I know decent people own guns – some of them are my friends. But the NRA is an industry organization and the Gun Industry, like all of AmeriCo, puts profits ahead of EVERYTHING. The Gun Industry grows rich and fat on blood and death and hides behind the flag and the 2nd Amendment.

You want to hunt? Hunt. You need a gun to feel safe? You have my sympathy but go ahead and hope it isn’t used to kill you or someone you love. You need armor-piercing ammo, an elephant gun, one hundred guns, laser-sighting, ad nauseum, you’re sick and a patsy of the Gun Industry which will feed your emptiness until you die. You sell guns and ammo: you sell death and destruction. Nothing noble about it.

NRA members size up Republican hopefuls

More than 3,000 NRA members on Friday heard from a slate of the Republican Party’s most likely candidates at the NRA’s annual meeting at Music City Center in Nashville. …

At 10-minutes a speech, attendees heard abbreviated stump speeches from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Dr. Ben Carson, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and billionaire businessman Donald Trump, among others. …

“They were very good at saying what we wanted to hear, but really not strong on details,” said Morrow, a registered dietitian. “They’re talking about what’s wrong with government, but not talking about what they were doing to fix it.” [mjh: Which is nothing at all.]

NRA members size up Republican hopefuls

The Very First Thing Gov. Scott Walker Did Before Delivering Big Speech at NRA’s Annual Meeting | Video | TheBlaze.com

Walker, a possible 2016 GOP presidential candidate, then touted his A+ NRA rating, calling it a “badge of honor” even if the left considers it a “Scarlet Letter.”

The Very First Thing Gov. Scott Walker Did Before Delivering Big Speech at NRA’s Annual Meeting | Video | TheBlaze.com

Ted Cruz to NRA: I’ve fought the conservative battles

Cruz, a first-term senator and a Tea Party favorite, boasted about the Senate’s defeat of several gun restrictions in recent years.

Ted Cruz to NRA: I’ve fought the conservative battles

Leonard Pitts, Jr.: U.S. is exceptional — and stupid, too – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

[W]here gun laws are concerned, the United States of America is — individual dissenting voices duly noted and exempted from the following descriptive — dumber than a bag of bullets. This, after all, is the country where you can take a gun into a bar. Where you can erect a shooting range in your own backyard. Where a blind person can get a gun permit. You think it’s insane that Arizona allows a 9-year-old to shoot at a firing range? ABC News reports that one in Texas allows them to do so at age 6. Six.

God bless America. We legislate against Sharia law in places where there are no Muslims, much less an inclination toward Sharia. We pass laws to curtail election fraud despite the fact that election fraud, as a practical matter, does not exist. Yet we endure a yearly toll of gun carnage that makes civilized people in civilized places shake their heads in wonder and our only action is inaction.

Leonard Pitts, Jr.: U.S. is exceptional — and stupid, too – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

#11: No subject is more sacred or more important. Not health, not education, not economics.
#12: No opinions matter except those that are pro-gun.

10 things the gun industry won’t tell you – MarketWatch

Doris Tamai / Shutterstock.com

 

1. “Owning our product may be hazardous to your health.”
2. “Fear is good for our bottom line.”
3. “Guns get special treatment under the law.”
4. “We want your kids to play with guns.”
5. “Gun control may work. We still think it’s a bad idea.”
6. “Politically, we’re practically unbeatable.”
7. “Under ‘Gun Ban Obama,’ we’re doing just fine.” [see #3]
8. “Sometimes we aren’t ‘pro-gun’ enough.”
9. “We sell guns to people you might not want us to.”
10. “Ammo is our secret (business) weapon.”

10 things the gun industry won’t tell you – MarketWatch

Of course, Raygun was inarticulately referring to black people, not white people.

Leonard Pitts Jr.: NRA retreats after rare attack of lucidity – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

By Leonard Pitts Jr.

A few days ago, the NRA inadvertently said something reasonable.

This, in response to a series of protests in Texas. It seems advocates of the right to openly carry firearms have taken to showing up en masse at public places — coffee shops, museums, restaurants etc. — toting shotguns and assault rifles. So say you’re snapping photos at Dealey Plaza, and up sidles some guy with an AK slung over his shoulder.

That sudden dryness of mouth and tightness of sphincter you feel is not reassurance.

“This is terrifying,” a visitor from Washington state told the Dallas Morning News. “We have guns in our house, but we don’t walk around with them. . . . This is shocking.”

The NRA seemed to agree. In an unsigned online editorial, it stated the obvious, calling the practice of bringing long guns into public places “dubious,” “scary” and “downright weird.”

Days later, having come, well . . . under fire, from Texas gun groups, the NRA was in retreat, apologizing and blaming this rare lapse of lucidity on a staff member who apparently failed to drink his full allotment of Kool-Aid. The organization assured its followers that it still supports the right of all people to bring all guns into all places. …

[W]hile the modern gun rights movement is usually regarded as a conservative construction, Winkler writes that it was actually born of liberal extremism. It seems that in 1967, a heavily armed group of Black Panthers showed up and walked brazenly into the California statehouse — there were no metal detectors — as a group of children were readying for a picnic with the new governor, Ronald Reagan.

The Panthers saw this as an exercise of their constitutional rights. Reagan and other conservative Republicans saw it as a threat and crafted laws to stop it from happening again. The future president said, “There’s no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”

The point being that what conservatives seem to regard as a mission of restoration isn’t. This idea that everyone in Chipotle’s should be armed is neither some holdover from the Old West nor some time-honored value inextricable from conservatism. No, it is wholly new. And wholly mad.

Leonard Pitts Jr.: NRA retreats after rare attack of lucidity – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

I trust that Barbara Waggoner is a real person, not a fabrication of an NRA PR campaign. I’ll also assume no one in her family makes money in the Gun Industry. Like most gun advocates, Ms Waggoner tells us what doesn’t work and what won’t work. She is unusual in suggesting something we can do: focus on mental health. I appreciate her suggestion but wonder if there isn’t something more direct and specific to be done regarding guns. If so, it will have to come form the Gun Community itself, because they will not tolerate any suggestion from outside.

So, what can we do? To save time, here are the current suggestions from Gun Advocates:

1. There is no problem.
2. If there is a problem, it’s not guns or people with guns, it’s [fill in the blank].
3. Current laws don’t work.
4. Any law you can conceive of won’t work.
5. Nothing needs to be done and/or nothing can be done.
6. Let’s outlaw baseball bats and cars because they kill more people.

No need to repeat any of those. Not one of them is worth the electrons they’re printed with. So, use your mind for something other than paranoia and defensive rhetoric: What can be done to reduce deaths from firearms?

More rules are not the answer to more gun violence | Albuquerque Journal News

By Barbara Waggoner / Las Cruces resident
PUBLISHED: Sunday, June 8, 2014 at 12:05 am

Law-abiding gun owners do not have a fanatical belief in an extremist interpretation of the Second Amendment.

More rules are not the answer to more gun violence | Albuquerque Journal News

I’ll be interested in the attack Gun Advocates will mount on Ms Waggoner. After all, she implies that anyone who does have an extremist interpretation of the Second Amendment is NOT a law-abiding gun owner. Moreover, she dares to suggest there is such a thing as an extremist interpretation of the God Given Sacred Unquestionable Second Amendment. How dare she!

These are the dicks who abandoned Colorado. Hey, at least Cheyenne will get 80 jobs for its $15 million dollar investment. Hoodwinked much?

Commission approves Magpul loan and grant – Wyoming Tribune Eagle Online

The loan is for $5 million, and the grant is for $8 million. …

Bendel added, “In light of the substantial offers being made by other states, the only way that Wyoming can successfully attract Magpul is with this large, $13 million grant and loan package.”

The grant funds would be used by Cheyenne LEADS to buy a temporary manufacturing facility for Magpul. Cheyenne LEADS plans to use up to $1.5 million of its own funds to rehabilitate the temporary facility to meet Magpul’s needs, Bendel said. …

Magpul’s relocation will bring about 80 new jobs to the county in the first year…

Despite the positive economic impact of the relocation, not everyone at Tuesday’s County Commission meeting supported bringing Magpul to town.

Ed Heffern asked the commissioners to deny the loan and grant requests on the basis of the products Magpul makes.

Heffern said the community should not support an industry that makes products whose “main purpose is to harm other people.”

“Cheyenne is worried about its image,” Heffern said. “We have to ask ourselves if this is the image we want.”

Commission approves Magpul loan and grant – Wyoming Tribune Eagle Online