Wayne LaPierre and the NRA are cowards in the face of the death of little children, shot down in kindergarten class. They took down their Facebook page and they're nowhere to be found in the media? Why? Because they can't defend the indefensible. I'm not sure why it's different this time, but I'm convinced this is the time we take on the NRA - and win:
Magazines that fed bullets into the primary firearm used to kill 26 children and adults at a Connecticut school would have been banned under state legislation that the National Rifle Association and gunmakers successfully fought.
The shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Adam Lanza, 20, used a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle with magazines containing 30 rounds as his main weapon, said Connecticut State Police Lieutenant Paul Vance at a news conference today.
A proposal in March 2011 would have made it a felony to possess magazines with more than 10 bullets and required owners to surrender them to law enforcement or remove them from the state. Opponents sent more than 30,000 e-mails and letters to state lawmakers as part of a campaign organized by the NRA and other gun advocates, said Robert Crook, head of the Hartford- based Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen, which opposed the legislation.
“The legislators got swamped by NRA emails,” said Betty Gallo, who lobbied on behalf of the legislation for Southport- based Connecticut Against Gun Violence. “They were scared of the NRA and the political backlash.”
Proponents abandoned the legislation, which drew opposition from gunmakers including Sturm, Ruger & Co. (RGR) In addition to the e-mails and letters, more than 300 pro-gun activists, including many NRA members, attended a committee hearing to oppose it, said Gallo, a Hartford-based lobbyist for more than 35 years.
[...] Both sides in the debate disputed the role of high-capacity magazines in the Dec. 14 school shooting.
Crook said state legislation “wouldn’t have made a difference.”“We already have a lot of good gun laws on the books,” Crook said. “You can’t control people who have never done anything wrong before and then just go off the deep end.”
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said in an interview that high-capacity magazines “made the crime all the more deadly” and called for limits.
The media office of the NRA didn’t respond to e-mails seeking comment about the shooting or the law, or return phone messages left with an answering service.
