The NRA Blacklist
Al Tompkins, Poynter.org, November 3, 2003

I got a fairly bizarre e-mail this weekend inviting me to join a National Rifle Association (http://www.nra.org/) blacklist ... to actually try to get myself on a "blacklist." I figured I am on many such lists and didn't need to volunteer for any more. Besides, when I was a kid, I attended NRA BB Gun safety seminars (http://www.nra.org/display_content/show_content.cfm?mod_id=61&id=0) -- and I do own a gun.

Then, Al's Morning Meeting reader Cindi Deutschman-Ruiz, from WPSU-FM Public Radio of University Park, Penn., sent me a Reuters story saying (http://truthout.org/docs_03/110103H.shtml), "Most blacklists are designed to intimidate. But thousands of Americans are clamoring to join one drawn up by the National Rifle Association (NRA)."
-- See the Blacklist: http://www.nraila.com/FactSheets.asp?FormMode=Detail&ID=15

Reuters says, "Actor Dustin Hoffman was so dismayed to find his name missing from the NRA's 19-page list of U.S. companies, celebrities, and news organizations seen as lending support to anti-gun policies that he wrote to the NRA asking to be included."

"Hoffman's name has now been added to the list," Reuters says, a list that includes individuals and organizations ranging from the American Jewish Congress to the NAACP, A&M Records, ABC/NBC News, and Oprah Winfrey. You can search the list and find tons of businesses, media outlets, cartoonists, and clergy. Even the AFL-CIO, the Gray Panthers, Walter Cronkite, Jane Pauley, and Julia Child are all on there. You will also find various businesses near you who have been listed as supporting anti-gun causes.

The list, which was filed deep in the official NRA Web site, has been heavily publicized by a group of anti-gun campaigners who are working for two pieces of gun control legislation going through Congress. The campaigners set up their own website (http://www.nrablacklist.com/). (Beware -- it has a music track attached which is pretty funny, but annoying after about 30 seconds.) The site urges Americans to voluntarily put their names there. A full-page ad last week in Daily Variety -- the Hollywood trade magazine -- urged movie and music artists to sign up.

NRA does not mention the dust-up on its website. Clevelandjewishnews.com reports (http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2003/10/23/news/world/ilist1017.txt):

Abraham Foxman, national director of
the Anti-Defamation League, shrugged off
the issue.

"There's nothing wrong with it," Foxman said.

Calling it a blacklist is "inappropriate," he
said, because the NRA does not petition
members to take any action against those
listed.

The Point of the Second Amendment and ordinary Citizens having free access to Weapons is as a Check against Tyranny.

Time and again it has been proven that Armed Societies are peaceful societies.

When Britain enacted a near total gun ban, on fudged evidence, VIOLENT CRIME WENT UP.

When Australia enacted a near total ban on gun ownership VIOLENT CRIME WENT THROUGH THE ROOF. Home break-ins with people home took a several hundred percent increase.

Why?

Criminals are by definition criminals and do not obey the law. They kept their weapons and knew that law abiding citizens had given their's up and were thus defenseless.

The city in the United States that vies every year for first place as the Murder capital of the U.S. is Washington D.C. with some of the tightest gun control laws in the country.

Time and again the AntiGun Rights movement has been proven wrong and have been caught falsifying evidence - witness the Georgia University Professor who was forced to resign when it was discovered that he had falsifyed the information in his book purporting to prove that the Early Colonists did not think much of keeping Arms.

Dr. John Lott who was a Pro-Gun Control Activist set out to prove that Gun Control worked and was a good idea. The result was the book "More Guns Less Crime". He had a little problem - when he really dug into it he found that the evidence, the valid evidence, supported the right, and beneficial nature, of Guns in the hands of HONEST LAW ABIDING CITIZENS.

The Anti-Gun arguments are long on scary emotionalism but when you dig into the FACTS you find out very quickly that their arguments do not hold water. So, much so that they have found it necessary to lie repeatedly to support their cause.

Fire Arms in the hands of honest law abiding citizens are not a threat to anyone except criminals and Tyrants.

britains violent crime through the roof? what do they have, 65 guns deaths a year, compared to our 10,000 or more? granted we´d have to adjust those numbers to be in proportion to the difference in population but the disparity is still huge. do the math yourself if you dont believe me. the nra is crimes´ best friend.