Shoot down the NRA - Outrage over the Newtown massacre has gun nuts playing defense (megahurl!)

NY Daily News ^ | December 19, 2012 | Meathead Editorial

[neverdem]

JIM LO SCALZO/EPA

Gun control supporters march to the National Rifle Association office in Washington on Monday.

Global outrage over the Newtown massacre, including at the role played by a gun that no civilian should possess, has forced the National Rifle Association to speak publicly, instead of privately in the halls of Congress.

America’s mighty proponent of deadly weaponry here, there and everywhere, including in bars and kindergartens, announced that on Friday, “The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again.”

Don’t get your hopes up.

The only “meaningful contributions” the NRA has ever made to public safety have been malignant ones — most notably, the millions of dollars by which the organization buys influence in the House, Senate and state capitals.

In the most recent election cycle, the NRA’s disbursements to candidates totaled more than $18.6 million, and its lobbying expenses in Washington ran to more than $2 million. The group got its money’s worth and wants to keep it, you can rest assured.

Barring the possibility that pigs start flying, look for the NRA to engage in evasions about everything other than guns that may have come into play in murdering 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School — everything from mental health to violent video games.

On Friday, in the immediate aftermath of the killings, the host of an NRA video news program preposterously attributed the deaths to a shortage of love, saying:

“I don’t think the issue is an issue; I don’t think the issue is parenting, or Hollywood, or guns, or rap music, or young men. . . . It is the foundational stuff . . . whether it’s a lack of love, a lack of empathy for others, an apathy.”

Lunacy like that has left the NRA in increasing isolation.

To escape disgrace, Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm whose officers include former Vice President Dan Quayle, is selling its interest in the company that makes the Bushmaster AR-15, Adam Lanza’s weapon of choice.

Dick’s Sporting Goods pulled semiautomatic rifles from its shelves in 511 stores nationwide. Walmart removed the AR-15 from its website. And the movie industry has canceled the premieres of violent films for fear of revolting audiences.

With President Obama signaling that he will back a renewal of an assault weapons ban, a bar on high-capacity ammunition magazine, the institution of more rigorous background checks for gun purchasers and closure of the so-called gun show loophole, the NRA is fighting a rearguard action for the first time in memory.

Now is the time to think even bigger, to get all that and more, in an epic battle to stop mass murders in the U.S.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the updates & links on CREDO.