Everybody wants to get a piece of that sweet sweet millennial gold. Even the lead-slug tycoons who bankroll the NRA. Behold "Noir," the gun lobby's can't-miss shot at a hot web series for the hip, urbane American who wants a multicolored gun to match that iPhone case!
There's a pro-gun bill awaiting a vote in the Florida Senate right now. What's it do? Well, if one saucy senator gets his way, the name will say it all: "An act relating to the zombie apocalypse."
Verily I say unto thee: There's no better way to express the love and saving grace of Jesus Christ and the God who sent Him than to hire Sarah Palin to use baptism as a metaphor for torturing "jihadis" before a cheering crowd of nuts at a National Rifle Association rally.
Attendees wait to register for the National Rifle Association's annual convention on Friday in Indianapolis. Image via AJ Mast/AP.
Is it an effigy? Is it a "puppet"? Dude, when it's a likeness of the governor being hoisted by a demonstrator in a minuteman uniform over a crowd of angry gun-toting protesters in the capital, the optics sort of overpower the semantics.
Despite years of negative publicity over Florida's "Stand Your Ground" self-defense law, lawmakers are close to expanding it to protect gunmen who fire warning shots or wave weapons in a threatening manner—and they're doing it with a bill written by a top NRA lobbyist, Gawker has learned.
Just in time for its wingnut-filled annual meeting tomorrow, the National Rifle Association is set to install a new president: an Alabama lawyer who laments "the war of Northern Aggression," calls Barack Obama "this fake president," and fantasizes about "whipping" opponents of the gun lobby's agenda.
Three months after Gun Appreciation Day resulted in several accidental shootings, another gun-advocating event has been marred by gun violence. On Saturday, it was reported that a man died from gun shot wounds suffered at NASCAR's NRA 500 race at Texas Motor Speedway. Late Sunday afternoon, medical investigators ruled the shooting a "self-inflicted injury," saying the man shot himself in his head.
Mother Jones recently posted a roundup of National Rifle Association ads through history, depicting the lobby group's descent into madness, but our eyes caught one particular pit stop on the road to crazy—this pro-gun 1993 TV commercial titled "Laughing Criminal," featuring a speaking role by future SNL star Molly Shannon.
The Huffington Post is running a lengthy feature which profiles the shooting deaths of five Americans over the past decade. Similar to the AP story from a few weeks ago that profiled the shooting deaths of Americans on a single day, the Huffington Post feature outlines the lives lost and, more extensively, their survivors.
Legislators and gun rights advocates get really angry whenever nosy reporters try to use public records laws to find out who's packing heat. When the Westchester Journal News published an online map of local residents with handgun licenses last year, the paper was excoriated by the NRA and its allies; it eventually took the map down. When Gawker published a similar list—without addresses—of New York City handgun permit-holders last month, we were attacked by Fox News and received multiple death threats. And when the editor of the North Carolina Cherokee Scout dared to request—not publish, but merely request—similar data from his local sheriff, he was forced to apologize and resign; he plans to leave the state entirely.
Appearing on Fox News this morning, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre reiterated his organization's claim in a recent ad that all American children deserve the same amount of protection that the President Obama's daughters receive. Fox News host Chris Wallace responded, "That's ridiculous and you know it, sir." Throughout the interview Wallace continues to be critical of LaPierre, refuting his claims that inner-city gangs are the problem, and pointing out the insanity of putting armed guards in every public place.
In an interview last week with The New New Republic, President Obama revealed that "we do skeet shooting all the time" at Camp David. Not everyone believes him. In response to these "Skeet Truthers", the White House released a photo this morning which shows President Obama shooting a shotgun last August. There is smoke coming out of the barrel, an indicator that the shotgun has just fired something, which, we can assume, was a bullet shotgun shell. Or maybe he did nothing at all.
"Speaking is difficult, but I need to say something important," former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, currently convening hearings on gun safety. "We must do something. It will be hard but the time is now." This is the full text of her statement:
