Fairfax, Va.—In the wake of the mass shooting at a Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas that left twenty-six dead and thirty injured, NRA communication staffers Whitaker Thompson and Niles Yates arrived at the guns rights headquarters early Sunday afternoon to prepare talking points and press releases for the already exploding news cycle.
Parking next to each other, both men were sipping from paper Starbucks cups as they exited their vehicles and an annoyed Thompson said, “How come it’s us again? We did the Vegas all nighter last month. This is bullshit.”
“We’re low man. It’ll be a breeze, we’ll just recycle the Vegas shit,” said Yates.
“Yeah, but I had the Red Zone channel going, nachos straight from the oven and I just cracked my first Bud Light,” Thompson said shaking his head.
“Me too and I was off to a great start in fantasy with Forte as a flex against the Bills. But, we signed up for this shit . I think we’ll probably be able to rotate out after a few more rounds, which if things stay the way they are will maybe be two or three months tops,” said Yates trying to find the bright side of losing a Sunday of NFL.
They walked into the building, past security and the edited version of the 2nd Amendment emblazoned on the lobby wall: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, ” which conveniently omitted the first half of the statement about, “A well regulated militia,” It was something that used to stick in both men’s craw, but now, as they went up the elevator to the their third floor offices, didn’t even give a thought.
Sitting down in their adjoining cubes, firing up their laptops Thompson’s frustration continued, “Why do we gotta send all this out again, can’t they just use the emails we sent after Vegas, Dallas, Orlando, Charleston, San Bernadino, Sandy Hook, Aurora? It’s all the same shit about it not being time talk policy and giving the families time to grieve, before moving onto the thing about a good guy with a gun being able to stop a bad guy with a gun and then all the laws already on the books….”
“Dude,” Yates interrupted forcefully. “Don’t make this worse than it has to be. We have a job to do and let’s just do it. Do you want to do the talking points or the press releases. It’s Sunday, we can probably work some good God shit into the pressers. Which one do you want?”
“I’ll do the talking points,” Thompson said with resignation. “You’re better with the God shit.”
Working in silence for hours they occasionally printed out their work for the other to review. It was just before 6pm when they finished and walking out they talked about watching the end of the Dallas v. KC game and then Miami v. Oakland on Sunday night football. Getting in their cars Yates got a call from his wife asking him to pick up a few things up on his way home and Thompson checked his fantasy teams and was pissed to learn LA Rams QB, Jared Goff had destroyed him in two different leagues. Both had their satellite radios tuned to Fox News and barely noticed their work was already starting to dominate the news cycle.
