Dudley Brown, a former NRA lobbyist and founder of the Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Gun Owners organization, is offering up some of the most irresponsible rhetoric we’ve seen since Sarah Palin placed targets on the national map and told her constituents to “take aim” at Democratic lawmakers.
In an interview with NPR, Dudley Brown compared next year’s elections to “the proverbial hunting season,” and said “the next election is the time to hunt Democrats.”
I’ll give gun owners the benefit of the doubt and assume that the overwhelming majority of them will understand that this is nothing more than poorly conceived metaphor, but as recent events have shown us in Colorado and Texas, where state and local officials have been gunned down inside their homes and outside local courthouses, there is an unstable element of our society that may act on Brown’s words and literally go hunting for Democrats or anyone whom they believe to be siding with Democrats.
In the same interview, Brown also said that backgrounds checks are simply “a step toward identifying gun owners so the government can seize their weapons,” and implied that limits on magazine capacity may facilitate that.
At best, Brown’s words will lead to additional purchases of guns by the fearful in anticipation of the coming gestapo, and at worst it could cost someone their life, whether it’s a public official, an elected representative, or a law enforcement officer making a routine traffic stop.
The man suspected of killing former Colorado prison chief Tom Clements in his home shot an officer when he was pulled over for a traffic stop in Texas before leading authorities on a high-speed chase.
Meanwhile, Senators Mark Pryor, Lindsey Graham, Mark Begich, Dean Heller, and Jeff Flake have proposed legislation that would allow the recently-committed to purchase guns immediately after being released from treatment unless those charged with their care can prove that they pose an imminent threat.
We’re asking for more massacres.
As Aviva Shen of ThinkProgress points out, Brown actually left the NRA in the 1990s because he felt the organization was too accommodating of its opponents views, but you wouldn’t know it judging by today’s NRA because nothing Brown has said is inconsistent with the views of the organization or its primary proponents.
(photo via Mother Jones)