The NRA this week introduced a young man named Austin Weiss as its newest online “commentator.” According to the NRA, Weiss is “a guy with an affinity for beautifully crafted machines who splits his time between designing custom-built cars and motorcycles and taking a stand for firearms and the Second Amendment.”
“Personal style to me has always been really big,” Weiss said in his introductory video posted on nranews.com. “It kind of makes me who I am. I’ve never really cared about what mainstream’s doing. Everything for me is about function.”
NRA News earlier this year introduced three original commentators, who provide op-ed style narrated videos. Weiss brings the number of commentators on the site to five. In his first video, which features Weiss’ thoughts on his tattoos and a heavy metal soundtrack, Weiss also suggested he would offer a voice that appealed to younger firearm enthusiasts.
“There’s a lot of younger generations that agree with what I have to say, but don’t know how to say it,” Weiss said. “And I think there needs to be a leader or somebody that people can relate to in their age bracket, that they understand.”
Based in Florida, Weiss comes to the NRA with a large, ready-made following on social media, including over 100,000 followers on Twitter and over 375,000 followers on Instagram.
“[I]n addition to my ‘regular’ gig working on cars and bikes, my new responsibility is to help the NRA reach out to a wider audience, speaking about our rights as law-abiding gun owners and why NRA membership is so important, especially as we face new and mounting attacks by those who wish to take away our constitutional right,” Weiss wrote in a statement on Instagram on Monday.
