National Rhino Association “Frankly Sick” of Comparisons

Ryan Peters is not what I am expecting. I arrange to meet the beleaguered president of the NRA in his Los Angeles home. As I walk into the lounge I notice he is not dressed in the generic hillbilly garb we have come to expect from Rhinoceros owners. The 38 year old is wearing a crisp, light grey suit and looks a bit like Tommy Carcetti from The Wire. He is however sitting in a throne built from empty beers cans and the skulls of his enemies and various stray cats and dogs from the neighbourhood. He is also drinking coffee from a mug engraved with his family's insignia- an eagle and a rattlesnake having full sex. He is sitting under a framed photograph of a naked Ayn Rand mud wrestling Margaret Thatcher in a pit made of gold as City Traders from Wall Street masturbate over the spectacle.

I assume it has been Photoshopped.

 Despite my efforts not to stare I find my eyes drawn to the huge Rhinoceros tethered to a stick outside the back window.

“Don't worry,” He says in an easy Southern accent before throwing his head back and laughing, “she won't hurt you...unless I tell her to!”

It's this kind of brilliant wit and charisma that has made Peters such a darling of the Tea Party, along with his belief in a small state and a massive fucking Rhinoceros.

“It's patronising really, when you hear the liberal left go on about Rhino control. So they don't think honest American people can be 'trusted'? It's insulting to say that we as citizens shouldn't have unregulated access to any dangerous wild animal we damn well please. Is it really any of the government's damned business if we choose to keep odd-toed ungulate in our homes and our cars to protect ourselves and our families?”

I ask Ryan if he really keeps a Rhinoceros in his car.

“Sure! A baby one,” he concedes “I mean the effect isn't quite the same as an adult, but if a gang banger tries to jack me when I'm driving around in, let's say Harlem, and he knows I've got a fucking Rhino in the trunk, well he's going to think twice.”

Peter's wife, a meek and moronic woman in her early thirties enters the room at this point to bring Ryan and I a beer. I ask Ryan how his wife feels about Rhino ownership.

“Oh she's on board 100%,” he assures me, “she comes from a humble, stupid family down in the South. Rural people understand more than anyone the importance of self defence in these times. And what better defence can there be against the underclass and the Washington Fat Cats than a massive fucking Rhino?”

I ask Ryan how his wife feels about the recent string of controversial promotional marketing techniques by the NRA, including a calender featuring a series of scantily clad young women draping themselves over confused looking Rhinos. As well as the now infamous discarded slogan, “A Rhino's horn is actually formed of matted hair. Who's scared of some matted hair? Only a homosexual gay. Don't be a gay: Support the NRA”

“Look that was unfortunate,” Peters says, for the first time during our conversation seeming a little flustered, “but listen, at the end of the day, a Rhino's horn is made of matted hair. Nothing in that campaign was untrue. The fact is we're a civil rights organisation. Like Martin Luther King or that other black guy on the bus.”

Ryan seems annoyed by the question, so I change tact, asking him how he feels about minors and Rhino ownership.

“I think it's great! You see all the kids these days, fans of the hip hop and gangster rap and they're all singing, if you can call it singing, about bling, Rhinos and bitches. I think it's kinda cool, kid's wearing very, very, very baggy pants so they can try and conceal their Rhino down there. I mean they inevitably fail but I appreciate the effort. These kids are just exercising their liberties.”

How does Peters feel about the latest in a string of tragic school goring’s that occurred after a pupil took his Uncle's Rhino into school?

“Now you listen to me you filthy Brit socialist, that kid was a psychopath, the fact remains he would have still caused that tragedy whether he had access to a Rhino or not. You can cause just as much bloodshed with a knife or a bit of stick that you find on the ground as you can with a wild rhinoceros that you've starved for several days, given a taste for human blood and then released into a busy playground.”

I sense that the interview is in danger of getting out of hand, I notice Ryan's eyes glancing with increasing regularity to the large Rhinoceros in his garden. I also spot he is rubbing his hands together restlessly and muttering something about Obamacare.

I feel as though our conversation has run it's course. I thank Ryan Peters for his time and at the door offer a handshake that he grudgingly accepts.

“Listen, I know I haven’t convinced you, but what you have to understand is that in the USA we have this little thing called the constitution. In the UK you have the queen and she's sort of like your collective mum and tells you what's cool. I get that. But here we have that beautiful little document and in it there's the second amendment. Which, as I understand it, includes the right to do whatever the fuck you like as long as Jesus is in your heart and there's a massive fucking rhino to back shit up.”

I thank Peters once more and go to my car, giving the chained up Rhino, the ultimate symbol of American freedom, a wide berth as I depart.