Thread by @timkmak

SCOOP: The day after Columbine shootings, top NRA execs, PR experts, lobbyists scrambled on conference calls to strategize.

Over 2.5 hrs they laid out the playbook of the NRA after mass shootings for the next 20+ years.

I have the secret tapes.

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Columbine was the worst high school shooting of its time. 13 lay dead.

By coincidence, the NRA's annual meeting was scheduled just miles away in Denver, and just days away.

It was a full blown crisis for the NRA, and its strategists organized a call.

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The tapes show all the emotions the NRA officials feel as they grapple with this situation.

"Everything we do here has a downside," griped NRA official Kayne Robinson. "We are in deep s*** on this deal."

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NRA mulled canceling their convention in Denver:

"...they're going to be burying these children, we're going to be having media ... looking at kids fondling firearms, which is going to be a horrible, horrible, horrible juxtaposition," said NRA lobbyist

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A key theme in the NRA's thinking:

If they cancel, it will be as if admitting complicity in the Columbine shootings:

"if we tuck tail and run, we're going to be accepting responsibility for what happened out there."

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On the other hand, the NRA realizes that if they DON'T cancel their convention there will be massive blowback:

"if you don't appear to be deferential in honoring the dead, you end up being a tremendous s***head who wouldn't tuck tail and run, you know?"

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The NRA considers a $1 million victims fund for Columbine, but rejects it because it will be seen as admitting they're responsible.

And if they cancel, "The message that it will send is that even the NRA was brought to its knees, and the media will have a field day with it."

The NRA ultimately pares back its annual meeting, canceling the exhibit hall and trying to pull down billboards around the city advertising their guns expo.

But what is shocking about these secret NRA Columbine tapes is how the NRA refers to its own members

With the exhibit hall canceled, one advisor says "normal" members won't come. NRA head Wayne LaPierre worries about the "nuts" coming to their meeting.

The NRA and its advisors call its most radical members "fruitcakes," "hillbillies," "idiots."

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Fmr NRA president and longtime NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer says that after Columbine the meeting is "gonna be the worst thing you can imagine" when radical NRA members show up.

"Wackos... dressing like a bunch of hillbillies and idiots."

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The secret NRA Columbine tapes show that the NRA was deeply scarred by its response after the Oklahoma City bombings. George HW Bush resigned publicly.

They lost 500,000 members, the tapes reveal for the first time.

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The secret NRA Columbine tapes also show how the NRA marshals the gun industry to support them.

In one exchange, a lobbyist says, "the industry will do whatever we ask them to do... they stand ready to help us orchestrate whatever we want"

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The tapes also show that while Republican/conservative politicians are nervous after Columbine, they're looking for guidance from the NRA.

Wayne LaPierre said the Senate Majority Whip, a Republican, was as them for secret talking points

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"I was talking to Nickles' office this morning, and what they told me is they're planning on sending them all to school[s] because what they wanted us to do was secretly provide them with talking points," Wayne LaPierre says on the tapes.

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The secret NRA Columbine tapes are important because you hear in real time how the NRA lands on its strategy as America enters an era of school shootings:

Unapologetic, attacks on the press, and that talking legislation after shootings is politicization

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We'll be playing more sound from the secret NRA Columbine tapes later on @npratc. I hope you'll tune in!

And I've written a new book, 'MISFIRE: Inside the Downfall of the NRA,' which contains many behind-the-scenes portraits like this one. Get it here:

bit.ly/MISFIREbook

If the inner workings of the NRA as it collapsed interests you, I wrote an entire book on it called 'MISFIRE.'

120+ interviews. 1000s of pages of secret court depositions, internal NRA emails and private docs. A movie-like narrative. Buy it here:

bit.ly/MISFIREbook

At 5:06pm ET, an eight minute segment on @npratc featuring more of the secret NRA Columbine tapes that we reported out here.

Please tune in!

npr.org/2021/11/09/104…