Inside Opinion » nra

If lawmakers duck background checks, voters must act

TNT Editorial Board — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 01:09:43 +0000

This editorial will appear in Tuesday’s print edition.

There’s a reason lawmaking is often compared with making sausage: It isn’t always a pretty sight when legislators wrangle, compromise, horse trade and even yell at each other.

Still, compared with the initiative process, that’s generally the better way of getting things done; it more often results in laws that have been vetted for practicality as well as their chances of withstanding judicial review.

But when lawmakers fail to act on an issue of concern for significant numbers of their constituents — and especially when they’re intimidated by a powerful special interest …

NRA strategy: Squelch free speech and scientific research

TNT Editorial Board — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 23:23:58 +0000

This editorial will appear in Monday’s print edition.

Hypocrisy, thy name is NRA.

The National Rifle Association fiercely defends the Second Amendment rights of some people – in part by trying to quash the First Amendment rights of others.

It’s one way the organization has worked to prevent information on guns from getting out – information badly needed in efforts to curb the nation’s epidemic of gun violence.

An example: In 2011, the NRA actually got encoded in Florida law a gag order barring doctors from talking to their patients about guns in the home. Not only did this infringe …

Paranoia is sole argument against background checks

TNT Editorial Board — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 22:44:16 +0000

This editorial will appear in Sunday’s print edition.

We’re trying real hard to think of reasons why private sales of firearms shouldn’t involve FBI background checks, and we’re coming up short.
Measures requiring background checks on all gun purchasers ought to be sailing through Congress. The vast majority of Americans – including most gun owners – support universal checks. Only absolutists who see jackbooted gun-grabbers in every shadow are fighting these proposals.

In Olympia, things are moving. Last week, state Rep. Jamie Pederson and 35 co-sponsors introduced a universal screening bill in the state House of Representatives.

It’s very …

An Eisenhower asks the NRA: ‘Have you no sense of decency, sirs?’

Cheryl Tucker — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 18:59:45 +0000

This op-ed came in Friday from The Washington Post. We don’t have room to get it into the print edition, so it’s running online only.

In it, Dwight Eisenhower’s granddaughter Susan comments on the NRA’s ad “suggesting that the president is an ‘elitist hypocrite’ because his children have the benefit of armed protection at school and the nation’s children as a whole do not.”
Needless to say, she thinks the NRA is off target. Here’s the article.

NRA Crosses Line With Diabolical Ad Featuring Obama’s Daughters

By Susan Eisenhower
Special to The Washington Post.

In 2008, just

…

A targeted – not shotgun – approach to gun reforms

TNT Editorial Board — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 01:53:17 +0000

This editorial will appear in Wednesday’s print edition.

Sensible restrictions on firearms won’t happen if absolutists – whether pro- or anti-gun – hijack the debate. Someone like Gabrielle Giffords might be what the cause needs.

The former congresswoman and her husband, Mark Kelly, announced a campaign Tuesday to balance the political influence of National Rifle Association, whose current leadership dogmatically opposes almost any measure that threatens the interests of gun manufacturers.

Giffords brings two crucial credentials to this argument: She’s a gun-owning supporter of the Second Amendment – and a survivor of a nearly fatal shooting. They noted Tuesday that …

To the NRA, more guns is the solution to violence

TNT Editorial Board — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 00:36:21 +0000

This editorial will appear in the Monday print edition.

So this is the National Rifle Association’s idea of a “meaningful” way to address the kind of gun violence that killed 20 children and six school staff in Newtown, Conn.? To station armed police in every school in America?

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” said NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre in a Friday news conference one week to the day after the Newtown massacre.

As we have made clear many times before, we support the Second Amendment and the …

Child’s shooting shows need for safe gun storage law

TNT Editorial Board — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:44:45 +0000

This editorial will appear in Friday’s print edition.

Authorities could end up charging the wrong person for the tragic shooting Wednesday of a third-grade girl at her Bremerton school. Blame it on this state’s lack of even a minimal gun-storage requirement.

The 9-year-old boy who brought a loaded handgun to school in his backpack does bear responsibility for the accidental shooting that critically injured Amina Bowman. But again, he’s 9 years old. Children that age often have little understanding of the consequences of their actions. Authorities would have to prove that the boy was aware that his actions were wrong …