#ThomHartmann @Thom_Hartmann blog: Gun Lobby Has No Shame
by Thom Hartmann,posted Dec 18 2012 4:11PM
Not only does the gun lobby have no shame...
Following the Sandy Hook massacre of twenty first graders with an assault rifle, but the gun lobby is now threatening violent revolution. Appearing on MSNBC on Monday, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, Larry Pratt, argued that the right to bear arms is necessary to make our democratic government cower in fear of gun owners. Pratt said, “We have guns fundamentally protected by the Second Amendment to control the government.” He went on to say that he thinks it “bothers lawmakers” that armed Americans can attack them with assault weapons, a position Gabby Giffords probably agrees with.
This is the position the gun lobby is taking in response to the deafening calls around the nation for new gun safety laws, which would prohibit the sale of the very assault weapons and high capacity ammo clips that are routinely used in these deadly massacres. It’s a “pry my gun from my cold dead hands,” approach, which could have tragic consequences - stirring up secessionist crazies around the nation.
Our nation is again dealing with a tragedy that happens all too often, yet the corporate gun lobby, focused more on profits than on safety, is helping set up more and more mass shootings in the future. We know how to respond to danger here in America. One shoe bomber, and we all take off our shoes at the airpirt. One threat of binary liquids and we can't carry liquids on airplanes. One underwear bomber, and we put in billions of dollars in porno x-ray scanners and grope granny. There are more than twenty mass shootings every year in America and over a hundred people are shot every day...but we can't do something about guns?
It's time to start pushing hard for laws that say that unless you can prove you NEED a gun, you can't have one. And if you do have one, you have to prove proficiency and the gun - and you - must be licensed. To hell with the blood-soaked gun lobby and their toadies Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
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