Strategy sessions.
“All right, Colonel North. It’s your first media blitz as NRA president after a school shooting. We need to find a way to distinguish you. Help the membership feel confident in their new leadership, right?”
“I figured I’d blame video games.”
“That’s default. We need bolder than that.”
“Movies?”
“No. No movies, no music, no television. Leave that to those dummies at Fox & Friends.”
“It wasn’t enough that I called those Parkland students terrorists?”
“That was great, sir, but the key to branding is consistency. So what else?”
“The breakdown of the American family.”
“Good, but too broad.”
“Secularism.”
“Better. We can go a bit more out of the box, though.”
“Out of the box. Wait! I got it. Let’s say there are too many entrances and exits in buildings.”
“Colonel, any other day I’d be jumping for joy.”
“But?”
“Dan Patrick got there first this time.”
“Damn.”
“I know, sir.”
“This is tricky business, isn’t it.”
“Getting trickier all the time. But we’re experts at this.”
“Well then how about this for bold? How about I come right out and say that it’s a combination of entitlement and paranoia that causes these incidents?”
“…what? I’m sorry, what?”
“Sure! I go on Meet The Press and I say, what we’re really dealing with here is an American culture based on warped ideas of masculinity and fear of one’s own insignificance, combined with unfettered access to machinery that grants even the least mature and responsible individuals with the power of life and death.”
“Sir, are you okay?”
“And then I admit that we, the NRA, are not merely complicit, but actively facilitating such a culture.”
“Do you need to eat something?”
“I say that we did this to sell more guns and ammo, plain and simple.”
“You’re having a stroke, aren’t you.”
“And then I suggest that perhaps it’s not a bad idea to consider some reasonable gun control measuHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU SHOULD SEE THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE. Oh, man. Oh, man.”
“Ha. Very funny, sir.”
“Nah, let’s just blame this one on Ritalin. Work for you?”
“That’s not bad. Let’s run with it.”
Creative Control 