Nascar is trying to minimize the potential damage resulting from its sponsorship agreement with the National Rifle Association. This weekend’s race in the stock-car racing organizations premier Sprint Cup series at Texas Motor Speedway is called the NRA 500.
To many people the race title may sound like an attempt at a bad joke. It also seems like the timing of the sponsorship deal, in the wake of December’s mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school, could not be worse. However, it might be difficult to say whose tone deafness regarding the situation is most severe.
Certainly Nascar should have known that giving the NRA top billing would not sit well with racing enthusiasts who happen to be gun-control advocates or are simply tired of gun violence. Nascar has not yet responded to requests for comment...A couple insights:
1) The head of the NRA is a guy named Wayne LaPierre and anyone who is a fan of the movie "Talladega Nights" is probably not too keen about intermingling people with French sounding names and stock car racing. jes sayin..
2) Wayne LaPierre has been beating the drum for years that guns make people safer.
National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre on Thursday attacked Connecticut’s new gun-control laws, saying they are “making the law books thicker for the law-abiding people.”
“The problem with what Connecticut did, is the criminals, the drug dealers, the people that are going to do horror and terror, they aren’t going to cooperate,” LaPierre told Fox News.
3) Word to all the NASCAR fans who also happen to be NRA members and who plan to travel to the Texas Motor Speedway to attend the NRA 500 this weekend. Leave your guns at home. You can't bring them into the Speedway. Rules for Race Fans
Funny how Wayne LaPierre rants and raves about how we need to have guns in schools, churches, bars, businesses, in order to keep people safe by allowing them to protect themselves and their families with their guns, but in an environment with tens of thousands of fans in close quarters, the NRA is spending huge money to sponsor a race where no one is allowed to exercise their beloved 2nd Amendment rights.
