1995: The government is full of jack-booted thugs in bucket helmets. "It doesn't matter to them that the semi-auto ban gives jack-booted government thugs more power to take away our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property, and even injure or kill us," LaPierre wrote in an NRA fundraising letter, according to the April 28, 1995 Washington Post. "Not too long ago, it was unthinkable for federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens... In Clinton's administration, if you have a badge, you have the government's go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens," he wrote. "Even murder" was underlined. A rival, more radical NRA official suggested LaPierre respond, "If the jackboot fits, wear it." He later tried and failed to oust LaPierre, according to the May 1997 American Spectator.)