Making a Killing

Making A Killing: Guns, Greed & the NRA • OFFICIAL TRAILER

Fight back against gun violence by hosting a free screening of Making a Killing: Guns, Greed, & the NRA -the new feature documentary by Brave New Films that exposes how the NRA and gun lobby profiteers from the current gun violence epidemic -and how they do everything they can to stop common sense reforms.Join us to demand – and achieve – common sense gun laws now! SHARE and host a free screening in your community!

Posted by Brave New Films on Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Obama Calls Out NRA For Skipping Town Hall On Guns

Huffington Post

President Barack Obama on Thursday criticized the National Rifle Association for repeatedly snubbing invitations to discuss gun policy at the White House.

Obama said the NRA should have attended the town hall-style meeting about guns instead of whipping up fears that he wants to take away firearms. 

"I am happy to talk to them, but the conversation has to be based on facts and truth," Obama told CNN moderator Anderson Cooper during the event at George Mason University in Virginia. "Our position is consistently mischaracterized. And by the way, there's a reason why the NRA is not here. They're just down the street. This is the reason they exist. You'd think they'd be willing to have a debate with the president."

Funding Gun Research

Basic #GunViolence Research Is Seriously Underfunded https://t.co/2aiW6AMbXg #gundata #publichealth @armedwithreason

— March on Washington (@GunCtrlMarch) October 30, 2015

Supreme Court Rejects NRA Challenge To San Francisco Gun Rules

NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to block two San Francisco gun control measures that were fiercely opposed by the National Rifle Association. At least one veteran court observer says the high court's decision raises questions about how the justices interpret the Second Amendment.

First, the basics: A 2007 San Francisco ordinance requires residents to keep handguns under lock and key or to use trigger locks when they are not carrying their weapons. Another law, dating to 1994, bans the sale of ammunition that expands on impact, or hollow-point bullets.

Plaintiff Espanola Jackson and seven other petitioners, including the NRA, filed suit in 2012. They sought an injunction to keep the lockbox law from being enforced. But in March 2014, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the City and County of San Francisco and left both measures intact.

In their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the plaintiffs repeated the argument they had made all along, claiming that "San Francisco stands alone in insisting that it may deny its residents immediate access to operable handguns in their own homes under the guise of regulating the manner in which they store them." They painted the picture of a law-abiding homeowner who "must fumble for the reading glasses and the lockbox while an intruder roams the premises."

The plaintiffs argued that they had precedent on their side, citing the high court's ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller. In that case, the justices ruled that under the Second Amendment a gun owner has a right to self-defense with a gun available within the home.

But only two justices, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, voted to review the case. Four of the nine must agree to hear a case.

Rachel Maddow on the Fake NY Gun Store Video

Post by Media Matters for America.

Another NRA Board Member Speaks

 
NRA board member Charles Cotton

The Daily News

A member of the NRA's board believes a "good paddling in school may keep me from having to put a bullet in him later."

Charles Cotton made the controversial statement in a post Wednesday on a Texas website that tracks gun legislation in response to a bill proposed by Texas Rep. Alma Allen to prohibit corporal punishment in schools.

"I'm sick of this woman and her 'don't touch my kid regardless what he/she did or will do again' attitude," he wrote in a thread on TexasCHLForum.com, according to Talking Points Memo. "Perhaps a good paddling in school may keep me from having to put a bullet in him later."

The bill, HB567: Corporal punishment in schools, was proposed in December and has not been scheduled for a vote.

The gun-rights organization opposes the legislation and seems to explain Cotton's brazen comments.
Though the bill doesn't specifically address guns, TexasCHLForum states that the inability to curb bad behavior among children at an early age will lead to increased criminal activity. That could then lead gun owners to need to use their weapons for self-defense.

The NRA’s Diabolical New Plan for Killing Gun Laws

Slate

It all started about five years ago, when a group of Pennsylvania cities, frustrated with the difficulty of getting gun-law reforms passed in the Republican-controlled state legislature, started passing laws and ordinances on their own. Their highest priority was requiring gun owners to report lost or stolen guns—a law that was intended to make it harder for gun traffickers to claim, after a crime gun was traced back to them, that the gun had been lost or stolen before the crime was committed. Most of the states bordering Pennsylvania had such a law, but it was going nowhere in Harrisburg. Eventually, more than 100 towns and cities passed the requirement. “The state was not taking any action on it and by putting together support at the grassroots level and showing that mayors and council could take action, we hoped it would compel action at the state level,” says Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, who was on the city council at the time. “It’s the grassroots level that brings change to state capitals and then Washington, D.C.”

Such laws are anathema to the gun lobby, which argues they violate the Fifth Amendment’s bar against self-incrimination, since reporting a lost or stolen gun might implicate someone for other violations. Gun-rights advocates have also been peeved over another set of ordinances passed by Pennsylvania towns, banning guns from parks or other public areas, as well as by laws passed by Philadelphia that, among other things, limit assault weapons and gun ownership for domestic-violence abusers. Gun-rights groups argue that most of the local laws are in violation of a 1974 state law that bars municipalities against passing restrictions that are pre-empted by state gun laws. But they have had trouble getting the laws overturned, because that requires finding someone who can show injury from the laws to bring a lawsuit challenging them.

So the gun lobby got the state legislature to change the rules of the game. Late last year, Pennsylvania lawmakers passed a bill, loosely modeled on a Florida law, to make it possible for any state resident or any gun-rights group to which they belong to challenge local gun laws in court. The law, Act 192, is an explicit carve-out for gun-rights groups from customary legal procedures—challenges of school-prayer restrictions, for instance, are typically brought by actual students who can show that their rights have been infringed by the restrictions. Not only that, but the law requires that towns and cities pay the legal fees of any plaintiffs who successfully challenge their gun laws in court.

In other words, the NRA, with its headquarters in northern Virginia and annual revenues well above $200 million, can sue towns and cities, and expect them to pay its costs if it wins.

In Virginia, Tykes Have Gun Rights, Too

Local news reports


You may not have noticed, but on Tuesday huge cheers boomed out of every nursery school classroom in the commonwealth.

Four-year-old boys and girls wept in happiness and relief. They’d been so scared of losing their gun rights they couldn’t concentrate on learning their ABCs. Thankfully, the National Rifle Association came through for them again.

The source of their fear was a nasty bit of legislation introduced by (who else?) a liberal lawmaker from (where else?) Northern Virginia. His name is Sen. Adam Ebbin. He’s from Alexandria and obviously, he’s a Democrat.

Existing Virginia law allows a child younger than 12 to use a gun under adult supervision. Had Ebbin’s bill passed, it would have been illegal for an adult to allow a child under 5 to use a gun under any circumstances.

In other words, Ebbin wants to limit tykes’ gun rights. From this we can conclude either that 1) he’s against hunting, the shooting sports and self-defense for preschoolers; or 2) he dumbly forgot to consider those factors at all — in a state where hunting is a constitutional right.

What the heck is a 4-year-old supposed to do when a child molester comes after him? Run? That won’t work. The predator’s legs are longer.

Tattle to an adult? That’ll increase chances the kid will grow up a sissy. He’ll be an object of scorn and bullying when he gets to high school.

Bryant Gumbel Speaks His Mind

Bryant Gumbel

Newsbusters

In an interview with Rolling Stone, HBO host Bryant Gumbel was asked about the National Rifle Association and a segment he did on his Real Sports show about the "Eat what you kill" movement.

There are a few things I hate more than the NRA. I mean truly. I think they're pigs. I think they don't care about human life. I think they are a curse upon the American landscape. So we got that on the record.

Recent History Lesson - The Despicable NRA Bully Tactics

The NRA's New Year's Resolutions

Epoch Times

1. We will stop referring to ourselves as a “civil rights” organization that defends “human rights.” It is a sacrilege to people actually killed or harmed by civil and human rights abuses.

2. We will stop pointing at Chicago and saying gun laws don’t work. We will admit the majority of Chicago crime guns are trafficked from states and counties with loose laws.

3. We will stop saying “the government is going to take your guns” to block federal laws. The confiscation we announced 7 years ago never happened.

4. We will stop blaming “mental health” problems for U.S. gun violence. We admit every country in the world has mental health problems but they don’t have Newtowns and Virginia Techs.

5. We admit fighting universal background checks arms criminals and that armed criminals sells more guns to “good guys.” Ka-ching.

6. We acknowledge that “outlaws” don’t have guns in the 28 EU countries, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and other countries with strict gun regulations. We also admit, grudgingly, they are not “tyrannies.”

7. We will stop our insulting comparison of guns to knives, hammers, cars and swimming pools–none of which kill when used as directed. On the same day as the Sandy Hook massacre, 20 Chinese school children were attacked with a knife and none died.

8. We accept responsibility for the armed vigilante movement popularized by George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn. We admit “concealed carry” laws are the biggest revenue infusion since “Obama is going to take your guns.”

9. We will stop defending sales to civilians of non-defensive weapons like TrackingPoint’s “can’t miss” sniper rifle. We admit they are ready-made for insurrectionists, terrorists and hate groups.

10. We regret our work to help suspected domestic abusers keep their guns while under orders of protection. We admit this costs many women’s lives and that our sleazy sales pitch to tell women to arm themselves too just makes things worse.

Connecticut Senators Respond to the NRA's Robocalling of Newtown Residents

Business Insider reports

Responding to reports that the National Rifle Association is robocalling residents of Newtown, Conn., the state's two U.S. Senators lashed out at the organization's CEO in a scathing letter jointly released Monday.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, both Democrats, wrote in a letter to NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre that the robocalls were the latest in a "long line of offensive steps your organization has taken" in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in December.

From the letter:

Unfortunately, this latest act is just another example in a long line of offensive steps your organization has taken in the wake of this tragic shooting. Your press conference one week after the tragedy articulated your surreal vision that the only way to solve the epidemic of gun violence in America is through the use of more guns. One month later you released “NRA: Practice Range,” an Apple app that allows individuals to shoot targets in a variety of settings and with a number of different weapons, including handguns, an AK-47 and an M-16.  More recently, one of the NRA’s Wisconsin lobbyists remarked that your extreme agenda may be delayed by the so-called “Connecticut effect.” 

Robocalling members of the Newtown community to promote your agenda less than 100 days after the horrific shooting is absolutely beyond the pale. Again, we call on you to show some basic decency and cease and desist these calls.