By The Daily Beast
Chuck Norris and Tom Selleck are board members of the National Rifle Association. See other shooting stars, including Miranda Lambert, Whoopi Goldberg—and Michael Moore?
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An Air Force veteran, Chuck Norris has long been a Second Amendment advocate and a spokesperson for the National Rifle Association. In 2010, Norris appeared in a humorous NRA-sponsored commercial for “Trigger the Vote.” “Folks, there’s only one way to protect our rights,” Norris says at the end of ad. “Register to vote.” And this fall he vocally opposed the United Nations’ arms trade policy. “This proposed U.N. global gun-control treaty may not be an ‘invasion’ in the classic sense of the word,” Norris wrote, “but believe me; over time, it represents the potential for encroachment of the greatest kind.”
An NRA board member and avid gun collector, Tom Selleck has donated several rifles and revolvers from his movies to the organization’s National Firearms Museum. But in 1999, following the massacre in Columbine, Selleck’s support for the NRA led to an ambush on television. Invited on the Rosie O’Donnell Show to promote his film The Love Letter Selleck found himself being attacked by O’Donnell for his position on gun control. He calmly and graciously defended his views and even offered insight that remains relevant to the incident in Newtown, Conn. “Thirty or 40 years ago, particularly men, and even young men, when they were suicidal, they went, and unfortunately, blew their brains out,” Selleck said. “In today’s world, someone who is suicidal sits home, nurses their grievance, develops a rage, and is just as suicidal but they take 20 people with them.” Last year, O’Donnell apologized again to Selleck. “In hindsight, if I had to redo [it], I would do it differently,” she told The New York Post. “[He is] a kind man, who, for the rest of his life, has to be associated with me and that one event.”
A life member of the NRA and a passionate hunter, Sarah Palin addressed the organization in 2010 and warned that President Obama wants to take away America’s guns. “"Don’t doubt for a minute that, if they thought they could get away with it, they would ban guns and ban ammunition and gut the Second Amendment,” Palin told the crowd. The following year, the NRA credited the “Palin effect” for a 20 percent rise in its female membership.
A life member and board member of the NRA, the former NBA superstar appeared in an ad for the organization beginning in 1999. “About the only thing I’d rather do than play basketball is hunt … I grew up hunting in Louisiana and I think it’s a tradition we should pass on,” Malone said. And when interviewed about his views on the Second Amendment, the Mailman delivered this message: “You can take away a lot of things from Karl Malone, but his guns, that’s not one of them.”
“I’m a lifetime member of the NRA,” country singer Miranda Lambert told Meghan McCain in a Daily Beast interview last year. “I got my first handgun license when I was 22. I was a single girl who lived by myself on a farm, and I think it’s absolutely necessary.” Lambert, who sings “Gunpowder and Lead,” continued, “My dad was a cop, and also a big hunter. I’ve just grown up with guns, it’s just something that’s part of my life; there was always a gun on the nightstand. Dad taught us gun safety first. He taught us how to use them, how they work, and that they are a weapon. It’s been something that’s normal for me.”
When it comes to advocating gun owners’ rights, Detroit rocker Ted Nugent lives up to his nickname “Motor City madman.” In 2007, the NRA board member said of then-senator Obama, “He’s a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun.” And while campaigning for Mitt Romney in 2012, the Nuge reiterated that outrageous stance with a statement that earned him a Secret Service investigation: “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again,” he said, “I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”
It’s not only conservative celebrities who belong to the NRA. IN May 2012, while interviewing John Stossel about gun violence on The View, Whoopi Goldberg revealed that she’s a member of the organization, but supports certain elements of gun control, particularly for the mentally ill. “You packing now?” a surprised Stossel asked. Goldberg shot back, “You don’t want to find out.”
He had a rifle for a right arm and in 1998, Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan backed up that image by appearing in an “I’m the NRA” ad. Now the owner of the Texas Rangers, Ryan is more vocal about radar guns these days than firearms.
“I am a member of the National Rifle Association, but not a political member,” James Earl Jones wrote in his 1993 autobiography, Voices and Silences. “I just throw the political mail from the NRA into the trash. Charlton Heston campaigns on behalf of the NRA. He says, ‘Here I stand.’ When it comes to the right wing politics of the NRA, I don’t get into that. I just believe in my right to have a gun in my house.”
When Michael Moore became a lifetime member of the NRA following the attack in Columbine, it was a classic case of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” But as Moore told The Guardian, his master plan proved too difficult so he just made Bowling for Columbine. “My first thought after Columbine was to run against Charlton Heston for the presidency of the NRA,” the director explained. “My plan was to get five million Americans to join for the lowest basic membership and vote for me so that I’d win and dismantle the organization. Unfortunately, I figured that’s just too much work for me so instead I made this movie. But I’m still a lifetime member, until they excommunicate me … which is not far off, from what I hear.”
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