My original title for this post was "Let's De-Fund the NRA." Then I watered it down to something about the NRA being accountable. And then I ramped it up after seeing this update where the NRA actually dared to deny their own lobbyist's arrogant, authoritarian, flippant attitude toward public reaction to the Newtown shootings, calling it the "Connecticut Effect," a thing to wait out until public memories fade.

Remember this jerk when you hear Republicans and the NRA whine about how divisive Democrats are. Because it isn't Democrats who said flatly, "No, we're not going to do that." And then remember how the NRA lies when it suits them to do so:

Via ThinkProgress:

Now, the NRA is attempting to disavow any association with Welch or its Wisconsin chapter. In an email to TPM on Tuesday, the NRA wrote that “Bob Welch is neither a staff lobbyist nor a contract lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. He does not speak for the NRA.”

That's a flat-out, straight-up lie, as Scott Keyes explains.

The NRA’s attempt to claim no association with Welch and its Wisconsin state chapter is laughable. Welch is a registered lobbyist for the Wisconsin NRA group, known as WI-FORCE (Wisconsin Firearm Owners, Ranges, Clubs & Educators), so any association between WI-FORCE and the NRA is an association between Welch and the NRA.

I think the NRA should be defunded in the same way the right wing has acted to defund schools. Some ways to do it: Sue them for liability in every single gun death inflicted with malice and intent to kill, put a transaction tax on their asset transactions, impose fees and penalties for all manner of things, and call for an end to secret fund transfers between non-profits, which is how many organizations duck their NRA contribution reporting.

I'm all for constitutional respect, but I'm done with these arrogant idiots who just shrug every time someone dies because of their undying love for gun manufacturer profits and their fetish with weapons of mass killing. Especially when they lack the character to own it. If they don't want to own what they do behind closed doors, there's no reason to consider them trustworthy about anything at all.

I'm over it. As far as I'm concerned, they can get on board with the sensible and moderate proposals on the table or they can cease to exist with any power or say in how this country is governed.

Media Matters got this video from David in Colorado who received a telemarketing phone call from the NRA. The caller is working from an obvious script complete with worldwide conspiracies including: Hillary Clinton, Cuba and Iran.

Perhaps my favorite part is when the NRA caller offers condolences for "the school shooting," even though she of course doesn't know which school shooting she's offering condolences for when challenged (it is apparently that one "in the paper" that "recently" happened--you know, Columbine, in 1999).

There is no such thing as shame--not during Wayne LaPierre's tenure at the NRA. They'll use fake compassion over a school shooting and a manufactured galactic conspiracy if it will bring in more cash for arms dealers and help pay LaPierre's $1.27 million salary per year.

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*Conservatives from The Weekly Standard and The Daily Caller admit to host of The Big Picture, Thom Hartmann, that closing the gun show loophole would be a good idea.

Somehow, between breathless fanboy posts alerting his readers to the every movement of Rick Perry (he sure is dreamy!), The National Review's Kevin Williamson found time to prostrate himself (not once, but twice) before National Rifle Association (NRA) talking points, support the interests of al-Qaeda, and fit multiple lies all into one little screed.

Pretty impressive work, especially when you factor in his limited availability. I mean, those Rick Perry posters aren't going to just stare at themselves.

In these pieces, al-Qaeda Tool Williamson did what gun fetishists and NRA apologists always do when inconvenient truths about the blood already on their hands, or yet to come, are presented to them: He threw out random vituperation (even attacking one of his colleagues at NRO who happens to have more common sense than he could ever possess--he must be an absolute joy to work with!), and some misdirection that would make Houdini proud.

My problem, of course, is that I don't much like wannabe-bullies. Especially those who view the NRA like David Vitter does a lady-of-the-night with extra Huggies in hand, even more so when they lie and attack my friends at Media Matters on an issue I work on and care about, with Bachmannian reasoning to boot. So I thought I might respond, you know, for fun.

The crux of our story is that Adam Gadahn, the American-born al-Qaeda spokesman, made a statement that was 90% correct about the easy availability of firearms for terrorists in the US (because of people like Williamson and the NRA), so this al-Qaeda Tool, of course, chose to focus on the 10% that wasn't accurate. Here is our own David Neiwert's explanation of what set off this jack-in-the-box originally:

That popping sound you hear is the heads of NRA loyalists exploding from massive cognitive dissonance, all because of the release this week of a video showing a spokesman for al-Qaeda, Adam Gadahn, urging would-be jihadis to go out and stock up on as many guns as they can get their hands on -- through the gun-show loophole

So what do you do when you're a shill for the NRA and have to explain why you don't support the simple common sense of 69% of NRA members and 85% of Americans, (in a poll conducted by known liberal Frank Luntz for Mayors Against Illegal Guns) all of whom want to close the Gun Show Loophole? The one that Al Qaeda thug Gadahn spoke about. The one that has allowed everyone from Hezbollah to Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell to the Columbine killers to arm themselves--and provided a nice source of income for Timothy McVeigh. The one that sadly, as the thug Gadahn points out, would allow any Ayman al-Zwahiri to walk into a gun show in the 33 states that have not closed it, and buy a gun from "private sellers" without any kind of background check.

What you do is lie of course, and portray private sales of firearms as "Uncle Bubba," deciding "to swap his deer rifle to Otis for $100 and a case of Bud."

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Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group of more than 550 U.S. mayors, is calling for a background check system that will keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. (I know here in Philadelphia, mayors have been continuously stymied by the NRA-owned state legislature every time they try to put even small roadblocks in the way of gun purchase on demand.)

To make a point, NYC for the second year sent undercover investigators to one of the largest Phoenix gun shows -- two weeks after Rep. Gabby Giffords was shot -- to illustrate how easy it is to use the gun show loophole to illegally buy weapons:

On January 23, 2011, undercover investigators working for the City of New York attended the Crossroads of the World gun show in Phoenix. One investigator purchased a Glock 9 mm semiautomatic pistol without a background check. Because the gun dealer is a private seller and not a federally licensed firearms dealer, no background check was required and the transaction was apparently legal, assuming the seller was, in fact, an “occasional seller.” This gap in federal law that enables private sellers to sell guns without background checks is sometimes called the Gun Show Loophole because such sellers congregate at gun shows. The investigator also purchased 33-round extended magazines for the Glock from a separate seller – also legal because the 1994 law that banned such sales expired in 2004.

Gun shows have been found to be major sources of guns used in crimes. According to the ATF, 30 percent of guns involved in federal illegal gun trafficking investigations are connected to gun shows. Because no records are kept, guns sold by private sellers at gun shows become virtually untraceable.

Two private sellers failed integrity tests by illegally selling guns to an undercover investigator. Each seller sold a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol, one Sig Sauer and one Smith & Wesson, to an undercover investigator even after he declared that he “probably couldn’t pass” a background check. That statement should have immediately stopped the sale because even though occasional sellers are not required to run background checks using the FBI database, it is a federal felony for them to sell guns to people they have reason to believe are prohibited purchasers.

In 2009, the City of New York conducted a similar investigation and documented problems at seven gun shows in three states. Investigators found private dealers who sold to those who said they could not pass a background check, including two sellers who failed at multiple shows. In total, 19 of the 30 private sellers approached in 2009 failed the test.

Since the 2009 investigation, four of the seven gun shows documented on video have changed their practices.

The operator of the Big Reno Show, and the owner of the venue, the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino, have each signed agreements with the City of New York agreeing to end no-background check gun sales. The Big Reno Show is one of the nation’s largest gun shows. It has 1,300 tables of exhibits, at the time of the investigation there were 120 private sellers at the show offering 1,700 guns for sale.

The operator of the Big Reno Show has also prevented any seller caught breaking the law in the undercover investigation from returning to the show. The agreement stipulates that all sales by private party sellers will be processed through licensed gun dealers who will perform background checks.

Bill Goodman’s Gun and Knife Shows promotes three of the seven shows visited by the City in 2009, they were held at the Hara Arena and Sharonville Convention Center in Ohio and at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds in Nashville. The promoter has ended no-background check sales at all 34 shows that he promotes.

In 2009, the City turned over all of its investigative materials on illegal sales to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF). One of the sellers caught on tape at the Big Reno gun show, Robert Daly, was the subject of an ATF search warrant in July 2010. When the warrant was executed at Daly’s home in Mesa, Arizona, ATF agents seized 799 guns. The Justice Department has charged him with illegally selling these guns at gun shows.

Yep. Even if you're selling hundreds of guns at gun shows, you're still considered to be a "private seller" and not a dealer. Isn't that nice? In light of recent events, even politicians have to see that it's time to keep guns out of the hands of high-risk buyers.

You'd think that Arizona, whose far-right activists are always screaming about horrific crimes allegedly committed by Mexicans sneaking across the border, would catch on to the concept that loose gun sale practices put all of us at risk. From last week:

In a case aimed at stemming the flow of U.S. weapons to the Mexican drug war, federal authorities indicted 20 men Tuesday on charges of buying an estimated 700 weapons in Arizona and conspiring to transfer them across the border, chiefly to the Sinaloa drug cartel.

The arrests, carried out by at least 100 federal agents, began early Tuesday, the latest crackdown targeting an international trafficking network that authorities say has seen as many as 60,000 weapons seized in Mexico and traced to U.S. sources.

Even if you don't care about your loved ones getting blown away, Arizona, maybe you could cut the rest of us a break.

There is simply no understanding the prevalence of gun violence in America - as evidenced by the recent attempted assassination of a congresswoman during a mass shooting - without discussing the nefarious role played by the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Once an organisation primarily concerned with the education and training of sportsmen, in a coup that came to be known as the Cincinnati Revolt in 1977, hardliners took over the leadership and believed that any gun regulation would take us down a slippery slope to Khmer Rougism.

In the years since, unlike the US in the wake of the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy - or for that matter Australia after the Port Arthur Massacre - the response to senseless gun violence has been to discuss everything from the rhetoric on our airwaves to the weather outside.

But any public conversations regarding restricting who has access to guns has been considered verboten (although, thankfully, this time some cracks are beginning to show).

This is largely because the NRA's duping its own members, which we'll discuss below, and coming to the realisation that the real money was in actually protecting the rights of gun manufacturers, which we'll discuss in Part II of this series.

If the NRA leadership is not radical, they certainly see the benefit in playing radicals on TV in order to enrich their financial benefactors who produce and sell the weaponry of death.

In the 1990s, in a climate of fear and paranoia that produced the Oklahoma City bombing, they were all too happy to refer to the government authority that tries to enforce gun laws, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms (ATF), as "jack-booted thugs". This led former president George H.W. Bush to resign his membership.

They then decided to up the ante by accusing former president Bill Clinton of murder and saying he "had blood on his hands" - all for the crime of supporting background checks at gun shows - which is among the many legislative proposals to reduce gun violence that they have repeatedly blocked.

Others include a ban on high-capacity magazines, banning sales to those on terrorist watch lists, and fully funding the aforementioned ATF (think about the latter when they say they want to "strengthen existing gun laws" after each new tragedy).

In fact, just a few days after the mass shooting in Tucson it was reported by Ryan Reilly from TPMMuckraker that a "jihadist" in America who was... "a moderator and contributor on Islamic extremist web forums, posted songs praising suicide bombers, discussed his jihad fantasies in the open..." was able to get an AK-47, no questions asked.

Emerson Begolly, the "jihadist" in question, responded when queried about this with laughter and facetiously exclaimed that "someone at the FBI showed up to work drunk". Perhaps, but if they were, it was only because the NRA forced them to do keg stands.

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Clearly, there's a lot of anger in America right now.

Much of it justified, as some can afford shower curtain rings that would dwarf others' weekly wages (and the latter are the ones who are lucky enough to have jobs). When you take this fact, combine it with the Orwellian "Newspeak" so pervasive in our media (which David Neiwert has written so articulately about), and multiply that by the NRA's mission to fight for the rights of criminals, the mentally ill and even terrorists to have access to guns, you have a toxic stew, ready to erupt.

Scene: Panama City, Florida. A school board meeting is interrupted by a man with a criminal record of assault (with a gun) waving a gun, and furious that his wife lost her job, his benefits have run out and the board members were unwilling to raise sales taxes so she and others like her wouldn't be fired (it should be noted that reports are still sketchy, so not all of what he says about his wife and himself during the 5 minutes when the board members try and talk him down can be confirmed yet).

We don't yet know where he got his gun -- but we do know his criminal record and history of mental illness made it illegal for him obtain a gun of any kind. We also know that you can walk into a gun show in many states, such as Virginia, and buy any weapon, no background check necessary. The Governor of Virginia thinks that this is a-ok. No matter that everyone from members of Hezbollah to the Columbine killers to the Pentagon shooter got their guns in this manner.

Apparently, to make an omelette, you have to shoot a few eggs.

But the gun lobby marches on: Much harm, no foul.

The NRA has spent years trying to destroy and delegitimize the ATF, such that nobody has been leading this important law enforcement agency for the past 4 years. Why? Because they try and track where guns come from when they kill people. Crazy. right?

And of course we know that we are creating our very own Bonus Army, as millions are filled with despair and anxiety as we give them a pittance while extending tax cuts for people who make Richie Rich look like Oliver Twist.

So is this our future? Videos of killers wielding illegal guns and holding innocent people hostage -- or worse. Reality TV, gone very, very wrong.

Unless/until we decide that gun safety, economic equality, and preventing pundits from inciting riot/slandering whole groups of people on air are reforms worth fighting for. Stay tuned on this one. In the meantime, sadly, I can promise you one thing: Many mini-revolutions such as this will be televised. And it will be ugly.

So let me get this straight:

Ken Buck, Colorado's Republican Senate candidate, was once an assistant federal prosecutor.

There was an Aurora gun dealer who sold guns illegally and had 37 counts thrown at him. This was a violation of federal law, nothing to sneeze at.

Ken Buck didn't pursue the prosecution.

Ken Buck shared information with the defense team. That's right, he tipped them off. How's that for law enforcement? Then he resigned. Was he forced to?

Ken Buck was reprimanded... by a Republican U.S. Attorney. A partisan witch hunt? Not so much.

The illegal gun dealer benefited from Ken Buck's unethical, sleazy behavior. He was convicted of a misdemeanor.

The gun dealer donated to Ken Buck's campaign.

Maybe this is why Bob Barr, of the NRA, GOP House and Federal Prosecuting in the late 80s thinks there are serious ethical questions that need to be answered by Mr. Buck. Nothing like a little NRA on NRA violence two weeks before an election to make the day interesting.

Oh and guess where this GOP Contributor Greg Golyansky's guns ended up?

With such all-stars as the Los Angeles based "Pocket Crips" gang and Randy "Rambo" Canister, who in 2005 was sentenced to life for a triple murder in Aurora. Lest you think these were just coincidences, as reported by David Ohlinger in the Denver Post in 1999 (no link cause from the Dark Ages of Internet) "...fully 40% of multiple gun purchases traceable to criminal arrests in the state of Colorado were made by Golyansky's pawn shop...buyers traveled from all around the state -- and nation -- to Golyansky's little shop."

Yup, Golyansky's little shop of horrors, enabled and protected by Ken Buck, because murderers, rapists, terrorists, the mentally unbalanced and child molesters deserve to be able to get their guns from GOP Contributors too, don't ya know.

Ken Buck is certainly to blame here, don't get me wrong. But if not for the "gun show loophole," that allows "private" sales to any loon without a background check, this criminally inclined gun dealer would be much more hamstrung in his efforts to arm triple-murderers and gang members.

I made that very point in a recent column on this topic, "Tickets To The Gun Show":

Almost five years ago, in an enclosed killing zone stuffed with clipped-winged quail, former Vice President Dick Cheney did what he does best: he shot someone in the face.

As you may or may not recall, the fateful event occurred during a "hunting trip" with a genteel Texas trial lawyer named Harry Whittington, at a "hunting resort." A place where you get your 'man up' by drinking some beers and then doing everything short of having three friends hold a bird down while you give it 'a wedgie,' take its lunch money, and then shoot it. In Cheney's case, I'm surprised the bird hadn't undergone a process of extraordinary rendition, ending up at a black-site and water-boarded.

But the above, was apparently not enough of an advantage for the marksman with a history of multiple myocardial infarctions.

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