Virginia Shooting – The NRA Statement
Here:
Stop Exploiting Tragedy
It’s been more than a week now since a mass murderer struck on the campus of Virginia Tech, and as the NRA joins the debate on policies and laws, there are a few things I want to point out.
It wasn’t 24 hours after the horrific shootings that the politicians started flapping their lips. Congressman Jim Moran suggested that somehow the tragedy was the fault of Republicans and President Bush. Barack Obama compared the evil events in Blacksburg to outsourcing jobs overseas. Senator Dianne Feinstein called for a new dialogue on gun control. Mayor Bloomberg spoke of the events in Blacksburg as he pushed to stop the Tiahrt Amendment from being renewed. And that’s just the politicians.
Gun control advocates had a field day. Within hours, the Brady Campaign had a “Donate Now!” button on their website. The Violence Policy Center was blaming “lax gun laws” in Virginia for the murders, instead of placing the blame on the madman. John Rosenthal, head of Stop Handgun Violence in Massachusetts, even suggested that the gun laws in that state make it less likely for mass murder to occur there.
April 26th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
The Bradys are asking for 32 dollars……one buck each for each victim and one for the shooter. The wounded folks are on their own, I guess.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Robert, there were 32 victims. If the Bradys are asking for $33, that’s another story…
April 26th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
The only problem I have with this is that the exploitation of tragedy was from from unique to the anti-gun lobby. Both sides started almost immediately trying to politicize the events, and it fucking disgusted me. If you’re going to gripe about the immediate “guns caused this” crap from the anti-gun folk, then at least be honest about it and also complain about the immediate “armed students could have prevented this” crap.
(Side: I actually expected to see the anti-gun folks jump on this almost immediately (which, of course, they did). But the first such thing I saw turned out to be a pro-gun politicization of it, not an anti-gun one. I blogged about it at the time, and stand by it: it’s stupid bullshit, and both sides did themselves a disservice by jumping on it that way. There’s plenty of guilt to go around.)
April 26th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
I’m pretty sure I did. however, the NRA said nothing other than ‘no comment until we get the facts’ and this. The brady camp had their tip jar up in four hours.
April 27th, 2007 at 12:06 am
Still no word from the NRA on their support or opposition to college “Gun Free Zones”. We already know they support them for K-12 schools.
April 27th, 2007 at 11:07 am
It’s probably best for the NRA to keep quiet about that publicly and work to get carry restrictions removed legislatively. The problem with suggesting it publicly is that the other side spins it as: “The NRA wants to arm professors and students”, which most people take to mean “The NRA wants to hand out a pistol and ammunition to everyone on campus”.
I do want to get rid of the restrictions, but the NRA has to be very careful about what it says.