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Yesterday, The Brady Campaign to Prevent Average Americans from Owning Firearms—sorry, The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence posted a video demonstrating how not to shoot a Glock with a “happy stick.” Sorry, they posted a video warning people that high capacity magazines help mass killers kill. Well duh. Today’s piercing glimpse into the obvious comes to us via the Violence Policy Center. The VPC wants it known that the National Rifle Association (NRA) is in the pockets of the death merchants known as the firearms industry. Big Tobacco. Big oil. Big Guns. Geddit? If not, click here for the pdf making their case. The question is, who cares? Well . . .
We know the Violence Policy Center does. If fact, we can assume that the VPC assumes that an NRA beholden to the firearms industry works against the interests of the American public. I’m not sure I agree.
In fact, I don’t agree. I see the interests of the firearms industry and the American public as aligning perfectly. But then I support the Second Amendment as a right that shall not be infringed, as does the NRA. As do gun manufacturers, obviously enough.
The VPC knows they’re on shaky ground. Hence a bizarre turn in the opening of their polemic, switching from the fact of the firearms industry’s support of the NRA to, wait for it, a spree killing.
The NRA Round-Up program, created by MidwayUSA founder Larry Potterfield, allows buyers to “round-up” their purchase to the nearest dollar with the difference going to the NRA. For “a second consecutive year” MidwayUSA, which claims to stock “[j]ust about everything for shooting, reloading, gunsmithing and hunting,” is serving as “The Official Sponsor of the NRA Annual Meeting and exhibits . . .” being held in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Spring 2011. One Pittsburgh resident who apparently took part in the NRA’s s Round-Up Program through MidwayUSA was concealed carry an LA Fitness Center in Collier, Pennsylvania, killing permit holder George Sodini, who in August 2009 opened fire at an LA Fitness Center in Collier, Pennsylvania, killing three women and wounding nine others before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life. A copy of the e-mail receipt sent to Sodini from MidwayUSA for his purchase of 9mm and .45 ammunition includes a donation of 74 cents from the mass murderer to the NRA via the Round-Up Program.
Huh? So if you accept 74 cents from a future spree killer you’re somehow culpable for the carnage that follows? I’m so not feeling that one.
The VPC’s main point—that the NRA can’t serve two masters (the industry and gun owners, ’cause they really care about gun owners)—is a problem because . . .
The mutually dependent nature of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry explains the NRA’s unwillingness to compromise on even the most limited controls over firearms or related products (such as restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines) and support of legislation that clearly favor gunmakers over gun owners (such as legislation limiting the legal rights of gun own) killed or injured by defective firearms). The NRA claims that its positions are driven solely by a concern for the interests of gun owners never mentioning its own financial stake in protecting the profits of its gun industry patrons.
Again, this is a problem why? Now that I’d like to read.
So what I can gather is that this is a trailer for a movie called Blood Money… Is the Grim Reaper the protagonist or the antagonist? I can’t tell.
I see some pictures from what I assume is a wedding… then a sleeping vampire…an awake vampire… some creative target practice… and then a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean… I think I’ll just Redbox this one.
Oh no. This ain’t no boring movie. It’s a PDF. A PDF!!!!
Not only is this report in the elite special fancy Public Document Format that is only available to create and read to those very special people with a computer, it shows how the NRA gets its money not from gun owner but from gun makers (who get their money from gun owners). This shocking 33 page report is sure to be a hit. Everyone loves to read long boring thrilling reports of how DC lobbying organizations function. It’s what all the kids are doing these days.
I note the VPC has 166 fans on Facebook. The Brady Campaign has 13,744 fans on Facebook. The NRA has 866,126 fans on Facebook. That’s more than 62 times the number of fans of both anti-gun groups combined.
That was hilarious!
Well, the video was a tiny bit umm, shrill… a rather fabulous way to state a very ordinary fact: that the NRA is primarily a trade organization for the gun biz, not so much an association of private gun owners.
Even if that’s true and the NRA works for the manufacturers, why would I be offended? If they can’t sell ’em, we can’t buy ’em, and vice versa. Besides, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, even if the enemy of my enemy doesn’t work for me.
“not so much an association of private gun owners.”
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And where, exactly, do you think the gun manufacturers get their money? From trees?
They make their money from a 100+ million gun owners in the USA and more around the globe.
If someone wants to end the NRA theyre going to have to convince a LOT Of people to stop buying guns.
Thats not going to happen.
Actually the gun industry is ‘bankrolled’ by the gun owning voting public…a basic point that the drones at the VPC seem to be unable to grasp.
I AM the NRA….