(Suburban) Kitsch, as adj.: A tacky or lowbrow quality or condition.

Imagine my surprise when a few weeks back, Jared and I received an unsolicited call on our home phone from none other than the National Rifle Association. I have NO IDEA where they got our phone number. First of all, no one, and I mean no one, calls our home phone except my parents, pollsters, and telemarketers – so we don’t even answer it most of the time. We usually screen our calls to the answering machine. It was very unusual that Jared happened to even pick up the phone this particular time. A few seconds after Jared picked up the phone, he gestured wildly to me to come over and listen to the craziness and hilarity he was hearing. A woman with a heavy hickish Texan accent had introduced herself as a representative of the NRA and asked him if he was willing to listen to a short recording. Of course he said yes. We were both intrigued at that point. I sat quietly, listening and giggling to myself, all the while making dramatic LMAO gestures to Jared and letting him do all the talking.

The 2-3 minute recording was basically a scare-fest about how we, as fine upstanding gun-totin’ Amerucuns, should be terrified that some sort of shady conspiracy business is going on right now whereby 3rd world Mexican dictators (or dictators of some other countries – I don’t remember which ones) are trying to control United States’ gun policy. Lest that not be enough to make you shake in yer cowboy boots, that gun-hating she-devil Hillary Clinton is also personally going to come to your house and take away your guns.

After the canned recording wrapped up with the superfun ending trashing Hillary Clinton (I’m thinking the Clinton part alone must have lasted a full minute), the live Texas twang woman got back on the phone and asked us (or rather, Jared) the following poll question:

Should 3rd World dictators and Hillary Clinton be allowed to dictate gun ownership/policy in the United States? Yes or No?

First of all, the only options for answering were yes or no. There was no in between. There was no possibility for clarification. The NRA clearly worded the question to lead to their desired answer (see Meaningless Statistics from Sociological Images, specifically #4). Now really, REALLY… who on earth could POSSIBLY answer yes to a question asking whether 3rd world dictators should be determining US policy? That’s just a stupid question.

Jared answered her as such:

So Yes and No are really the only options for answering this question? Ooooooo… kaaaayyyy… well then, no I do not believe that other countries should be determining US policy on domestic issues.

So he gave her the answer she wanted. In her nice little Texas twang she then happily began to give us the NRA spiel about how scared we should be about Hillary Clinton, 3rd world dictators, and how they are trying to infringe upon our 2nd Amendment rights blah blah blah. Then she asked for money. You see, normally a 5 year‡ NRA membership is $200 (or something – I don’t remember), but just for us, right now, they were running a special! We could sign up for a 5 year membership that day only for the bargain basement low low price of only $150! (We declined).

Jared did, however, have a question for Texas twang woman:

Your organization’s name is the National Rifle Association. The name implies that you support rifle ownership, perhaps for the purposes of hunting or sport. Can you elaborate on that?

Texas twang:

We support gun and firearm ownership and rights of any and all kinds.

Jared:

So you would fully support handgun ownership and/or semi-automatic assault weapons?

Texas twang (with more than a hint of annoyance and frustration in her voice):

We just believe in the 2nd Amendment. I mean, (psssh) the Constitution has worked really well for a few hundred years now. We just want to uphold the Constitution. So um, yeah. And stuff.

Um, yes I suppose the Constitution has worked well enough… If you love a document written over 200 years ago by a few rich white men for a great many purposes including upholding slavery, denying women, blacks, and non land-owning white men the right to vote, and basically upholding the status quo for the power elite of their time. The Constitution was not divinely inspired and it is not scripture. Also, the Constitution is great if you love extreme ambiguity. Sorry to break it to you NRA, but the 2nd Amendment is very much ambiguous and open to interpretation, as is nearly all of the Constitution. It was written that way intentionally. That’s why we have the modern court system – to do the interpreting for today’s world.

Welllp, thanks for calling, Texas twang. And lest you think I’m making this whole story up, here are two more accounts on other blogs of nearly identical calls: I Love Getting Calls Like This, The Guns of August NRA.

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‡ I originally wrote this entry quoting $150 for a 3 year NRA membership, but upon doing further research I discovered that I was mistaken and $150 is actually closer to the 5 year rate. My mistake. I corrected the error.