NRA is Threatening Parkland Shooting Survivors

With the Federal Elections Commission launching a probe into whether the National Rifle Association ("NRA") conspired with Russian agents to funnel monies to the Trump/Pence campaign, additional evidence that the NRA is a repulsive organization comes from survivors of the Parkland mass shooting who say the NRA is threatening them because of their efforts to push common sense gun control measures.  Already Florida has enacted new gun control laws over NRA opposition.  Next weekend will see a mass march in Washington, D.C., and cities across the country - a march is occurring even in Newport News, Virginia - and the NRA seems to be ratcheting up its attacks.  As is the norm with the far right's approach to those who oppose their agenda, the students say they have received death threats (something I have received from "godly Christians" for writing this blog and telling the truth about them).  A piece at CBS News looks at the situation.  Here are highlights:

Since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last month, survivors have mobilized the #NeverAgain movement to push for school safety and stronger gun legislation.

Two vocal leaders, David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, spoke with CBSN Monday to discuss the movement and why they believe they can navigate through the partisan divide on gun control and drive real change in policy.

Both Hogg and Gonzalez, who refer to themselves as members of the "mass shooting generation," say they've received death threats in response to their efforts in launching the movement. But they aren't letting threats deter them from making progress.

"There's always been people who are going to want to harm us," Gonzalez said. "I'm not going to pretend that this like opened my eyes to a cruel and harmful world ... When it comes right down to it, we already knew that this world was going to be tough. So getting death threats like that doesn't really faze us."

Asked about the NRA's response to their movement, Hogg responded: "I think it just goes to prove what exactly they are. I don't think NRA members are bad people at all. I think they're responsible gun owners that want to become politically active and make their voices heard in this democracy, and I think that's an excellent thing.

"I think the problem comes in when it's people at the top of this organization that don't listen to their constituents and continue to scare people into buying more guns, creating more violence, so they can scare more people and sell more guns," he continued. "The people at the top of the NRA are no longer working for the people that are in their organization. They're working on behalf of the gun lobby."

Both Hogg and Gonzalez say the NRA has reached out to them, but not in a positive way.  "The way that they've been reaching out to us is basically threatening us," Hogg said.  "They've been instigating things," Gonzalez added. "And then, when we reply, they like shy back away. They can dish it out but they can't take it."

Meanwhile, nearly 500,000 people are preparing to march on the nation's capital this weekend in support of gun control and school safety measures. Many of those marching will be students. The event follows last week's nationwide walkout, when students from nearly 3,000 schools walked out of their classrooms for 17 minutes in memory of the 17 victims.

During a conversation on "CBS This Morning," Hogg said his message to other high school students is: "Make sure you get out and vote, that you're registered to vote so you can vote in the primaries and stay educated for the rest of your life because the seeds of corruption are always being showed."

The students are correct: the NRA is the minion of gun manufacturers and it cares NOTHING about the lives and safety of citizens.  They are about one thing and one thing only: maximizing revenues for gun manufacturers.  It's really that simple.

The Parkland Students Aren't Going Away

At least fifteen (15) brands have now ended their relationship with the NRA and pressure remains on others - FedEx which can be reached at 942 South Shady Grove Road, Memphis, Tennessee 38120, (901) 818-7500 being one of them - to do the same. True to form, the NRA (which is a front for gun manufacturers) is lashing out at major companies such as a who's who of rental car companies, United Airlines, Delta Airlines, Best Western and Wyndham Hotels, who have bowed to customer outrage over their affiliation with what more and more people see as an irresponsible toxic organization. Meanwhile, gun fanatics and right wing "news" sites are lashing out and disseminating lies about the students from Parkland, Florida, many of whom are articulate and show political savvy, who have seemingly put in motion a movement not seen in the wake of past mass shootings. A piece in The Atlantic looks at the phenomenon and why just maybe things will be different this time with the NRA and its spineless political whores in the Republican Party perhaps having met their match.  Here are article excerpts:

The aftermath of a mass shooting in the United States can feel like an all-too-familiar play. 

Act I: Some combination of grief and shock and terror ripples across the nation, accompanied by a deluge of news coverage.
Act II: Gun-control advocates leverage the moment to call for stricter laws; those who oppose such restrictions offer their thoughts and prayers to victims but argue that gun control won’t help.
Act III: the inevitable deadlock. America moves on; America forgets. Nothing changes, except for those for whom everything has changed. Public opinion on gun control remains as divided as ever.

That play is following a different script this time around. The curtain has stayed up on Act II, as survivors of what is now the deadliest high-school shooting in modern U.S. history have prevented the play from proceeding along its typical trajectory.  . . . . the Parkland, Florida, teens’ tweets, essays, and television appearances—equal parts fierce determination and fervent agony—have been the public-facing cry of what they have dubbed the “Never Again” movement.

Countless factors could explain why their activism on gun control has so quickly evolved into a national movement. And one could be Parkland’s demographics. People in Parkland tend to be well-off. The median household income in the city is just over $128,000, according to census data, compared with less than $53,000 for the (massive) surrounding Broward County.

That comparable affluence could be key to understanding why Never Again’s youth leaders seem to be building so much political clout in a debate that until now seemed impossibly stuck. (And, realistically, may still be.) It could also be key to understanding why similar efforts led by disadvantaged youth in recent years have gained little, if any, meaningful traction.

“It’s mind-blowing that while [the Parkland students] are still in the first days of dealing with trauma, anger, grief, they’re putting it toward really careful and thoughtful political and civic action—it’s just amazing,” said Meira Levinson, a Harvard Graduate School of Education professor whose research focuses on civic education and youth empowerment. “At the same time, it’s also important to recognize that other young people have done this [activism] also within days—they’re experiencing the same grief—and haven’t gotten the attention that these [Parkland] students have.”

It quickly became clear that these survivors were poised to spearhead a political movement whose message is so loud, and so raw, it’s continued to dominate mainstream news coverage and radio shows and even late-night comedy a week after the shooting—an unusual phenomenon in today’s real-time news environment. They’ve written haunting op-eds and delivered viral speeches; they’ve instigated rallies and prompted nationwide walkouts by students and teachers.

Now they’re planning—from their parents’ living rooms—a massive demonstration to take place in Washington, D.C., next month. The “March for Our Lives” event already has a sophisticated website with a mission statement and merch for sale—and, like the historic Women’s March last January, it is inspiring satellite protests not just across the U.S. but also across the globe.

Triple-digit donations from the likes of George and Amal Clooney and Oprah are helping to make all of this possible. Donations to the march’s GoFundMe campaign have been on the rise since the effort was launched several days ago, and organizers have in turn continued to increase the funding goal. As of Friday evening, donations totaled roughly $2.3 million.

Why is there suddenly so much traction? . . . . Historically, affluence has often been key to gaining political leverage, and to ensuring that leverage has translated into actual policy change. “Citizens with low or moderate incomes speak with a whisper that is lost on the ears of inattentive government, while the advantaged roar with the clarity and consistency that policymakers readily heed,” reads a 2004 report by an American Political Science Association task force on inequality and democracy. U.S. senators’ voting patterns, for example, correspond far more closely with the preferences of their wealthier constituents than with those of their less-affluent ones.  

It isn’t hard to see why: As detailed in a 2002 study by the political scientist Larry Bartels, compared to their lower-income counterparts, wealthy Americans are more likely to have access to information about policies and to in turn form sophisticated opinions about those policies; they’re also more likely to vote in elections and have direct contact with public officials. And of course, they’re more likely to donate to political campaigns.

Schools such as MSD—where three in four students passed some or all their AP tests during the 2009-10 school year and where participation in the gifted program was nearly twice the national rate—are far more likely than their lower-performing, under-resourced counterparts to teach kids about civic engagement.

Aspects of this instructional focus can be seen in how the Parkland students have responded to the shooting. The 17-year-old David Hogg, a student journalist, filmed and interviewed his classmates while they took shelter from the gunman—footage that, he explained in a CNN interview, he gathered in part so he could later sway politicians’ opinion on gun control. Asked about whether she’d prepared for the political activism she’s now demonstrating, Jaclyn Corin, also 17, explained to The New Yorker writer Emily Witt that a few months earlier she’d worked on a 50-page project about gun control for her AP composition-and-rhetoric-class. And as one Buzzfeed article noted, the MSD activists planning the March for Our Lives largely know each other from the school’s theater program; the skills honed in the dramatic arts—confidence, persuasive communication, creativity, stage presence—can be very useful in effective political activism.

But scholars suggest that other realities could be at play, too. One is extremely straightforward: It costs money to engage in the kind of activism that the MSD students are undertaking—the trips to the state capitol in Tallahassee and D.C., for example, and the freedom to dedicate time to this campaign rather than to a part-time job or to caring for a younger sibling.

Levinson cited research showing that the concerns of middle-class and affluent students, particularly those who are white, are “more likely to be interpreted as universal” whereas the concerns of their lower-income peers of color are more likely to be regarded as relevant to and true of a small percentage of kids. “Their experiences are not niche; they’re not a side show,” she said. “But for some reason the people in power, including people like us [journalists and academics], tend to see kids like those in Parkland as being our kids and as representing nationwide concerns as opposed to kids protesting in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York.”

A confluence of phenomena likely explains why the Never Again youth see their political clout growing exponentially: their educational experiences and social capital and political savvy; their advantage as middle-class Americans whose message resonates across demographics; the way in which mounting anxiety about and the almost-overwhelming media coverage of mass violence is making gun control seem more and more like a universally personal and high-stakes cause . . . .

In Trump [the most unpopular of the last dozen presidents] , the students of Parkland have a target for their rage, something survivors of shootings during the Obama era lacked. It’s possible that just having that target—one that a lot of the public is similarly enraged against—has enabled their words to reach a wider audience.

Against this backdrop, maybe the outrage that had been bubbling up amid Columbine and Sandy Hook—and the steady sequence of often-overlooked school shootings—finally hit a tipping point.  

Whatever the reason, the MSD teens’ Never Again crusade seems to have provided the ingredients America needed to free itself from that paralysis.

No Surprise: NRA Lies About AR-15 Assault Rifles

The NRA holds itself out as a group representing hunters and sportsman.  The truth, of course, is something much different and the NRA receives massive funding from gun manufacturers who have one goal: sell as many weapons as possible and maximize monetary profits.  Any restrictions on gun sales no matter how sensible and appropriate is to be resisted and blocked.  The lives of innocent individuals simply do not matter when weighed against profits.  Now, the NRA is lying about AR-15 assault rifles - the weapon of choice among mass shooters - and claiming that they are "useful for hunting and home defense."  I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone that basically uses a machine gum while dear hunting, duck hunting or skeet shooting. A piece in Slate looks at the truth about AR-15's - M-16 in military parlance - and this latest ridiculous NRA lie.  Here are excerpts: 

[A]n AR-15 rifle was believed to be used in a school shooting Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which at least 17 people were killed. The AR-15 is the same weapon used by Adam Lanza, who killed 26 people, 20 of them children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. After the Sandy Hook shooting, Justin Peters wrote that “the AR-15 is very good at one thing: engaging the enemy at a rapid rate of fire.” The original piece is reprinted below.
 On Dec. 24, in Webster, New York, an ex-con named William Spengler set fire to his house and then shot and killed two responding firefighters before taking his own life. He shot them with a Bushmaster AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle—the same weapon that Adam Lanza used 10 days earlier when he shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary. James Holmes used an AR-15-style rifle with a detachable 100-round magazine this past summer when he shot up a movie theater in Colorado. Three makes a trend, as we all know, and many people have reacted by suggesting that the federal government should ban the AR-15 and other so-called assault weapons. . . . . NRA president David Keene blasted those critics who “neither understand the nature of the firearms they would ban, their popularity or legitimate uses.” Keene noted there are several valid, non-murderous uses for rifles like the AR-15—among them recreational target shooting, hunting, and home defense . . . .
 I nevertheless find Keene’s arguments disingenuous. It’s odd to cite hunting and home defense as reasons to keep selling a rifle that’s not particularly well suited, and definitely not necessary, for either. Bolt-action rifles and shotguns can also be used for hunting and home defense. Unfortunately, those guns aren’t particularly lucrative for gunmakers. The lobby’s fervent defense of military-style semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 seems motivated primarily by a desire to protect the profits in the rapidly growing “modern sporting rifle” segment of the industry. The AR-15 was designed in 1957 at the behest of the U.S. Army, which asked Armalite to come up with a “high-velocity, full and semi auto fire, 20 shot magazine, 6lbs loaded, able to penetrate both sides of a standard Army helmet at 500 meters rifle,” according to ar15.com. When it entered Army service in the 1960s, it was renamed the M16, . . .
 But the AR-15 is not ideal for the hunting and home-defense uses that the NRA’s Keene cited today. Though it can be used for hunting, the AR-15 isn’t really a hunting rifle. Its standard .223 caliber ammunition doesn’t offer much stopping power for anything other than small game. Hunters themselves find the rifle controversial, . . . As one hunter put it in the comments section of an article on americanhunter.org, “I served in the military and the M16A2/M4 was the weapon I used for 20 years. It is first and foremost designed as an assault weapon platform, no matter what the spin. A hunter does not need a semi-automatic rifle to hunt, if he does he sucks, and should go play video games. In terms of repelling a home invasion—which is what most people mean when they talk about home defense—an AR-15-style rifle is probably less useful than a handgun. The AR-15 is a long gun, and can be tough to maneuver in tight quarters. When you shoot it, it’ll overpenetrate—sending bullets through the walls of your house and possibly into the walls of your neighbor’s house . . .
 AR-15–style rifles are very useful, however, if what you’re trying to do is sell guns. In a recent Forbes article, Abram Brown reported that “gun ownership is at a near 20-year high, generating $4 billion in commercial gun and ammunition sales.” But that money’s not coming from selling shotguns and bolt-action rifles to pheasant hunters. [T]he guns also appeal to another demographic that doesn’t get nearly as much press—paranoid survivalists who worry about having to fend off thieves and trespassers in the event of disaster. In his piece at Human Events, Keene ridiculed the notion that AR-15-style rifles ought to be banned just because “a half dozen [AR-15s] out of more than three million have been misused after illegally falling into the hands of crazed killers.” But the AR-15 is very good at one thing: engaging the enemy at a rapid rate of fire. When someone like Adam Lanza uses it to take out 26 people in a matter of minutes, he’s committing a crime, but he isn’t misusing the rifle. That’s exactly what it was engineered to do. Wednesday’s carnage in Florida illustrates the problem caused by this collective failure to see the existential threat posed by guns to Americans. As long as it remains easy for malicious people to acquire weapons like those used in Parkland, Las Vegas, Orlando, or San Bernardino, Americans will die by the dozens.

A pattern has emerged after each mass shooting: gratuitous offering of hopes and prayers, followed by proposals for stricter controls on guns or purchases thereof, followed by lobbying by gun advocates and manufacturers for the scuttling of those proposed controls. The net effect is the same, every damned time: Nothing changes. It is as easy to obtain a semi-automatic military-style rifle today as it was two years ago when Omar Mateen used one to kill 49 at an Orlando nightclub; it remains legal to buy bump stocks today, just as it was four months ago when Stephen Paddock used one to murder 58 in Las Vegas. The thunderous hail of bullets is always followed by the silence of a nation that cannot bring itself to do anything besides offer hopes and prayers.

Perhaps presenting gun violence as a national security threat will finally galvanize America to act. On his way out as director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, Nick Rasmussen mused, “We find ourselves in a more dangerous situation because our population of violent extremists has no difficulty gaining access to weapons that are quite lethal.” He’s right—but the threat does not just come from violent extremists. It comes from Americans like Stephen Paddock and Nikolas Cruz, too—and the time has come for us overcome the powerful people who insist on pretending that threat doesn’t exist.

The reality is that spokesman for the NRA are like Christofascists: if their lips are moving, it's near a 100% likelihood that they are lying.