Governor Chris Christie on the NRA;
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday condemned the new National Rifle Association Web ad that invokes President Obama’s children, the latest move by the prominent Republican to sharply criticize a group closely aligned with his own party.
“To talk about the president’s children or any public officer’s children who have — not by their own choice, but by requirement — to have protection and to use that somehow to try to make a political point I think is reprehensible,” Christie, a potential 2016 White House contender, said at a Thursday news conference. “My children had no choice that I wanted to run for governor. I pretended that they did. I asked them what they thought. But in the end, they had absolutely no choice in whether I ran for governor or not. And they knew that, by the way, when I was asking them, which is why they didn’t spend a whole lot of time answering.”
“But the effects on their lives are significant,” he continued. “And they’re a full couple of steps down from the effect that it would have if, you know, when your father’s president of the United States, and the security concerns that go along with that.” source
The powerful and obviously reprehensible NRA insists on shouting fire in a crowded theater with intent of whipping their fan base into a raging frenzy. They want some of their fringe and unhinged members (individuals with powerful weapons) to feel threatened by any gun control proposed legislation. They are doing their best to provoke the "loose cannons" to take their anger to the streets. So the NRA continues to shout...
"Obama wants your gun!"
Any attempts to legislate common sense gun laws is met by great resistance. They spend millions and millions of dollars annually to buy support -- mainly in the GOP -- from congress. They issue congressional report cards to de facto threaten elected leaders who fail to properly pass their litmus test.
And the height of NRA influence over congress: The congress during the 1990's banned the Center for Disease Control and Prevention from using federal funds in studying gun violence and its root causes.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other scientific agencies will be allowed to study the causes, effects and prevention of gun violence, after President Obama lifted a de facto ban on such research.
The move was one of 23 executive directives issued by President Obama yesterday in the aftermath of last month’s shooting rampage at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school.
Gun violence kills more than 30,000 Americans every year — almost as many as die in car accidents. Last year, no federal funding was used for research on gun violence, while $62.4 million went to vehicle and highway safety research. source
It's time for more politicians, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and Independents to break the strangle hold of the NRA and legislate the sensible gun laws that over 80% of the American public want. And there is hope:
WASHINGTON -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants the nation's mayors to pressure members of Congress to support President Barack Obama's gun violence proposals and take their cue from the hardball tactics often used by the gun lobby.
Bloomberg said in a speech Friday to the U.S. Conference of Mayors that mayors remain on the front lines and deal with gun violence on a daily basis, often comforting families of shooting victims. The billionaire said mayors need to band together and make clear that members of Congress could lose their jobs if they don't support tougher gun laws.
"We need to tell our members of Congress that they've got to stand up for sensible gun laws, and if they do that, we will stand up for them, and if they don't we will stand up for whoever runs against them. Because that's exactly what the NRA is trying to do," Bloomberg said.
"The NRA says, 'You don't support us, we're going to make you lose your job. We're going to support your opponent.' Well, we can do exactly the same thing," he said.
Bloomberg urged his fellow mayors to mobilize behind a sweeping set of proposals offered by Obama after last month's deadly shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. The big-city mayor, who leads Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has often used his own money to push gun-control causes.
"We need every mayor to go to their congressman and their congresswoman and their senators and say we've got a problem in our city, and you're the one who is responsible if that problem continues," Bloomberg said.
He said the National Rifle Association and members of the gun lobby's ability to influence elections is "vastly overblown," noting that the NRA had tried to unseat Obama during the 2012 and failed. "I think you'll find they weren't terribly successful at doing that," he said, days before Obama's Inauguration.
Obama's plan faces uncertain prospects in Congress, where lawmakers have been hesitant to support tougher gun laws in recent years. The issue of gun control has been a major topic during the three-day meeting of the national mayors' organization. source
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