Category Archives: NRA

May 9, 2013 · 11:47 AM

Police Chief Calls Out Armed Protest Threat In Washington DC

Think Progress

A July 4 march encourages gun advocates tocarry loaded rifles into Washington, DC and knowingly break the law. Although described as a nonviolent “act of civil obedience,” organizer Adam Kokesh implied a threat of violence if “the government chooses to make it violent.” He encourages participants to peacefully submit to law enforcers but underlines that point with, “We are truly saying in the SUBTLEST way possible that we would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.”

Since Friday, more than 2,000 people have RSVPed to the march to “put the government on notice.”

In a local news channel interview pointed out by Politico, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier explained that this is an open disregard for DC law:

[W]hen you cross with firearms and you’re not in compliance with the law now you’re talking about a criminal offense and there’s going to be some action by police. Obviously there has been no permit filed by the organizer and we’ve not made contact with the organizer yet. But we will, and we’ll make sure they understand that if they want to pass through the District of Columbia with loaded firearms as long as they are in compliance with the firearms laws for transportation of firearms to the District, we’re all for it. But passing into the District of Columbia with firearms is a violation of the law and we’ll have to treat it as such.

Whether Lanier’s warning invigorates or extinguishes the protest remains unclear.

Kokesh’s plans, along with a series of other open carry protests, undermines arguments made by the National Rifle Association against gun violence prevention. The NRA claims that it is unfair of the government to strengthen background checks or ban assault rifles for law-abiding citizens. Yet this protest plans to purposely break the law.

That point is missed by Kokesh. Open carry is illegal in the District, but Kokesh wants to aim his message at the federal government for attempting modest background checks supported by gun owners and non-gun owners alike.

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May 7, 2013 · 12:16 PM

The 5 Wackiest Things I Heard at the NRA Convention

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin waves before speaking during the 2013 NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits at the George R. Brown Convention Center on May 3 in Houston

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin waves before speaking during the 2013 NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits at the George R. Brown Convention Center on May 3 in Houston

I’m certain there were many more, but according to the source below, for instance they left out Glenn Beck.  Nonetheless, here are the wackiest from BW…

Business Week

What to do in the wake of a major victory in Washington over gun control proponents? That was the challenge facing the National Rifle Association at its May 4-5 annual meeting in Houston.

At various rallies and speeches, here’s what some NRA headliners had to say:

1. Wayne LaPierre: I told you so. Looking more relaxed than in his pugnacious post-Newtown massacre appearances, the NRA’s chief executive officer congratulated himself on being right that President Obama would open his second term by pushing for firearm restrictions. Obama did make LaPierre seem prescient. In Houston the NRA honcho upped the ante, claiming that the president “launched an historic, all-out attack, a siege on our gun rights.” (Really? The centerpiece of the Obama agenda, comprehensive background checks, is an idea that LaPierre endorsed in 1999.) The NRA has added hundreds of thousands of new members since Newtown, bringing its rolls to 5 million, according to LaPierre, and he wants to double that. “They’re coming at us with a vengeance to destroy us,” he warned. “It’s up to us to get to work right now with an NRA large enough and strong enough to defeat” any foe. Translation: open your checkbooks, gun owners.

2. Bushmaster: Never say you’re sorry. The Newtown shooter slaughtered 20 first-graders and six educators with a semiautomatic military-style rifle equipped with 30-round magazines. The manufacturer of that weapon, Bushmaster, part of the Freedom Group conglomerate, came in for tough scrutiny. Facing investor protests, Freedom Group’s owner, the New York private equity firm Cerberus Capital, announced it would sell the country’s largest gun-and-ammo manufacturer, although a buyer hasn’t been announced. Meanwhile, Bushmaster wasn’t lowering its profile at the NRA confab. At its booth on the bustling exposition floor, Bushmaster invited children to pose for photos with a .50-caliber sniper rifle with a 30-inch barrel. The BA50 offers “monstrous long-range power.” In a promotional booklet, George Kollitides, Freedom Group’s CEO and a former member of the NRA nominating committee, said Bushmaster builds “each rifle with purpose and passion—yours.”

3. Sarah Palin: Malign the media. Wearing a form-fitting T-shirt that said “Women Hunt,” the 2008 vice presidential candidate reminded listeners that “the elite media” are still out to get them. “That same media is now the reliable poodle-skirted cheerleader for the president that writes the book on exploiting tragedy,” she added. (I wasn’t around in the 1950s, but did cheerleaders wear poodle skirts on the sidelines?) This followed Palin’s inventive insult a few days earlier, when she scorned attendees at the April 27 White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington as “D.C. ass-clowns” enjoying “a nerd prom.”

4. Representative Steve Stockman: Impeach Obama! Aides to the congressman, who invited pro-gun guitarist Ted Nugent as his plus-one to the State of the Union Address in February, handed out copies of a newspaper entitled NRA Convention News. There Stockman suggested: “Obama Abuses of Power Could Lead to Articles of Impeachment.” The East Texas Republican lawmaker described the president’s “full-scale executive branch assault on our Second Amendment rights” as “questionable—and possibly criminal.” Stockman reminded constituents: “We all saw how Bill Clinton abused his power as president back then, but Barack Obama blows him out of the water!”

5. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee: Let’s meet halfway. While some 70,000 NRA celebrants walked the 400,000 square feet of Houston’s convention center, a couple dozen protesters kept vigil across the street in Discovery Park.

“We’re not against the NRA,” said Representative Jackson Lee, a Democrat from gun-friendly Houston who supported the failed bipartisan compromise on expanded background checks. “The only question we’re asking this group is, ‘Can you put down your arms of politics and lift up your arms of reconciliation?’”

This may have been the strangest line uttered all weekend, in that the answer was so obviously, NO! The NRA has adopted “Stand and Fight” as its battle slogan. Inside the convention hall there was not even a whiff of olive branches.

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March 19, 2013 · 11:53 AM

Gunmakers and the NRA Bet Big on Silencers. What Could Go Wrong?

Mother Jones

The silencer industry says its product is for shooting groundhogs, so how come their ads feature military-style gunmen?

“Make Love Loudly. Make War Silently.”

So reads an ad for the Advanced Armament Company, which produces silencers for assault weapons. These gadgets, long associated with snipers and Hollywood assassins, represent the latest push by a gun industry seeking new ways to boost sales in a country that is already home to some 310 million civilian firearms.

The silencer industry is “the highest-growth niche of the firearms industry right now,” says Josh Waldron, founder and CEO of the Utah-based Silencerco. According to Waldron, the industry has seen 400 to 500 percent growth over the past five years. In 2008, he says, American silencer companies sold about 18,000 units in the United States. In fiscal 2012, “We’re gonna do over 110,000.”

Further growth, though, is somewhat hampered by the fact that silencers (also called “suppressors”) are tightly regulated—even more so than the guns they attach to. Silencers are a Class III weapon regulated under theNational Firearms Act, a Prohibition-era law that was designed to curtail or even prohibit the transfer of weapons deemed especially dangerous, like machine guns.

Because of this designation, buying a silencer requires a full FBI background check of the sort undergone by people applying for federal jobs, a process that can take up to eight months, Waldron says, and there’s a one-time $200 tax imposed to cover it, which drives up the cost. (The tax was supposed to be a big deterrent to buying NFA weapons in 1934, when the act was implemented, but it hasn’t gone up since Al Capone’s heyday.) Illegally possessing a silencer can bring mandatory federal jail sentences of up to 10 years and fines up to $250,000. The devices are banned entirely in 11 states, including California and New York, and many states limit their use for hunting and on public lands.

Along with all the obstacles to purchasing one, the silencer also suffers from a bit of an image problem. Advocates like Waldron like to point to the gizmo’s innocuous beginnings. The silencer was invented by Hirum Percy Maxim in 1908. And, as the lore goes, Teddy Roosevelt supposedly used one of the devices on his Winchester Model 94 at home in Long Island so that he could shoot varmints without disturbing his neighbors.

The modern silencer, however, was refined and improved by a former CIA dark-ops contractor named Mitch WerBell, whom federal agents once caught training Cuban and Haitian mercenaries for an attack intended to topple Haitian strongman Papa Doc Duvalier. (In the 1950s, WerBell had served as a security advisor to Cuba’s Batista regime.)

Alex Zaitchik provided a condensed history of WerBell’s assault-weapons silencer in a December Salon article, explaining that it was first used by CIA death squads working in Vietnam. The suppressor served to improve kill rates and to reduce ammo waste in targeted killing operations. It also helped boost the accuracy and power of the weapons, earning WerBell the nickname, “Wizard of Whistling Death.”

At one time, this disturbing history even prompted the NRA to bar silencer manufacturers from the group’s national convention out of the fear that including them would make guns look bad. But that’s all changed now that the silencer industry has enlisted the nation’s biggest gun lobby to help it chip away at restrictive state laws.

In 2011, frustrated by the silencer’s image problem, Waldron, along with Advanced Armament Corp., Gemtech, and other silencer manufacturers helped founded the American Silencer Association. Their goal, Waldron told me, was “to get more people and legislators to understand that silencers are actually safety devices and not what everybody thinks they are because of Hollywood.”

The ASA and the NRA, which receives financial support from Waldron’s Silencerco, are pressuring state legislatures to ease up and let people own and use silencers for hunting. Several states have obliged recently, including Wyoming, and Montana and Georgia are in the pipeline, too. The NRA touts the health benefits of sparing hunters’ hearing. It also plays the Roosevelt “varmint hunting” card, arguing that silencers enable ranchers to kill rodents without scaring the livestock.

But the gun-toting models featured in the industry’s ads don’t look like they’re just out to shoot some groundhogs. In one, the Advanced Armament Corp. notes that silencers eliminate muzzle flash that could interfere with the effectiveness of night-vision equipment. The ad also declares that silencers minimize recoil and enable “more accurate and rapid follow-up shots.” The ASA’s website adds that one of the key benefits is the silencer’s ability to “disguise the position of the shooter in low light environments.”

Continue reading here…

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March 15, 2013 · 6:00 AM

America, You Must Not Look Away (How to Finish Off the NRA)

I’m all for quashing the NRA’s Reign of Terror over politicians and the American People.

Michael Moore’s suggestions in the following article are prefaced by historical context.  He writes about the gruesome deaths and beatings in the south during the civil rights era.  Moore argues that the pictures broadcasted and published all over the country changed the course of that movement.  Moore also argues that pictures broadcast from Viet Nam changed America’s perception of that war.  Moore theorizes that if America saw a lone picture of one of the babies shot with Adam Lanza’s killing machine, it would once again change the face of the gun debate.  Is he right?  I think he is.

Michael Moore

The year was 1955. Emmett Till was a young African American boy from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi. One day Emmett was seen “flirting” with a white woman in town, and for that he was mutilated and murdered at the age of fourteen. He was found with part of a cotton gin tied around his neck with a string of barbed wire. His killers, two white men, had shot him in the head before they dumped him in the river.

Emmett Till’s body was found and returned to Chicago. To the shock of many, his mother insisted on an open casket at his funeral so that the public could see what happens to a little boy’s body when bigots decide he is less than human. She wanted photographers to take pictures of her mutilated son and freely publish them. More than 10,000 mourners came to the funeral home, and the photo of Emmett Till appeared in newspapers and magazines across the nation.

“I just wanted the world to see,” she said. “I just wanted the world to see.”

The world did see, and nothing was ever the same again for the white supremacists of the United States of America. Because of Emmett Till, because of that shocking photograph of this little dead boy, just a few months later, “the revolt officially began on December 1, 1955″ (from Eyes on the Prize) when Rosa Parks decided not to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The historic bus boycott began and, with the images of Emmett Till still fresh in the minds of many Americans, there was no turning back.

In March of 1965, the police of Selma, Alabama, brutally beat, hosed and tear-gassed a group of African Americans for simply trying to cross a bridge during a protest march. The nation was shocked by images of blacks viciously maimed and injured. So, too, was the President. Just one week later, Lyndon Johnson called for a gathering of the U.S. Congress and he went and stood before them in joint session and told them to pass a bill he was introducing that night – the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And, just five months later, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.

[...]

But I have a prediction. I believe someone in Newtown, Connecticut – a grieving parent, an upset law enforcement officer, a citizen who has seen enough of this carnage in our country – somebody, someday soon, is going to leak the crime scene photos of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. And when the American people see what bullets from an assault rifle fired at close range do to a little child’s body, that’s the day the jig will be up for the NRA. It will be the day the debate on gun control will come to an end. There will be nothing left to argue over. It will just be over. And every sane American will demand action.

Of course, there will be a sanctimonious hue and cry from the pundits who will decry the publication of these gruesome pictures. Those who do publish or post them will be called “shameful” and “disgraceful” and “sick.” How could a media outlet be so insensitive to the families of the dead children! Someone will then start a boycott of the magazine or website that publishes them.

But this will be a false outrage. Because the real truth is this: We do not want to be confronted with what the actual results of a violent society looks like. Of what a society that starts illegal wars, that executes criminals (or supposed criminals), that strikes or beats one of its women every 15 seconds, and shoots 30 of its own citizens every single day looks like. Oh, no, please – DO NOT MAKE US LOOK AT THAT!

Because if we were to seriously look at the 20 slaughtered children – I mean really look at them, with their bodies blown apart, many of them so unrecognizable the only way their parents could identify them was by the clothes they were wearing – what would be our excuse not to act? Now. Right now. This very instant! How on earth could anyonenot spring into action the very next moment after seeing the bullet-riddled bodies of these little boys and girls?

We don’t know exactly what those Newtown photographs show. But I want you – yes, you, the person reading this right now – to think about what we do know:

The six-year and seven-year-old children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School were each hit up to eleven times by a Bushmaster AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. The muzzle velocity of a rifle like the AR-15 is about three times that of a handgun. And because the kinetic energy of a bullet equals one-half of the bullet’s mass multiplied by its velocity squared, the potential destructive power of a bullet fired from a rifle is about nine times more than that of a similar bullet fired from a handgun.

Continued here…

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February 19, 2013 · 8:54 AM

Gun Safety Advocates Force NRA Backed Democrat Out Of Congressional Race

Debbie Halvorson, one of the two women mentioned in this article, has implied that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is the “Nanny State Mayor”.  I have a feeling this woman will be tougher for Bloomberg’s PAC to get rid of than State Senator Toi Hutchinson.

Mayor Bloomberg’s PAC is going after both Democratic candidates (running to replace Jesse Jackson’s vacant seat in Congress) because they both support the NRA and have an “A” rating with the gun-rights organization.

Think Progress

Illinois State Sen. Toi Hutchinson dropped her bid to fill the Congressional seat of former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. on Sunday after her moderate views on gun safety made her a target of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s political action committee, Independence USA.

Toi Hutchinson

In what will be the first election since the shooting in Newton, Connecticut, the $2 million ad buy criticized Hutchison and another candidate for receiving an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA). “In the race for Congress, the big issue? Fighting gun violence. Debbie Halvorson and Toi Hutchinson both earned an A from the NRA, they can’t be trusted,” the ad began before endorsing former state Rep. Robin Kelly who supports background checks and banning assault weapons.

Guns have become a central issue in the primary, as Kelly attacked her opponents’ views on gun safety and “pointed out that Hutchinson received a 92 percent rating from the NRA” and does not support a statewide concealed carry ban. She also urged all candidates to “sign on to a five-point pledge to reduce gun violence: banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines, closing the gun show loophole, supporting Illinois’ conceal carry ban, and refusing support from ‘organizations that oppose reasonable gun safety legislation.’”

Neither Hutchison nor Halvorson signed on to the document, though the former sought to bolster her credentials on gun safety by releasing a video in which she highlighted her support for “the assault weapons ban and the ban on high capacity magazines favored by Gov. Pat Quinn.”

“I am simply unwilling to risk playing a role going forward that could result in dividing our community at time a when we need unity more than ever,” Hutchinson said Sunday in a statement announcing her resignation. “In the wake of horrendous gun related crimes all across our country, I agree with Robin that we need to stand together to fight gun violence.”

Hutchinson’s announcement also comes after reports detailing “alleged payments to her mother as a campaign consultant.”

A special primary will be held on February 26 and the general election is scheduled for April 9.

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February 12, 2013 · 8:22 AM

NRA Dismisses ‘Connecticut Effect,’ Suggests Grief Over Newtown Tragedy Will Be Short-Lived

What pat of “National tragedy” do those folks at the NRA not understand?  The Newtown shooting took place in mid-December.  The tragedy in Newtown is not going away…

Think Progress

The National Rifle Association will wait until the “Connecticut effect” has subsided to resume its push to weaken the nation’s gun laws, according to a top NRA lobbyist speaking at the NRA’s Wisconsin State Convention this weekend.

Though the NRA had been tight-lipped about how the Newtown tragedy would affect their efforts, lobbyist Bob Welch, who represents the Wisconsin NRA group, was anything but during their yearly meeting.

“We have a strong agenda coming up for next year, but of course a lot of that’s going to be delayed as the ‘Connecticut effect’ has to go through the process,” Welch, a former Republican state senator, told the Wisconsin’s NRA State Association during the legislative update. The group’s president, Jeff Nass, had previously mentioned that they would push the Republican-controlled legislature to pass a Stand Your Ground law, the likes of which became famous following the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida.

Welch went on to bemoan the fact that the public’s focus on Newtown was preventing the NRA from pushing such bills through the legislature, but his remarks soon turned to braggadocio about the NRA’s legislative influence. He relayed an anecdote about how, following the Connecticut shooting, a pro-gun Democrat in the legislature had mentioned his desire to close the gun show loophole. “And I said [to him], ‘no, we’re not going to do that,” Welch boasted. “And so far, nothing’s happened on that.”

WELCH: We have a strong agenda coming up for next year, but of course a lot of that’s going to be delayed as the “Connecticut effect” has to go through the process. [...] What’s even more telling is the people who don’t like guns pretty much realize that they can’t do a thing unless they talk to us. After Connecticut I had one of the leading Democrats in the legislature—he was with us most of the time, not all the time—he came to me and said, “Bob, I got all these people in my caucus that really want to ban guns and do all this bad stuff, we gotta give them something. How about we close this gun show loophole? Wouldn’t that be good?” And I said, “no, we’re not going to do that.” And so far, nothing’s happened on that.

Listen:

One of the ways the NRA remains so effective is through a massive level of political spending. Last year alone, the group spent $32 million in an effort to weaken the nation’s gun laws, including $6 million on lobbyists. Such an onslaught of political spending gives Welch the belief, whether true or not, that even those who advocate for stronger gun laws “realize they can’t do a thing unless they talk to us.”

In reality, however, the NRA is much more of a paper tiger, and its weak record in elections hardly justifies the kind of deference lawmakers pay toward the gun lobby. An analysis of the NRA’s spending revealed that “NRA contributions to candidates have virtually no impact on the outcome of Congressional races,” and recent polling suggests voters are more likely to punish a candidate for having NRA backing than to reward allegiance to the gun lobby.

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January 17, 2013 · 1:08 AM

Maddow on new NRA ads: Trolling a key aspect of conservative media

Maddow screenshot

Raw Story

On her show Wednesday night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said the National Rifle Association was simply “trolling” with its latest ads, a tactic employed throughout the conservative sphere.

“Trolling is a key part of the conservative-entertainment/media business model,” she said. “These guys say stuff all the time that they do not intend to be persuasive. They’re not trying to explain something, or bring people along to their way of thinking, they’re just doing something to attract attention, and hopefully condemnation and outrage from the mainstream, and particularly from liberals. They want to offend you. They seek to offend you. That is the point.”

Maddow said that “trolling” was a “tried and true schtick” for conservatives. Not just for media figures, but for politicians as well. She described Rep. Steve King (R-IA) as a “permanent troll.”

The new ad released by the National Rifle Association was a prime example of trolling, according to Maddow. The controversial ad said that President Barack Obama was an “elitist hypocrite” for having the Secret Service guard his two daughters while being skeptical that placing armed guards in schools was the only answer to mass shootings.

“Trolls have a purpose in our politics,” Maddow said. “They help niche, unpopular positions and people fund themselves and promote themselves as pseudo-political actors by tricking people who ought to know better into punching down at them.”

The liberal MSNBC host said that the NRA’s “trolling” was proof of their political impotence. She noted that only 0.83 percent of the $10,536,106 spent by the NRA in the 2012 elections ended up achieving the desired result.

Watch video, courtesy of Mediaite, below:

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January 16, 2013 · 9:18 PM

Has the NRA lost it entirely?

Has the NRA lost it entirely?

This article speaks to the NRA’s ad that targets Sasha and Malia Obama. (The announcer calls them: “the president’s kids”.)

Salon – Joan Walsh

While Obama signs 23 executive orders on gun control, the organization takes a bizarre shot at his family

On the eve of President Obama announcing his gun control agenda, based on Vice President Joe Biden’s task force recommendations, the National Rifle Association needed to go big: to remind Americans that the organization protects their gun rights, and to remind politicians that they’re a smart and formidable political force they’d be unwise to cross.

Instead, they showed us the truth: They’re part of the vast and increasingly incompetent right-wing conspiracy that’s sacrificed its own effectiveness for the pleasure of hating Democrats generally and our first black president in particular.

You’ve either seen or read about the ad: A narrator intones, “Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” (Huh? you might say.) “Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their schools? Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security.”

Of course, the NRA ignores the common-sense answer to its own question: Every president’s child is protected by armed guards. They’re called the Secret Service. Outside of the fever swamps of anti-Obama hatred, no one could possibly have a problem with that, let alone call it hypocrisy.

Just the way Fox News’ insularity and reality denial has been a form of media and political malpractice, harming its viewers by shielding them from the Obama victory to come in 2012, the NRA has disabled itself by wallowing in anti-Obama hatred and paranoia.  On the eve of the president’s big stand, when they most needed to show their supposedly formidable political muscle, instead they showed that they’re completely tone-deaf and politically silly. That’s because they’ve been marinating in the bile of Obama’s enemies, where the president’s modest moves on guns, in the wake of the Newtown massacre, are a trigger to call for his impeachment – thanks, Ed Meese, Mr. Iran-Contra! – or worse.

And on that fringe, of course, everyone knows the president is just a big fat elitist hypocrite. Over on that fringe, Sasha and Malia Obama don’t elicit feelings of tenderness and protectiveness like they do in the rest of the country. They elicit feelings of contempt, as the children of “elitist hypocrites,” if they provoke any feelings at all.

In the real world, we know that our first black president has faced more assassination threats than any president in history, and that the Secret Service has a particularly tough job protecting him and his family. In the NRA’s world, wingnuts pray for his death with Psalm 109, which asks God, “may his children be fatherless and his wife a widow” and “may no one … take pity on his fatherless children.)

And no, I’m not quoting some lone NewsMax commenter or a Breitbart blogger’s tweet: The verse has been popular among right-wing ministers and politicians since Obama’s inauguration. It’s spawned bumper stickers. Almost exactly a year ago, Kansas’ Republican House Speaker Mike O’Neal was emailing it around to his political allies. “At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!” O’Neal refused to apologize. Then he apologized. Then he retired. Wayne LaPierre might want to look to O’Neal for inspiration.

To be fair, maybe the NRA is simply saying that every child in America should be protected by an armed guard, like Sasha and Malia Obama are. That would be consistent with LaPierre’s creepy maxim: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” (More to the point: That would sell a hell of a lot of guns, the NRA’s real goal.) In reality, though, the ad springs from a reflexive belief that most Americans share LaPierre’s contempt for the president.

We don’t, Wayne. We just reelected him. He’s the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to get more than 50 percent of the vote twice. Your hatred is blurring your vision and hurting your political aim. That’s bad for the NRA but it’s good for the rest of us.

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· 9:15 AM

NRA targets Obama’s kids in a scathing new ad

File photo: Malia Obama, Sasha Obama and first lady Michelle Obama listen as President Obama speaks at the DNC in Charlotte, North Carolina on September 6, 2012. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Malia Obama, Sasha Obama and first lady Michelle Obama listen as President Obama speaks at the DNC in Charlotte, North Carolina on September 6, 2012.

This is the latest despicable piece of crap coming from the not so bright folks at the NRA…

MSNBC’s The Last Word

The National Rifle Association is getting personal. In a new web video the gun lobby calls President Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for using the Secret Service to protect his two children, Sasha, age 11, and Malia, age 14.

The ad, posted to the NRA’s Stand and Fight website, criticizes Obama for opposing the NRA’s proposal of increasing the number of armed guards in schools as a way to prevent shootings like the Sandy Hook massacre.

“Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” asks the voiceover on the ad. “Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?” It continues, “Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security. Protection for their kids and gun-free zones for ours.”

The video does not show pictures of the president’s daughters, using instead images of outspoken gun control advocates such as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Vice President Joe Biden.

The ad apparently served as a preemptive strike against President Obama, who plans to unveil his high anticipated proposals to reduce gun violence on Wednesday. Along with school security, mental health and the entertainment industry, the president is also expected to recommend universal background checks, a ban on high-capacity magazines and some sort of assault weapons ban.

Last week, Obama signed a bill to restore lifetime Secret Service protection for presidents elected after 1997, which includes himself and George W. Bush, and presidents in the future, along with their wives. The law gives children of former presidents protection until the age of 16.

George W. Bush signed a directive four days before he left office, authorizing the Secret Service to provide a period of extended protection for his daughters Jenna and Barbara. Bill Clinton had also authorized extended coverage for his daughter Chelsea when his term ended. The Secret Service asked that the period of additional protection be kept confidential.

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January 15, 2013 · 12:19 AM

The NRA’s New Shooting App Is for Kids of the Same Age of Sandy Hook Victims (and Up)

Unbelievable.  Where’s the logic in this sort of thing, given what happened a month ago?

Gizmodo

Here is some free PR advice for the National Rifle Association: Now is not the time to release a target practice iOS app—especially one intended for kids. According to the NRA, the app is intended for children as young as age four.

In Target Practice you can choose to test your skills in an indoor or outdoor range or opt to shoot skeet. You get to pick your weapon, and you can pony up $1 to unlock better (more powerful) guns. For example, in the outdoor range your default is an M16, but you can upgrade to an AK47 or an MK11 if you pay. It’s really just a point-and-shoot game, but the fact that it’s meant for kids is straight up stupid.

It would be a different story if the app were teaching kids about gun safety. As advertised, Target Practice does give safety tips, but they aren’t the kinds of things that are going to keep a child from accidentally setting off a gun in the home. They’re tidbits like, “keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot” or “know your target and what is beyond it.” And the official Safety Tips section just takes you out of the app to the NRA’s website.

Not that it should surprise you at this point, but the organization really missed an opportunity here. This would be an excellent time to teach kids about gun safety; too many children are killed each year by accidentally setting off firearms in their homes. Kids see guns in games and they think guns in real life are games. That’s just how innocent minds work. And that’s what makes this app—like most moves this out of touch lobbyist group has made in recent memory—both poorly timed and poorly executed. How about something productive for once? I guess that’s too much to ask of an organization whose only interest is to get guns into peoples’ hands. [The Appside via TheNextWeb via App Store]

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