The National Rifle Association has repeatedly thumbed its nose at calls for stronger gun safety measures after the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. Current NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre shocked many by attacking these efforts and calling instead for armed guards in every school. Still, on Wednesday, past NRA President Marion Hammer took the lobbying organization’s pro-gun radicalism to new heights.
On NRA’s news show, Hammer warned that gun owners are “in for a massive fight like we’ve probably never seen before,” in which the government will take guns away “in order to control the masses.”
When asked about proposals to ban certain kinds of assault weapons, Hammer also charged that guns are suffering discrimination similar to racism against people of color:
HOST: And they even admit it’s about banning the ugliest guns. They admit it.
HAMMER: Banning people and things because of the way they look went out a long time ago, but here they are again. The color of a gun, the way it looks. It’s just bad politics.
Watch it:
Despite a string of mass shootings and casualties in recent years, the NRA’s clout has effectively stifled conversation about America’s gun violence problem. But with the public’s renewed horror at the deaths of 28 people in Newtown, most of them children, the gun lobby’s grip may be slipping. Democrats introduced a slew of gun safety bills on the first day of the new Congress that would ban high capacity magazines, certain kinds of assault weapons, and close the gun show loophole that allows people to buy guns without a background check.
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