When you've lost a beer magnate, you've lost America. Adolphus A. Busch IV, heir to the Anheuser-Busch beer fortune, resigned his lifetime NRA membership last night in a blistering two-page letter that called the gun lobby a corporate shill and attacked its "distorted values."
"It disturbs me greatly to see this rigid new direction of the NRA," Busch wrote in the letter—which he provided to a St. Louis TV reporter and is embedded below. "I am simply unable to comprehend how assault weapons and large capacity magazines have a role in your vision."
The critique is especially harsh coming from Busch, a lifelong hunter and gun-rights supporter who made a mint in his family business by helping to pioneer Bud Dry and the Budweiser frogs.
"The NRA appears to have evolved into the lobby for gun and ammunition manufacturers instead of gun owners," Busch wrote. Fortunately, American gun owners, this multimillionaire has your back. And some cheap watery brews!
[KSDK/Image via Flickr/japetonida]