRA headquarters is a subject to be treated with humor.

Everyone likes a good joke and should be able to laugh at themselves. This, however, doesn’t fall into that category. Making light of a slaughter at our national headquarters clearly falls outside the boundaries of good taste, and you need to express your sentiments to NBC and Saturday Night Live.

ACTION ITEM: Please call NBC’s “Comments Line” at 212/664-2333 or E-mail NBC from their website at www.nbc.com to express your displeasure over this distasteful skit. You may also write them at: “NBC Viewer Relations,” 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112.

PLEASE CONTACT NBC IMMEDIATELY AND ENCOURAGE YOUR FELLOW NRA MEMBERS TO
DO SO AS WELL!

********BEGIN RUSS HOWARD’S (FORMER NRA BOARD MEMBER) COMMENTARY********

From: CR Howard <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]

Re: NRA-ILA FAX ALERT: NBC’s SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE STEPS WAY OVER THE LINE

Chris, Thanks for the forward.

Once again, a pathetic response from NRA that misses the opportunity to turn the issue around and go on the offensive. They could be saying something like,

“Naturally, we think the skit was irresponsible and tasteless. Still, we have to admit, parts of it were funny. But we’re not sure NBC’s writers understand the irony of their own skit.
Everyone knows that a shooter dumb enough to come here would have 500 bullet holes in him before he got through the front door. NRA headquarters is not like the public schools, which
NBC and the other anti-gun media have turned into sitting ducks by pushing anti-self-defense laws like gun free school zones.
These laws don’t produce gun-free schools, they produce killing zones where psychos are guaranteed that only they will have guns, and that their prey will be helpless. Since the media helps create these psychos with the extreme dehumanizing violence of movies and video games, it’s predictable that the media would protect their pet psychos with laws that leave their victims defenseless. Some 20 years ago, Israel had a school shooting problem. Terrorists used to attack Israeli schools and kill everyone because they knew no one would defend themselves.
But Israelis learned from the Holocaust, and they don’t believe that being good little politically correct victims is more important than facing reality and taking responsibility for defending yourself. When Israel began arming teachers and staff, it was open season on terrorists and the school shootings stopped almost overnight. Unlike here, nobody in Israel was stupid or trendy enough to protest that ‘we just can’t have armed teachers running around like the wild west.’ Unfortunately, here in the U.S. the media would rather let our children die than admit that their agenda of disarming decent citizens is killing people. Americans who believe in the right to keep and bear arms, like Israelis, don’t believe in being good victims.
“Don’t waste your time writing NBC. They’d have a bigger laugh throwing your letters away than they did from the skit. Instead, call talk radio shows, write letters to the editor, etc., and make these points to sensible, open-minded people who will actually listen to you.”

Unfortunately, NRA can’t say anything like that because Wayne LaPierre and Charlton Heston have adopted a policy of appeasing the media by publicly endorsing gun free school zones and calling for full enforcement of all existing gun control laws. So all NRA can do is tell members to waste their time writing pointless letters to NBC when they could actually be doing something productive.

Russ Howard
mailto:[email protected]