company:nra

How NRA lobbied for ’Stand Your Ground’ law that let Trayvon Martin killer George Zimmerman free - Americas - World - The Independent
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/how-nra-lobbied-for-stand-your-ground-law-that-let-trayvon-martin-kil

Professor Robert Spitzer, a political scientist and author of several books on the NRA, says: “The real culprit in the Trayvon Martin case was not Zimmerman but Stand Your Ground. It’s why the police did not investigate aggressively, it’s why it took six weeks to bring charges against Zimmerman, and it’s why his self-defence claim was extremely difficult to overcome. Stand Your Ground makes not only prosecution, but even mere investigation, very difficult.”

The original Stand Your Ground legislation was crafted by state lawmakers who stuck closely to guidelines set by Marion Hammer, a Florida-based former president of the NRA. After it was signed into law by the then Florida Governor, Jeb Bush, in April 2005, the NRA’s chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, described it as the “first step of a multi-state strategy”. Its passage was smoothed by ALEC, a conservative network whose backers include the NRA, Walmart and organisations linked to the right-wing billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch.

Stand Your Ground offers immunity not only to homeowners, but to people who open fire in public places, and those pleading self-defence need not retreat from anyone they perceive as a threat before shooting. As in the Trayvon Martin case, the burden is on police and prosecutors to prove that a self-defence claim is false.

NRA Vendor Sells Ex-Girlfriend Target That Bleeds When You Shoot It
▻http://www.policymic.com/articles/40049/nra-sells-an-ex-girlfriend-target-that-bleeds-when-you-shoot-it

The company has a line of 15 zombies (one of which resembled President Obama so much that it was pulled from the conference by the NRA) and only one is female. "To discriminate against Women by not having them represented in our product selection would be just plain sexist," the website says. YES, because having the only female character in your line of mannequin targets be “the ex-girlfriend” doesn’t reinforce sexist and fatally dangerous stereotypes. 

I’m not even sure how to begin unpacking this, so let me start with some stats. Men’s violence against women is not a small pickle, it’s a huge problem. Not just all over the world and in every society, but particularly here in the United States where "domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women — more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined." One third of female murder victims are killed by an intimate partner.

Gun violence is a gendered issue since it impacts women and men in very different ways. Because women are more vulnerable to violence within the home than men (and men are most often the perpetrators of violence against women), the presence of a gun makes females less safe, not more. How do we know? A woman’s likelyhood of a violent death within the home actually increases by 270% when a gun is kept inside the house. Homicide figures don’t lie. Having a gun within their possession didn’t protect women from murder. In fact, it accurately predicted their higher likelyhood of death.