The Worst Part is:  The NRA uses language that is intentionally inflammatory and dangerous:
"The gun banners simply don't like you.  They don't trust you.  They don't want you to own a gun.  And they'll stop at nothing until they've forced you to turn over your guns to the government.... if the NRA fails to restore our Second Amendment freedoms, the attacks will begin on freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure,  Congress must be forced to restore the constitution, repeal the gun bans, investigate abuses by government agents and focus the public debate on criminal control, not gun control."  NRA mass mailing
"The time has come for the showdown of the century.  Will you fight or fold?"  NRA mailing
"Will you begin to stand and fight for your rights today?  Or do you think it will be easier to defend your gun rights after you have let President Clinton, Vice President Gore and the anti-gun lobbyists have their way for a few more years?" D. Kopel, "Lost Rights, "NRA Webpage Article
"The Board of Directors of the NRA has not adopted a formal policy regarding the formation of citizen militia groups, such as has occurred in numerous states....  Although the NRA has not been involved in the formation of any citizen militia units, neither has the NRA discouraged, nor would the NRA contemplate discouraging, exercise of any constitutional right...."  NRA 11/10/94
"Most Americans don't realize that our freedoms are slowly slipping away.  They don't understand that politicians and bureaucrats are chipping away at the American way of life.... Unless we take action today, the long slide down the slippery slope will only continue until there's no freedom left in America at all... this is the battle we are fighting today... a battle to retake the most precious, most sacred ground on earth.  This is a battle for freedom." NRA Letter
"In the Clinton Administration, if you have a badge, you have the government's go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens."  NRA Mailing

The Worst Part is:  Their message rejects the heart of of our democratic form of government and the rule of law.
Feel slighted, don't go to your lawyer, go to your gun dealer; don't like being picked on, pick up a gun; have problems at work, put an Intratec TEC-DC9 in your briefcase...
"In the urban industrial society of today a general right to bear efficient arms so as to be enabled to resist oppression by the government would mean that gangs could exercise an extra-legal rule of law which would defeat the whole Bill of Rights."  Dean Roscoe Pound
"By constantly harping on the theme that the Constitution is under fire, the NRA incites hatred and violence.  When insisting that it stands for law and order, the NRA foments anarchy and chaos."  Jack Anderson, Inside the NRA, 1996, Dove Books, p. 61
The gun advocates say the present laws should be better enforced, but these are the same laws they aggressively fought from being passed... and indeed "one cannot carry out a right of revolution against the government and at the same time claim protections within it." R. Spitzer, The Politics of Gun Control, Chatham House, 1995, p. 47

And the Worst Part is:  How will the NRA and other gun advocates know when our government turns criminal???  When it "irrationally" restricts the right to bear arms... a dangerous tautology.
Our mission is to remain a steady beacon of strength and support for the Second Amendment, even if it has no other friend on the planet....  If you like your freedoms of speech and of religion, freedom from search and seizure, freedom of the press and of privacy, to assemble and to redress grievances, then you'd better give them that eternal bodyguard called the Second Amendment.  The individual right to bear arms is freedom's insurance policy, not just for your children, but for infinite generations to come.  That is its singular, sacred beauty, and why we preserve it so fiercely."  Charlton Heston, at the abbreviated Annual Convention in Denver, Colorado; May 1, 1999, one day after Littleton finished burying its slain children.
"The right to keep and bear arms is constantly referred to by the NRA as a 'sacred right.'  It follows, to pursue their logic, that defense of this right is a religious duty.... Against whom? " Jack Anderson, p. 95
"The majesty of the Second Amendment, that our Founders so divinely captured and crafted into your birthright, guarantees that no government despot, no renegade faction of armed forces, no roving gangs of criminals, no breakdown of law and order, no massive anarchy, no force of evil or crime or oppression from within or from without, can ever rob you of the liberties that define your Americanism."  C. Heston, NRA 1999 Annual meeting in Denver, Colorado
"Will defending your rights be easier when handguns and semi-automatics have been outlawed, or when guns and gun owners are registered in a federal computer, or when carrying a gun for protection has been made into a federal crime with a mandatory prison term?"  D. Kopel, "Lost Rights," NRA Webpage Article

Our forefathers created a new form of government based on the premise that leaders should take and leave office without violence, and that the will and interests of the people should be paramount over the will and interests of an elite or minority -- and that changes take place not with guns but with ballots, with words not force.... The bottom line is the NRA's message strikes at the heart of our strongest beliefs and ideals, and combined with its profound  distrusts of our government, in effect foments domestic terrorists who reject these bedrock principals of our form of government .... and what form of government would they impose if present one is tyrannical?

And the worst part is:  the reason the mass mailing messages are increasingly apocalyptic, inciting fear and paranoia, is to raise increasingly more money from, and spur increasingly more political action by the fewer frightened true believers.
Dues and contributions to the NRA have fallen from $141 million in 1992 to $91.5 million in 1997; in 1995 the NRA had 3.5 million members, in 1999 it has 2.6 members
"The scariest thing about the NRA accusations is that some people believe them.  The NRA must be exposed for what it is -- a Washington bureaucracy bent on self-preservation at any expense, including public safety."  Dewey Stokes, president of Fraternal Order of Police, 1995
"You absolutely must find some other way to justify your existence and your incessant appeal for more cash from your members without having an enemy to vanquish.  Of late if there is no visible enemy to trash, then you must invent one.  You look damn foolish when you do.... In summary, your ad is as far from a 'patriotic drive' as it is possible to get."  B. Bridgewater, Executive Director National Alliance of Stocking Gun Dealers the largest firearm trade organization March 1995
"In many ways , they prefer to lose because losing is wonderful for getting the troops activated and for fund-raising."  R. Feldman, American Shooting Sports Council, former executive director NYT 5/24/99

And the Worst part is:  the NRA has manipulated our political process to thwart the will of the people.
"A national post election poll of more than 1,200 voters... indicated that Americans in general support the views and goals of the NRA, which is consistent with previous surveys on the same issues." NRA Webpage Alert 11/6/98  What possible definition of "general" are they using?
Consistent and substantial majorities of Americans have favored handgun registration (Gallup polls from 66% in 1982 to 81% in 1993); requiring a police permit before buying a gun (average of 72% in Roper polls since the early 1970's); supporting waiting periods (Gallup polls from 91% in 1988 to 88% in 1993); favoring a ban on assault weapons (79% yes in NYT/CBS poll in 1992); and an NBC poll found that 79% of NRA members opposed repeal of the 2 day waiting period for buying handguns. Spitzer, p. 119.
The NRA not only makes significant political contributions, it motivates its members to volunteer in campaigns; write letters-to-the-editor (even with contests for the best letters), frequently call elected representatives, and ask questions at campaign appearances and call-in shows.
"Virtually every week... we ask that you contact your elected officials regarding issues that may affect our right to keep and bear arms." NRA Grassfire Webpage 4/2/98
"The NRA is about to take a victory lap in Denver."  USA Today 4/20/99 commenting on the NRA's "astounding success" at getting state legislators to consider concealed carry laws and laws that would prohibit suits against gun sellers and manufacturers.  That morning Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and themselves with among other weapons, a TEC-DC9.
"Almost like no other issue, the gun issue is an illustration of how a relatively small minority of people -- the gun lobbyists -- backed by disproportionate financial resources, can frustrate public policy that has the overwhelming support of most of the American people."  Peter Boyer, New Yorker 5/17/99
Fortune Magazine named the NRA as the 4th most powerful lobbying group in Washington -- above the Chamber of Commerce, the Christian Coalition, the AFL-CIO, the National Education Association and may others. Fortune, 12/7/98 [Note that 4 years later it was the second most powerful lobbying group.]
"I do not see a time when we Americans will need our guns at home to stage a coup to reclaim our democracy.  What I see is a time already here, when our government is too hog-tied by the NRA to safeguard the populace." J. Anderson

And the very worst part is we have allowed our politicians to place a much higher value on the paranoid fantasies of this rabid minority than on the safety of our children.
45% of teenagers say they believe they could easily become victims of gun violence at school.
NRA criminologist Gary Kleck "estimates that realistically, about 16,000 to 17,000 students carry a gun to school  on a given day.  The figure translates into about one in every 800 high school students."  D. Kopel, p. 322, disputing the "completely untrue factoid" that 135,000 children carry a gun to school every day.  Mr. Kopel goes on to argue that using the worst possible assumptions, "only about 10 percent of the students carrying guns commit crimes with them."  Kopel, p. 325
"We're playing by a different set of rules now.  'To serve and protect' has become our motto.  It used to be on the sides of police cars."  A. Woods, principal. Newnan High School, Newnan, Ga.  NYT 5/24/99
"Unfortunately parents chose to keep their kids home today, but we understand that it is their prerogative."  G. Viebranz, T. Worthington High School spokesman, after 500 students out of 1,500 did not attend school after rumors grew about a note found in a study hall.
When the students at Hobie's near-by junior high school  were evacuated to the stadium, within 15 minutes most students "joked" that if someone wanted to have "bigger numbers than Littleton" they would just call in a bomb scare, and then attack the students sitting in the stadium."  The students sat there for 2 hours while the school was being searched.
Our most sacred duty is to provide our children with a world as safe and filled with as much opportunity as possible.  When children are afraid to go to school, we have failed in the most fundamental way possible.
And the very, very Worst Part is too few of us have taken the few minutes of time needed to express our concerns and reclaim our schools and society and government from the NRA -- and politician who wait to see which way the smoking gun is blowing.
"At the end of the day I see little or nothing passing."  J. Baker, chief lobbyist, NRA 5/25/99
"We have met the enemy, and he is us."  Walt Kelly