Salon: How To Silence The NRA

[Robb]

In the hours after a mass shooting, all of a sudden, gun activists go quiet. It's all part of a calculated strategy.




There’s one time, and only one time, you can count on the NRA to be more subdued than your average gun obsessive, and it’s the 24 to 48 hours after a mass shooting.

As of this writing, it’s been over 36 hours since the NRA issued any pro-gun public communication, and if past is prologue they’ll lay low until the jaded public accepts that nothing will become of the killing spree at DC’s Navy Yard, then return to their regular program of advocating for an armed society and stoking far right paranoia.

Two entwined calculations motivate the temporary silence. The first is simple self-preservation. The gun lobby is at its weakest when crazy people use the weapons they’ve made so easily obtainable to slaughter innocents in public places. The second is more oblique. Mass shootings breathe new life into arguments for gun control, and one way to suffocate them is to feign propriety and indignation — to shame adherents into saying nothing until the public has moved on.

Thus, nothing is more offensive to a conservative after a mass shooting — with the exception, perhaps, of the killer’s action itself — than any effort to tie it to arguments about gun control.

Read More: http://www.salon.com/2013/09/17/how_to_silence_the_nra/

[maddezmom]

1. First comment will be to blame video games

Just like after Sandy Hook.

[Skittles]

2. can you believe that sh**

the utter gall

[Blue_Tires]

4. Yeah, their post-sandy hook spin was beyond the pale

[Tommy_Carcetti]

3. Once they do decide to speak, they'll be claiming the Navy Yard was a "gun free zone"

And that Alexis choose it because it was a "soft target."

Gun enthusiasts are already parroting that line. The NRA will soon follow.

Never mind that the Navy Yard was not a gun free zone as evidenced by the fact there was armed security there. The early reports are that Alexis used his legally purchased gun to take the other two guns from security. So that pretty much shoots that notion to hell about "gun free zones."

The Navy Yard was, however, a CCW free zone. And for good reason. Do you really want armed private citizens walking around military facilities.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. In other places, armed guards have been effective.

This guy was unusually successful.

It will be interesting to see what details are forthcoming.
Who, if anyone, helped him. Where he got the gun. Etc.

[madinmaryland]

10. Yeap. And the meme I heard this morning from a teabagger, is that Clinton created it.

He apparently did, but what the fuck does it matter.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

6. Which is the NRA position?

A small price to pay for the freedom to bare arms by anyone, anywhere.

Or is it?

Just a bump in the road toward record gun sales.

Maybe both?

[paleotn]

7. Unfortunatly, you're probably right on the later....

....que mad run on firearms and ammunition by crazed gun nuts afraid Obama's gonna come get their guns in 3...2...1...

[IronLionZion]

8. The only thing that silences the NRA,

is a silencer with a gun. Bad joke.

Create your NRA memes here:

http://memegenerator.net/instance/35308962

http://memegenerator.net/instance/41416957

[billh58]

9. This silence from

the NRA is deafening after these frequent horrific massacres with lethal weapons. Their apologists -- not so much. Just the price we must pay for our freedoms they say. Just a statistically acceptable bump in the road we're told. Nothing to see here say the gun nuts, because Second Amendment, and Freedom, and My Rights.

The USA has the highest (by far) gun death rate in the civilized world, and it is our Constitutional right to be number one! It is patriotic to kill other Americans in the name of Freedom, and we join with our right-wing brothers and sisters in exercising this God-given right to kill and injure each other. So say the NRA supporters and apologists.

[uponit7771]

11. Just have masses amounts of blacks open carry where available. Last time it was tried a Republican

...reduced gun rights or whatever nutters would call it