NRA's Scary Tone-Deaf Message

Graphic from an Apple App
Put out by the NRA on the
Anniversary of the Newtown Massacre

It’s offensive. I can assure you they didn’t call me before they chose the date. How outrageous can your behavior be? How tone deaf can you be?
~ Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy

From the New York Daily News

Simply app-alling
The NRA's new shooting game is truly sickening
Let us recap: After the Sandy Hook massacre, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre deflected blame from the gun lobby onto anyone and anything but firearms. A chief culprit: video games and a “callous, corrupt and corrupting shallow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people.”
Then, exactly one month after 20 children and six adults were cut down by a maniac with an assault rifle, the same NRA released a callous, corrupt and corrupting game for iPhones and iPads.
Players shoot high-powered firearms at coffin-shaped targets. There are red bull’s-eyes where the heads and hearts would be.

This morning I blogged about a new target-shooting app – NRA: Target Practice – that has gotten a ton of media attention because it is advertised as being for ages 4 and up. I suggested that this was, even by NRA standards, so tasteless that it must be a hoax.
Little did I know.
~ Bill Keller on New York Times

~ From Alexander Abad-Santos on Atlanticwire

Now, fine, you aren't shooting actual people in this game, which could explain why the App Store rating rules deem games like these okay for children who are of pre-school age. But you have to remember that it was a little less than a month ago when NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre said this:

And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.
... And then they have the nerve to call it "entertainment." But is that what it really is? Isn't fantasizing about killing people as away to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography

And here's from the game's description:

It strikes the right balance of gaming and safety education, allowing you to enjoy the most authentic experience possible.

Now, fine, you could argue that you're just using your sniper rifle to hone those deer-hunting skills. But there are no deer in this game, and the set of targets pictured above do have red areas around the human head and heart, so — well, maybe they're grizzly bears or something. Don't expect the kerfuffle over the game or the organization's perceived hypocrisy to rattle anyone in the NRA, of course: Last month LaPierre had no qualms taking Hollywood down, even though his organization's flagship museum was simultaneously hosting an exhibit showing off famous weaponry in movies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are the president's kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school? Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he's just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security.
Protection for their kids, and Gun-Free Zones for ours.
~ From an ad for the National Rifle Association, released the day before President Obama was scheduled to announce his plan for gun control reform

The ad signals the NRA's intention to fight a campaign-style war with Obama. The White House response: Bring it on.
~ The Atlantic

It is no secret that the NRA has done a stunningly poor job of handling their business—such as that business is—since the disaster at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
After remaining silent for the week immediately following the shocking events of that terrible Friday, the organization finally took to the press conference stage to blame everyone and anyone they could think of so long as it wasn’t someone who happened to own a gun.
The answer, they told us, was more guns put in more hands.
It has been downhill from there in what has become a classic case study of how to screw up a public relations challenge.
~ Rick Ungar on Forbes



From Morning Joe, January 16, 2013

Joe Scarborough: What’s wrong with these people? You have children that had no say in the decision on whether their father was going to step forward to be President of the United States, to run for President, one of the most bone-crushing, sacrificing things any husband or wife can do to their family. And the second they make that decision their children and their entire family have targets on their backs.

Mika Brzezinski: (whispers) Yeah.

Joe Scarborough: And the NRA is putting something out like--What’s wrong with these people? Putting out apps that four-year-olds can play on the anniversary of the Newtown murders and now putting out an ad talking about the president’s daughters?

Mika Brzezinski: They are out of step, out of sync, and totally out of the mainstream of our society. And quite frankly, after seeing that I think some of the people who run that thing are sick. I really do. I think they’re sick in the head. I'm serious - I'm embarrassed right now. I'm embarrassed for our country. We have a section of our society—the NRA—which should have a voice certainly, trying to protect a Constitutional Amendment. I understand that. There’s a really legitimate debate there and they just took it and brought it down to the lowest, most base level. Now—it’s fringe. It's fringe.

Joe Scarborough: They need new leadership, is what they need.

Mika Brzezinski: Whatever.

Joe Scarborough: Their leadership has dragged them over the cliff. They are now a fringe organization with millions of mainstream Americans, gun-hunting - guys and women that love to hunt--

Mika Brzezinski: Yeah, you should be embarrassed to be part of the NRA at this point.

Joe Scarborough: --and believe that they have the right to protect their families. What the NRA once was, it no longer is. This extremism is so frightening, and just over the line.

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. . . over the past 30 days since the Newtown shootings, the NRA has brought a sledgehammer to the debate, not even attempting nuance or persuasion. First the combative Wayne LaPierre press conference at the National Press Club. Then LaPierre’s uncompromising appearance on “Meet the Press.” And now this web video. The NRA is acting as if this were 2001 -- after beating Al Gore and facing a cowed Democratic Party. Instead, this is 2013 -- after the NRA was unable to beat Obama and after Democrats expanded their majority in the U.S. Senate.
~ NBC News First Read

NRA Response to President Obama's Gun Control Announcement

Throughout its history, the National Rifle Association has led efforts to promote safety and responsible gun ownership. Keeping our children and society safe remains our top priority.

The NRA will continue to focus on keeping our children safe and securing our schools, fixing our broken mental health system, and prosecuting violent criminals to the fullest extent of the law. We look forward to working with Congress on a bi-partisan basis to find real solutions to protecting America’s most valuable asset - our children.

Attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation. Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy.