The New York Daily News used its front page Wednesday to lash out at the National Rifle Association in a big way, comparing the powerful pro-gun group's lobbying efforts to a "SICK JIHAD."
"Over 2,000 suspects on terror watch list have legally bought firearms in the U.S. because gun nuts are blocking law that would end this madness," the front page screamed.
The corresponding story -- an editorial written by the paper's staff -- rips into the NRA and its "cowardly" supporters in Congress for blocking passage of the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act, a bipartisan bill introduced in February by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Caf.) and Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.):
Setting a new record for lethal insanity, Washington’s pro-gun absolutists insist that suspected terrorists must have an unfettered right to buy assault weapons rivaling those wielded by ISIS in Paris.
These members of Congress are radical fundamentalists of the Second Amendment kind, their extremism so intense that they stifle legislation aimed at denying weapons to potentially violent radicals while at the same time declaring that Syrian refugees, even toddlers, are security threats.
Although felons, domestic abusers, drug addicts and others are prohibited from buying firearms in the U.S., those on the FBI's consolidated terrorist watch list are not currently disallowed from doing so. According to the Government Accountability Office, people on the watch list purchased guns 2,043 times between 2004 and 2014.
The legislation would ban the "sale or distribution of firearms or explosives to any individual whom the Attorney General has determined to be engaged in terrorist activities." It would also allow those on the watch list -- a group that includes a staggering 700,000 Americans -- to challenge the ban on an individual basis.
Earlier incarnations of the bill in 2005 and 2007 were supported by the Republican administration under President George W. Bush, but were killed after aggressive opposition by the NRA.
Terrorists in Paris on Friday killed many of the 129 victims with gunfire.
The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The Daily News -- a paper with one of the largest circulations in the country -- has a recent history of attacking the NRA on its front page after gun massacres.