Larry Pratt

Larry Pratt is the executive director emeritus of Gun Owners of America, taking the “emeritus” title in 2016 after 40 years at the helm of the “no compromise” gun lobby group. Through frequent media appearances and a weekly talk show, Pratt feeds dangerous paranoia to the Far Right, encouraging firearms ownership as a way to stave off race riots and government takeovers, and making frequent references to assassinating political leaders.

Pratt has long stood at the intersection of the “mainstream” right, Christian nationalists and fringe militia movements. In 1996, he was forced to step down from a position on Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaign when it came to light that he had spoken at a militia event featuring a number of neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic activists. Several years earlier, Pratt had coauthored what the Southern Poverty Law Center calls the book that “introduced the concept of citizen militias to the radical right.” Pratt has also been active in the Christian Right, including helping to funnel donations for the anti-choice group Operation Rescue through another group he ran, the Committee to Protect the Family, when Operation Rescue was running from legal judgments in the early 1990s.

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