Where have I heard that before?

Today I'm browsing some of my favorite news sites and came across a blog that wrote something that sounded very similar to my opinion I shared yesterday.

It's frightening.

And gun manufacturers cheer on! What is their response to all of this? They send out their Republican minions to say that the answer is more guns. If only other people in the crowd had guns, then everything would have been alright. Yes, because in that dark, smoke filled theater if there were more than two or three shooters everyone would have known who was the original shooter and less people would have been shot, right?

How would the third gunmen know if the second gunmen were part of the team that was shooting the place up (like Klebold and Harris at Columbine) or one of the guys trying to prevent it? Let alone the fourth or the fifth gunmen, let alone the cops who show up.

I don't know who Cenk Uygur is, but I liked what he wrote in his blog.

I wish he went more in depth on the evils of the NRA, a group that was founded in 1871 to "promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis.

The CEO of the NRA was paid about $900,000 per year as of 2007. Now, who knows? At the rate the NRA contributes to political campaigns--about $7.2 million over the past election cycle--there's got to be an awful lot of money floating through that organization.

According to Bloomberg Business Week, which collected data from the NRA's web site, over 50 gun manufacturers have combined to contribute $14.8 million from 2004-2010 to help the organization lobby lawmakers for favorable votes on gun legislation.

The NRA gives us the impression that gun owners oppose any legislation limiting the ownership of guns. A 2009 LA Times story provides a different side to that story.

The Times' story revealed that a poll conducted by the Mayors Against Illegal Guns showed that 69-percent of NRA members supported a proposal requiring all gun sellers at gun shows to conduct criminal background checks of the people buying guns and 85-percent of non-members were in favor. Congress failed to pass such legislation, thanks to the opposition it received from the NRA and the legislators on the organization's payroll...wait, those are political donations.

The obvious rebuttal to the MAIG's poll is liberal bias, right? The mayors expected that and recruited Fox News Channel periodic commentator Frank Lutz to conduct the survey. He reached 401 NRA members and 431 gun owners who do not belong to the organization.

You can review the full survey here.

If the NRA isn't serving the interest of its members, whose interest is the organization serving? My guess is the gun industry, which generates about $35 BILLION in sales each year.

More recommended reading:

• Blood Money (Violence Policy Center report, 2011)
• NRA, gun industry once again mine profit from paranoia (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 2012)
• Gun industry profits off NRA's fearmongering about Obama gun policies (Think Progress, 2008)
• NRA going guns-a-blazing to stop ammunition micro-stamping in New York (CBS, 2012)
• NRA beats back gun control measures (US News, 2011)...the House Committee voted down a measure to block the sale of weapons to those on the FBI's terrorist watch list

"Under current law, there is no basis to automatically prohibit a person from possessing firearms or explosives because they appear on the terrorist watch list," wrote the GAO's director of homeland security and justice issues, Eileen R. Larence."Rather, there must be a disqualifying factor (i.e., prohibiting information) pursuant to federal or state law, such as a felony conviction or illegal immigration status."