Left-wing media personality Keith Olbermann called the National Rifle Association (NRA) a “terrorist organization” in a video response to the mass shooting in Las Vegas earlier this week.
Olbermann, speaking on his GQ show The Resistance, said the NRA “enables” mass shootings and criticized President Donald Trump’s response to the shooting.
“We have the Second Amendment, which was designed to keep the federal government from taking away the right of each state to maintain its own militia, but which has now been transformed into an excuse for why madmen of whatever heritage or political purpose cannot be stopped from carrying at least 10 long rifles into a hotel room in Las Vegas,” he said, adding, “and why a group that enables such matters—the National Rifle Association—is not branded for what it is: a terrorist organization.”
Olbermann quotes Warren Burger, former President Richard Nixon’s chief justice, who called the Second Amendment a “fraud.”
“‘Keep’ and ‘bear,’ as Chief Justice Burger insisted, do not mean ‘own,’” Olbermann said.
The Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, defines domestic terrorism as an act intended to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.”
Police have not yet released a motive of alleged Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock, 64, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation says it has found no connection between him and international terrorist groups.
The NRA has remained silent across its social network accounts since Sunday night’s massacre, which left at least 59 people dead and more than 500 injured, making it the deadliest mass shooting in United States history.
Olbermann isn’t the only partisan pundit who has made incendiary remarks in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting.
In a blog post on Monday, former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly argued against any gun control laws, adding that the shooting was the “price of freedom.”
You can watch all of Olbermann’s segment here:
Las Vegas – Trump's "Warmest Condolences" are not sufficient. The NRA and the dog-whistlers must GO. pic.twitter.com/QfGKEIGKcT
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) October 3, 2017