Gun Cult

  By Alex Yablon The Trace (11/16/18) For the past two weeks, the National Rifle Association has raged at doctors in a very public feud over the place of physicians in the national gun debate, and doctors have been happy to hit back. At the same time, another quieter battle is brewing within the medical profession over just how far doctors should go to fight for stronger gun laws. After the American College of Physicians published a position paperdemanding government action on gun laws, the NRA issued a now-infamous tweet telling “self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.” Outraged doctors railed against…

  By Mike Spies & John Cook The Trace (11/15/18) The National Rifle Association is doing away with free coffee and water coolers for employees at its Fairfax, Virginia, headquarters — a cost-cutting move that has NRA insiders “freaking out,” The Trace has learned. “The whole building was freaking out,” said one former employee who remains in contact with current staffers. Three other sources familiar with the gun group’s operations confirmed the story to The Trace. The coffee cutback is the just latest indication that the NRA is hurting for cash. Membership revenue declined by $35 million last year, and the NRA…

No one should ever have to prepare for a mass shooting, but these safety tips might save your life. By Nicole Pajer Huffpost (11/9/18) It’s a dreadful reality of living in America right now that there are, and likely will be more, mass shootings. Though it may be impossible to predict where and when they’ll occur ― and the odds are very small that you’ll encounter one ― security experts have some basic safety tips that can help you prepare for the unlikely but horrific situation. “During an active shooter situation, it is estimated that law enforcement response time may…

The Trace (10/18/18) Support for gun laws remains near a two-decade high despite a dip. And a sustained loss of advertising on a Fox News program shows the power of activist-led boycotts. Those stories and more, below. —Beatrix Lockwood, contributor Six in 10 Americans support stricter gun laws, a Gallup poll published Wednesday found. The share is down 6 percent since the month after the Parkland shooting but remains near a two-decade high. Among Democrats, support for tighter regulations is at 87 percent, compared to 31 percent of Republicans.  Did the NRA influence the government’s decision to put education funds toward guns? That’s the…

  The Trace (10/10/18) New from the Trace: The NRA’s midterm spending is way down. The NRA has paid out just $4.9 million in the 2018 midterms, less than it had spent at this point in any of the previous four elections. Using our NRA Campaign Finance Tracker, we dug into the numbers. Some things we noticed: The gun group is active in fewer races than in past cycles. And federal campaign spending by pro-gun control organizations is keeping pace with the NRA’s this year. Daniel Nass breaks it all down. The NRA is still using a possible shell company for election work. On Friday,…

  By Alex Yablon The Trace (8/1/18) The National Rifle Association typically portrays itself as an indomitable force. But an ongoing court case has the gun group taking inventory of its wounds. In a new legal filing, it contends that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaign to pressure insurers and financial services companies to cut ties with the NRA could deeply harm its financial health and ability to “fulfill its advocacy objectives.” In the complaint, entered July 20 and first reported by the New York Law Journal, the NRA claims it has lost income and access to banking services as a…

  By David Corn Mother Jones (8/3/18) On May 7, the National Rifle Association released a curious press release declaring that Oliver North, the key player in the Iran-contra scandal and an NRA board member, was “poised to become” the group’s president. Earlier that day, Peter Brownell, then finishing his first term as NRA president, had announced that he would not seek a second annual term in order to devote more time to his family business, a firearms retail company. This changing of the guard—and how it happened—was odd. For fifteen years, the NRA leadership had followed a specific pattern: an officer…

  By Bruce Japsen Forbes (5/27/18) Physician members of the American Medical Association are pushing the nation’s largest doctor group to back an “unprecedented” number of measures designed to curb gun violence and coax Congress into action. Early next month, the AMA’s policy-making House of Delegates will consider nearly a dozen proposals on gun control and public safetymeasures in the wake of 28 school shootings this year alone including last week’s at Noblesville West Middle School in Indiana. Action at the AMA meeting, which runs June 9-13 in Chicago, will put the group’s considerable lobbying clout behind legislation heading into November’s…

(Editor’s Note: The Commoner Call runs this cartoon after every major mass shooting. If we were to run it after every mass shooting in America we would have to run it pretty much every day. — Mark L. Taylor) On Friday evening Jimmy Kimmel took a few minutes to address the latest school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas. Kimmel called out Trump and congressional NRA enablers who care more about the support of the National Rifle Association “than they do about children.” “So they sit there with their hands in their pockets, pockets that are full of gun money, and…

  (Editor’s Note: Wisconsin’s own, former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke was with the NRA delegation promoting Russia’s new Orsis sniper rifles. Way to go, Dave. — Mark L. Taylor) By David Corn Mother Jones (5/7/18) In late 2016, the US Army released a report noting that the Russian military, through experience gained during fighting in Ukraine, was undergoing a transformation and becoming a more potent battlefield threat to American forces. One troublesome development identified by the report’s authors was the increased proficiency of Russian snipers. “The capabilities of a sniper in a Russian contingent is far more advanced than the precision…

By David Moye The HuffPost (4/18/18) A 3-year-old in Indiana accidentally shot her pregnant mother, leaving the woman in a critical but stable condition, local media reported. The child shot Shaneque Thomas, 21, who police said is six weeks pregnant, in the shoulder Tuesday outside a Plato’s Closet thrift store in Merrillville. This incident is similar to a 2016 case that happened in Florida. The 4-year-old son of a gun-rights advocate accidentally shot her as she was driving. Police said Menzo Brazier, the victim’s boyfriend and father of her two kids, ages 3 and 1, left his legal 9-millimeter handgun loaded in between the…

  By Dominique Mosbergen & Nick Wing The HuffPost (4/17/18) Dick’s Sporting Goods won’t be returning their unsold assault-style rifles to manufacturers. Instead, the company says it’s chosen to destroy all of them. Dick’s announced in February ― following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida ― that it would stop selling assault-style rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines in all of its Field & Stream stores, where these items had been sold by the large sports retailer. The company also announced that it would no longer sell guns to people under the age of 21 at any of its stores. A company…

  By Fabiola Santiao The Miami Herald (4/3/18) “Sorry for the inconvenience. I’m just just trying to change the world. Don’t piss on my bonfire. #Neveragain”— Sam Fuentes, who took shrapnel to the face at the Parkland shooting, on Twitter. Just when you thought the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students couldn’t get any more eloquent, they do. Enter the school leadership mandate that they must all carry see-through backpacks — and instantly, the students turn the violation of privacy into #NeverAgain message boards, a new weapon for activism risen from inside the halls where the worst high school shooting in…

  By Andrew Cohen Esquire (3/25/18) ur national debate about guns is over. It ended in a dark movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas. It ended in a first grade classroom in Connecticut and at a high school in Florida. It ended a thousand times on the streets of Chicago, or Baltimore, or Memphis, with a thousand grieving mothers who never got invited to come onto cable television. It ended the last time a child found his daddy’s gun and killed his sister in their living room. It ended the last time a person in crisis found a…

  The Center For Investigative Reporting (12/2/18) Across the country, criminals are arming themselves in unexpected ways. In Florida, they’re stealing guns from unlocked cars and gun stores. In other places, they’re getting them from the police themselves, as cash-strapped departments sell their used weapons to buy new ones. On this episode of Reveal, we learn where criminals get their guns and what cars can teach us about gun safety. Laura Morel of the Tampa Bay Times reports on an epidemic of gun thefts in Florida and how many of those guns are being used to commit crimes. Some of…

High school activist Emma Gonzalez. (Illustration by Seth L. Taylor, 2018.) Emma Gonzalez’s Powerful March For Our Lives Speech In Full (Video) (Editor’s Note: Truly, this speech is one of the most powerful speeches given in American history. — Mark L. Taylor) The Guardian (3/25/18) Parkland shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez – who had been a leading voice immediately after the attack on her school – took to the stage in Washington DC for six minutes and 20 seconds, much of that in silence. She says it was the amount of time it took a shooter to kill 17 people at…

  “When leaders act like kids and kids act like leaders, we need change.” — Protest sign at Wednesday student walkout at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. ***** By Mike Males Yes! Magazine (2/17/18) This week, 17 teachers, students, and visitors died in a Florida high school, in a country where mass shootings have been devastatingly routine. This was followed by another day of despairing, angry furor over guns, schools, and shootings that replayed the same reactions from dozens of past shootings. Once the warring factions settle into their talking points and scapegoats, the debate rages on for decades with little sign…

  By Matt Vasilobambro The HuffPo (3/2/18) In the two weeks since the Florida school massacre, state lawmakers around the country have introduced bills to ban bump stocks, ban assault weapons, and expand background checks — and also to arm teachers, lighten penalties for carrying without a permit, and waive handgun permit fees. If history foretells, the gun-rights bills will have a better chance at success. In the years since Sandy Hook, when 26 were slain in 2012, states have enacted nearly 600 new gun laws, according to data compiled separately by the National Rifle Association and the Giffords Law…

  By Brad Tuttle Time 2/28/18) Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association for nearly 30 years, has often found himself at the center of controversy. But over the last week, in the wake of a deadly Florida high school shooting that left 17 dead, LaPierre and the NRA have been under especially strong scrutiny. A growing number of companies have cut ties to the gun rights organization, ending their discounts programs for NRA members. Others who haven’t done so, like FedEx, are facing boycott calls. At a conservative conference last week, LaPierre blamed the media and Washington insiders for exploiting “tragedy for…

“Violence in America is not about the defense of liberty or radical change. It is an expression of domination, racism and hate. American vigilantes are the shock troops of capitalism. They butcher the weak on behalf of the strong.” By Chris Hedges TruthDig (2/25/18) The proliferation of guns in American society is not only profitable for gun manufacturers, it fools the disempowered into fetishizing weapons as a guarantor of political agency. Guns buttress the myth of a rugged individualism that atomizes Americans, disdains organization and obliterates community, compounding powerlessness. Gun ownership in the United States, largely criminalized for poor people of…

  “To threaten to kill a 17 year old because he had the temerity to ask a question of a politician says a lot about the people making the threats.” — Online comment. By Luke Barnes ThinkProgress (2/23/18) At a town hall on Wednesday night, the survivors of the shooting in Parkland, Florida, made Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) squirm with a series of pointed questions about his support for the Second Amendment. One question that drew particularly loud cheers came from Cameron Kasky, when he asked Rubio, “Can you tell me right now that you will not accept a single donation from…

flickr photo In fact, he never even owned one. By Tony Dokoupil NBC News (6/16/16) The AR-15 is the most talked about gun in America. But the AR-15’s creator died before the weapon became a popular hit and his family has never spoken out. Until now. “Our father, Eugene Stoner, designed the AR-15 and subsequent M-16 as a military weapon to give our soldiers an advantage over the AK-47,” the Stoner family told NBC News late Wednesday. “He died long before any mass shootings occurred. But, we do think he would have been horrified and sickened as anyone, if not more…

  By Jason Wilson The Guardian (2/20/18) After Parkland’s mass shooting, the wind seems to have changed. Students are speaking out, demanding that politicians act. And they’re getting some traction. Many found their voice on Twitter and directly attacked Donald Trump’s strange and distracted online response to the massacre. David Hogg, a student journalist who interviewed his classmates as the massacre was happening, has been one of the leaders of a chorus of students calling for tough action on gun control. Emma González made a widely shared, impassioned speech which attacked the president directly, calling out the funding he has received from the National Rifle Association. Today,…