The National Rifle Association recently targeted hundreds of organizations and individuals for having the temerity to have “lent their names and notoriety” to the “anti-gun cause.” The NRA has compiled these names on a 19-page blacklist being made available to its membership.
Who’s on the list? Sure enough, there’s the notorious Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Seinfeld, Sean Connery, Julia Roberts, Bruce Springsteen, Mel Brooks and Jimmy Carter. Also Russell Simmons, Missy Elliot, Shania Twain and Dustin Hoffman. The NAACP, NOW, the United Methodist Church, the AARP and the American Jewish Congress are also all featured on this modern-day enemies list.
The anti-gun group Stop The NRA thought that more than just NRA members should see the list. So, they’ve created a website dedicated to exposing this campaign and are encouraging concerned citizens to sign up for what reasonable Americans should consider an honor roll.
Each year in the US, we lose roughly 28,000 people to gun violence. And, as the Violence Policy Center has documented, Al Qaeda terrorist training manuals note the ease with which one can obtain firearms in the United States–like the .50-caliber rifles that can with precision blow a nine-inch hole in a concrete wall from 100 yards.
Yet, the NRA, emboldened by the strong support it enjoys from the Bush Administration, is currently trying to bully Congress into granting the Association two coveted favors that would also be a blessing for terrorists in our midst: an end to the ban on military-style rapid-fire assault weapons and iron-clad legal protections for gun manufacturers and weapons dealers from virtually all civil lawsuits.
The Stop the NRA campaign has a set of suggestions for helping defeat the NRA’s assault on American society: Sign a petition, donate funds to help support anti-NRA advertising nationwide, join with like-minded activists in local groups, lobby your elected reps, watch a special web film and find out much more about a fierce political struggle being waged with potentially dramatic consequences for American citizens.
