This is George H.W. Bush, U.S. president from 1989-1993, and in 1995 he publically revoked his membership from the N.R.A., stating that the group “deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor; and it offends my concept of service to my country. I resign as a lifetime member of the N.R.A.”.
Context is relevant — Bush’s resignation was not done because of complaints that many Americans currently have about the powerful gun lobby, but his act was important.
What specifically prompted Bush’s action were statements made by N.R.A. officials castigating federal officials in the wake of the Waco, Texas raid and the Oklahoma city terrorist bombings as “armed terrorists dressed in Ninja-black . . . Jack-booted thugs armed to the teeth who break down doors, open fire with automatic weapons and kill law-abiding citizens”. (The irony of the N.R.A. deriding thugs who open fire on innocent people with automatic weapons ought not to be lost here.).
Bush detested this sort of name-calling against what he considered public servants — he had known one of the federal agents killed in Oklahoma City — and that is why he resigned from the gun lobby in 1995.
Back then, the politicization in American politics did not run as deeply and hotly as it does today — a Republican leader could repudiate the N.R.A. and find no contradiction in being, in Bush’s own words, “a gun owner and an avid hunter”. And the former president could agree with some of the N.R.A.’s objectives and still find the group’s actions repugnant enough to leave it.
The resignation of Bush from the N.R.A. can yield important lessons on the value of nuance.
