NRA

The Shawshank Redemption is a movie I could watch a thousand times.  By the time the last scene plays, my heart is once again filled with hope.  In one prison scene Red tells Andy that hope is a dangerous thing and that it can drive a man insane.  Andy, the optimist, believes that hope is the best of things, and that no good thing ever dies.  To be clear, I’m not in prison and never have been, but as a citizen of Empire I find it increasingly difficult to keep hope in my heart.

Most Americans want more regulation of an out-of-control culture of gun violence in America. Gun manufacturers and arms merchants and their lobbyist group, the NRA, are not among that vast majority of Americans. Their bottom lines and political power are at stake. Progressive Congresswoman Donna Edwards (D-MD) has been a longtime rock-solid champion of reasonable gun control.

“You just can’t think that things like this can happen in America. It’s obviously a crime of hate. Again, we don’t know the rationale, but what other rationale could there be? You’re sort of lost that somebody could walk into a Bible study in a church and indiscriminately kill people,” Santorum told radio host Joe Piscopo Thursday on AM 970, a New York radio station.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence pays tribute to the people who made this victory for gun sanity possible."Make no mistake: what we accomplished in Oregon is monumental.

What exactly do you not want to know you’re eating?

So far this cycle, the NRA has handed out direct checks to congressional campaigns to the tune of $540,612. $20,450 went to Democrats and $520,162 went to Republicans. Virtually every Republican gets a piece— and the only Democrats who get anything from them are a handful of the worst of the reactionary Democratic gun shills— John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV), Kurt Shrader (Blue Dog-OR), Tim Walz (MN), Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA), Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN).

So far this cycle the NRA's PAC, the Political Victory Fund, has contributed $399,350 to Republicans running for House seats and $18,950 to Democrats. The Democrats are all from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party:

"Much like the long-running national debates about jumping off a roof, licking electrical sockets, and gargling with thumbtacks, the vexing question of whether children should fire military weapons does not appear headed for a swift resolution.

In 2006, Blue America backed Kirsten Gillibrand for Congress when she ran against corrupt, drunken wife-beater John Sweeney. We helped her raise consciousness about what a crook Sweeney was and we helped her raise money and we even got the Squirrel Nut Zippers and Rickie Lee Jones to do a song for her campaign which got a ton of airplay on the local radio stations.

For a while, it appeared the NRA leadership committed an act of sanity. But, a few hours later, the pills wore off.