The NRA and their supporters really don’t like people protesting against their leaders who profit from death and destruction. My friend Amanda Gaily peacefully and legally protested outside the business of the wife of NRA-Lobbyist Chris Cox and outside Cox’s home (which is on a busy public road). The NRA/FOX PR team went nuts. They started up the noise machine, Tucker Carlson mischaracterizing her protest. He asked a Maryland professor “Is it okay, if you disagree with someone you can show up his house and scream at his wife and kids?”
The professor repeated that although he doesn’t know all the details, it sounded like a legal protest. Carlson kept pushing the issue focusing on civility and decorum. The same types of issues that three Nebraska State Senators are concerned about when it comes to this protest. Not the content, not the validity of how Cox profits from death, just the behavior.
Well. I’m a friend of Gaily’s and I have video footage of Gailey’s legal peaceful protests. We can compare that with the kind of protests the NRA engages in with actual shouting at children while carrying guns. Below is the piece I wrote when this first happened.
Today two women from a new group, the Great American Gun Melt, stood on the public sidewalk outside Ivy Lane Linens & Living in Old Town Alexandria Virginia and informed passersby about the blood money behind the store and suggested people might want to spend their money elsewhere.
Whose blood money? Chris W. Cox, the chief lobbyist of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. His wife and family own and run the store.
A Parasite in Yoga Pants
While the women handed out flyers, a woman came from the store, snatched a phone from their hands and told the women they couldn’t videotape. When she was told by the phone’s owner that this was theft, the woman threw the phone down and stormed off. She then turned and called the women, “Insane.”
Within minutes a black SUV with tinted windows raced to the scene, blocked the street, and an armed security guard rushed inside. Minutes later two squad cars from the local police arrived. (This response seems disproportionate to the perceived threat, but I don’t know what the police were told.)
A police officer talked to the woman in the shop, then he spoke to the protesters. He determined they were within their rights then asked them if THEY wanted to press charges, since the shop woman had grabbed one of their phones and had thrown it to the ground. The phone owner declined because she is for de-escalation and didn’t want to tie up the prosecutors’ office with a small claim. Maybe they should have, because that’s how the NRA responds to protests. They see the truth as a threat and attack the people who spread it.
The NRA headline of this story would be, “Cox attacked! Hysterical Women Shoot Video of Innocent Store Clerk!” History shows a story like that will result in death and rape threats to peaceful protesters. Sending death threats is another example of the gun people’s failure to understand the constitution and acknowledge the limitations on the 1st Amendment, just like they fail to acknowledge the limitations on the 2nd.
Threats to Parkland students or people working to prevent gun violence are disgusting. They are also illegal. See section 1362 in the “Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act” It makes doing this a felony in the second degree. This means someone who is convicted of sending death threats could lose their money, job, guns and freedom. Here is a recent example of the consequences to someone making threats. Radio Host Fired After Threatening David Hogg.
On one hand watching three armed men race to the scene of a protest is kind of funny, but I’m not amused because Virginia has open carry laws meaning men with AR-15s can show up at political protests. The NRA-ILA got those laws passed. Virginia also passed gun preemption laws at the state level so that even IF the city of Alexandria wanted to ban guns at a protest, they couldn’t.
The NRA lobbyists have made it legal for civilians to use deadly force if they think someone as a threat, when they are outside their home. NRA’s ILA, working with ALEC got states to pass these “Shoot-First-If-You-Are-Afraid-And-In-Public-It’s-Legal” laws. (AKA Stand Your Ground laws). The NRA-ILA is still hard at work pushing concealed carry without permits, or training at the state level.
2 Women Carrying Assault Posters
Later that day these two brave women went to the location of Cox’s home and stood on the public sidewalk holding these two signs.
Once again, armed security showed up and the local police were dispatched to the scene. After the police determined again no laws were broken, the women continued protesting until their feet hurt and they left.
One woman pointed out to the officer that in her community in Virginia it’s legal for people to carry guns to protests. That is much more intimidating than someone with a sign. It must also be stressful for the police who have to respond. I wonder if the police on the scene in Alexandria know the role Cox played in making armed protest possible?
Who Benefits From Blood Money?
“I won’t take blood money and you can’t either.
One thing you can never say, that you haven’t been told.”
– Dr. Krakower, The Sopranos Season 3, episode 7 written by Lawrence Konner
This protest focused on the people who profit from the ill-gotten gains of the gun lobby. It was about educating people in the community. This business is associated with Chris Cox, an “apex gun predator” who lives among them. The people in the community can choose if they want to keep supporting the store. It’s their choice. But now they know.
What about the protest at the home? Some people will decry going to the home of Chris Cox. It’s so impolite! Couldn’t they have used a less graphic photo? What if the children had seen those words? From the organizer:
“When you traumatize and harm one child in the United States you are usually put on some kind of offender registry, as well you should be, in order to have the neighborhood alerted when you move nearby because you are a threat. But you can be an apex gun predator who sells million and million and millions of dollars of completely useless, superfluous guns and ammunition into the United States causing the deaths of 38,000 Americans. Not to mention 100,000 or more a year who are injured and whose lives are permanently ruined, whose families suffer lifelong trauma because of the fallout of those gun injuries.
You can cause all of that damage and live right here in beautiful, posh, gentrified, one percenter land within spitting distance of our nation’s capital without suffering any kind of social repercussions whatsoever.
We are here to change that. We are here to cause social repercussions for apex gun predators who are hiding in plain, posh, gentrified sight.”
Going to the neighborhood has another educational mission. Neighbors now might want to ask relevant questions, especially if their children might be playing in this home. Are there guns in the home? Are they locked up?
People ask, how does Chris Cox sleep at night? Do the images of dead children with bullets in their heads disturb his sleep?
We can’t know how he sleeps at night. But we know what he sleeps on. These beautiful 1500 thread count artisan pillows! Available exclusively at Ivy Lane Linens!
