"Our nation mourns once again a horrific loss of life that should be unthinkable, yet is becoming routine. Assault weapons, like the AR-15 style weapon used in yesterday’s attack, are military bred firearms designed for a specific purpose: to kill as many people as possible in as short an amount of time as available. Mass shooters utilize guns like the AR-15 because of their specific anti-personnel design characteristics. We cannot talk about effective solutions to stopping these types of attacks without addressing the tools that make them possible. Until assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines are banned, these attacks will continue to threaten our public life and define our nation."

“Across America, the firepower in the hands of gun owners of varying stripes is increasing dramatically. The reason: assault weapons. Drug traffickers are finding that assault weapons—in addition to 'standard issue' handguns—provide the extra firepower necessary to fight police and competing dealers. Right-wing paramilitary extremists, in their ongoing battle against the "Zionist Occupational Government," have made these easily purchased firearms their gun of choice. And rank and file gun aficionados—jaded with handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles—are moving up to the television glamour and movie sex appeal of assault weapons. The growing market for these weapons—coupled with a general rising interest in the non-sporting use of firearms—has generated an industry of publications, catalogs, accessories, training camps, and combat schools dedicated to meeting its needs.”

“The bottom line is, guns beget gun violence...private citizens rarely use guns to kill criminals or stop crimes...For every time a person used a gun to kill in a justifiable homicide, 34 innocent lives were ended in criminal gun homicides...Why does the gun industry persist in its lies? Short answer: to make money...Relying on a gun for self-defense is much more likely to result in tragedy than protection — 34 times more likely, according to our study. Guns don’t protect us. They kill us.”

“Year after year, our findings are consistent: States with stricter gun laws and lower rates of gun ownership have some of the lowest overall gun death rates in the county. Conversely, states with lax gun laws and higher rates of gun ownership have the nation’s highest gun death rates.”

“One of the greatest talents of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry has been their ability exploit high-profile events to pump up gun sales: Bill Clinton, the Brady Bill, the federal assault weapons “ban,” Y2K, September 11th, and now, of course, Barack Obama. Regardless of the event, the solution remains the same: buy a gun. And if industry and gun fan mags are any indication, it should be an AR-15 assault rifle.”

“The grotesque irony? The National Shooting Sports Foundation locale. They’ve taken the lead in working to rebrand assault weapons as modern sporting rifles.”

“Perhaps more important than the unions’ recognition of the NRA’s below-the-radar support of big business—tort “reform” anyone?—is the fact that this announcement is the latest manifestation of the fact that the NRA doesn’t actually represent the interests of the vast bulk of American gun owners. For most gun owners—hunters and sport shooters—guns are just one part of their lives. The NRA’s caters to, and depends on, the small percentage of gun owners for whom guns are their whole life. Despite whatever lip service the NRA pays to the “hook and bullet” crowd, their leadership and activist base live by the bumper sticker credo, “The Second Amendment Isn’t About Duck Hunting.” Driven by what is known in pro-gun circles as “the NATO strategy”—an attack on any category of firearm is an attack on all firearms—the NRA leadership spends its time fighting gun controls of any type, while merely giving lip service to conservation issues. This constant tension—between the sport shooters and the so-called Second Amendment activists—has now broken into the open.”