HOUSTON — National Rifle Association leaders told members Saturday that the fight against gun control legislation is far from over, with battles yet to come in Congress and next year's midterm elections, but they vowed that none in the organization will ever have to surrender their weapons.

Proponents of gun control also asserted that they are in their fight for the long haul and have not been disheartened by last month's defeat of a bill that would have expanded background checks for gun sales.

The NRA may actually be right about guns. As I discovered researching a recent essay for The Morning News, gun violence is very likely more a symptom of an American disease than the root cause.

But this doesn't mean the NRA is good or justified in its nasty campaigns to expand "gun rights" as aggressively as possible. In fact, they do as much as any group to perpetuate the culture wars and societal divides that lead to the United States having a murder rate far, far higher than any comparable developed country.

I've come to the conclusion that something called social capital -- and the lack thereof -- is behind the American propensity for violence, and I would argue that since the 17th century Americans have built a society that is not supposed to be united. It has been a "failure in nation building," as historian Randolph Roth puts it, referring to post-Civil War America.

From my story:

According to this theory, communities with low social cohesion get caught in a vicious cycle of violence destroying social capital, which leads to more violence and so on. There are fewer checks on bad behavior, families get broken, jobs disappear, schools go bad, and kids get lost.

So what comes first: the murders or the low social capital? It seems intuitive to say that unstable communities would lead to more violence. But what if a cultural embrace of violence--and we're not talking about the right-wing talking point on our "culture of violence" here--is actually at the root of the killing instead?

So what's this got to do with the NRA? Well, the United States is changing. It's been changing for a long time -- with the rise of feminism, globalization and our future as a majority-minority country. An African American president just got reelected, gay marriage is going mainstream and the economy is both struggling and transforming. And all this scares a whole lot of people who used to feel quite in control of "their" America.

In 1977, in a decade of malaise and a rising conservative backlash, a core of "gun-rights radicals" in the NRA carried out the "Cincinnati Revolt" and took over what had been a more or less mainstream organization. The rest is history. From a Washington Post story earlier this year:

The NRA didn't get swept up in the culture wars of the past century so much as it helped invent them -- and kept inflaming them. In the process, the NRA overcame tremendous internal tumult and existential crises, developed an astonishing grass-roots operation and became closely aligned with the Republican Party.

Examples of NRA divisiveness are legion, but here's a good example. Even as crime rates continue a decades-long fall -- which should be the NRA's actual argument against gun control -- Wayne LaPierre writes an essay titled "Stand and Fight" in the Daily Caller warning readers of an apocalyptic future:

Hurricanes. Tornadoes. Riots. Terrorists. Gangs. Lone criminals. These are perils we are sure to face -- not just maybe. It's not paranoia to buy a gun. It's survival.

And just last week, NRA First Vice President James Porter, and incoming NRA president, spoke to a meeting before the group's annual convention in Texas. From an AP article on his comments:

"This is not a battle about gun rights," Porter said, calling it "a culture war."

But the NRA is vulnerable, even in the midst of their triumphal talk. A report by Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy found that NRA backing had little effect for candidates at the last election. And it's heartening to see gun control advocates calling politicians on the carpet for their NRA support. It's heartening to hear about people going to town hall meetings and getting engaged in the topic.

For, again, more than the actual gun control, this kind of involvement is exactly what we need to build a more compassionate, and less violent, country.

More from my essay in The Morning News:

This is not a liberal or conservative thing. It is a citizen thing, and this act of making others' conditions our own is not foreign to the American experience. We don't all have to get along, and we don't have to sit in a big circle and sing Kumbaya. But we do have to agree to disagree through reasonable and rational channels, rather than with the apocalyptic brutality -- both physical and emotional -- that marks so much of American history.

To read my full essay called "Bad Land," please go here.

The following op-ed is co-authored by City Council Member Peter F. Vallone of Queens, who serves as that body's chair of the Public Safety Committee

From Newtown, Conn., to Aurora, Colo. -- and all the way to the Bronx, Queens and the other boroughs of this great city -- gun violence is a plague on our communities.

During the past several months since the tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, leaders from across the city, state and nation have been offering ideas to combat gun violence and restrict access to military-style assault weapons. The majority of these ideas have focused on changing the laws regarding legal gun ownership. But we must be willing to take a different step -- one that will target and help combat the threat of illegal guns used by violent criminals to terrorize our neighborhoods. We must keep the spotlight of the law on these offenders, even after they are released by the court system.

That is why we have joined together to support the creation of a statewide gun offender registry, which would be an expansion of the one created in New York City in 2006 by Mayor Bloomberg, Speaker Quinn and Council Member Vallone -- the first ever of its kind. This measure would provide police across New York with one of the resources the NYPD and Commissioner Ray Kelly have used to bring murders in the City to the lowest recorded number in history.

The statewide registry would include similar reporting requirements to New York State's existing sex offender registry. It would keep the names of people convicted of crimes involving guns on the registry for at least 10 years, and require offenders to check in regularly with local police. Failure to perform any of the registration obligations would be considered a felony level crime.

New York City is the safest big city in America, in part because our registry allows the police to shine a light on gun offenders. Now, the State Legislature must follow in the City's footsteps by providing law enforcement with this common-sense crime-fighting tool that will help keep the public safe.

Furthermore, while it is currently used as a surveillance tool by law enforcement officials and other city agencies, it cannot be viewed by the public. We are now also working to update this law to allow people to access the registry online, giving them the ability to identify the gun offenders in their communities. Rather than publicly displaying the names of legal gun owners who have not broken the law -- as was recently done by The Journal News in Westchester County -- why not alert people to the potentially dangerous criminals walking among them?

We must work together towards a safer City and State, so that our residents can raise their families without constantly looking over their shoulders. We cannot continue to let gun offenders slip through the cracks or step back into the shadows and continue to infest our neighborhoods with crime. The eyes of the law, and the public, must remain fixed firmly upon them.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) described the audience at an annual National Rifle Association retreat as an "army" Friday afternoon.

Speaking at a meeting in Houston, the first major NRA event since a background checks bill failed in the Senate, Cruz praised the audience members for speaking out against gun control laws and credited them with the defeated legislation in the Senate.

"I am looking at an army," Cruz said. "And the voice of each of you is how we win. And because each of you spoke out and because millions of Americans spoke out ... every vote that would have undermined the right to keep and bear arms was voted down."

Cruz, along with Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in March stating that the three would filibuster "any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions."

The tea party favorites led a successful filibuster of the Manchin-Toomey bipartisan background checks bill with 43 other senators joining them, including four Democrats and Reid, who voted no for provisional reasons.

Cruz also slammed the Obama administration in his remarks, telling the audience the administration has not done enough to prosecute felons and fugitives who illegally buy guns and has cut funding for such efforts. He also challenged Vice President Joe Biden to a debate on stopping crime.

This week, we spent time with Francine and David Wheeler, parents of six-year-old Ben Wheeler, one of the 20 children and six educators shot and killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Francine and David moved from New York City to Newtown to raise a family somewhere safe. They could never have imagined that in that quiet place on a Friday morning, just days before Christmas, gunfire would take their younger son's life.

The Wheelers' courage and commitment deeply touched us. Since their son's death, they have managed to cope with memory and hold together their lives -- and the life of their surviving son, Nate -- with uncommon grace. Along with other Newtown families, they lobbied the Connecticut state legislature -- which now has the toughest gun law in America -- and in Washington, they walked the halls of Capitol Hill, urging senators to vote yes for the amendment that would expand the use of background checks for people buying guns.

Although a majority favored the legislation, they fell six votes short of the 60 votes necessary for passage, but the Newtown families, friends and neighbors do not intend to quit. They are part of a growing nationwide movement committed to changing our gun culture. They call it Sandy Hook Promise. "America is in desperate need of a new path forward to address our epidemic of gun violence," they write. And then comes the promise: "THIS TIME THERE WILL BE CHANGE."

You want to believe with all your heart that this is one promise that will be kept. But arrayed against them are mighty forces, mountains of money, a corrupted political system, and habits deeply ingrained in the human psyche.

That Minnesota radio host who told the Newtown families "to go to hell" is hardly alone in placing his freedom to own weapons over a child's right to live. The gun industry's most conspicuous pitchman, Wayne LaPierre, is the walking embodiment of the sociopathic mentality, one radically devoid of empathy. His National Rifle Association spent $18.6 million on the 2012 elections and then at least $800,000 lobbying the Federal government in just the first three months of this year -- pushing back against those like Sandy Hook Promise who have been calling for change after the Newtown massacre.

But Gregg Lee Carter, the editor of the encyclopedia Guns in American Society, told the Center for Public Integrity:

"The issue is not so much how much the NRA gives any senator or member of the House, it's how they can make their lives miserable. And how they make their lives miserable is they e-mail 'em, they call 'em, they fax 'em, they show up at meetings... They're much more activist than the other side and that's what really produces their gains."

As the NRA holds its annual meeting in Houston this weekend (expected attendance: more than 70.000), you see their tracks everywhere. A kindred, pistol-packing spirit, the Arizona Citizens Defense League has been raffling off an AR-15 semi-automatic at their website's online store, similar to the weapon Adam Lanza used at Sandy Hook Elementary School. They've taken it down from their site now -- when we first saw the offer, there were only five tickets left, so maybe it's sold out, but here's what the offer looked like (including the Statue of Liberty brandishing a rifle, Rambo-style).

View larger image

That same group cheered on Arizona Governor Jan Brewer this week as she signed two pro-gun bills -- one that prohibits local governments from keeping lists of people who have firearms -- not them any of them were -- and another that requires police to take guns that are voluntarily surrendered in buyback programs and instead of destroying them, sell them back to the public. That's right: get them off the street and then get them back on the street as fast as you can. Perhaps they should install a drive-through window at the precinct houses.

Granted, this is in Arizona, where the OK Corral is hallowed ground (reenactment daily at 2 pm) and there's even a TV station in Tucson with the call letters K-GUN, but the mindset pervades across the country, even as there have been eight school shootings since Newtown and more than 3,800 gun deaths. The killing field that is America never calls a truce. In Kentucky this week, a two-year-old girl was accidentally shot and killed by her 5-year-old brother who was playing with a rifle he had received as a gift. In Alabama, a stray bullet fired nearby killed a 24-year-old mother holding her 10-day-old baby in her arms. She fell onto a couch by the door still clutching her child.

Hold that image in your head and in your heart, so emblematic of a country that has taken leave of its senses. Remember all the dead from all the solitary shootings and all the massacres. Some senators suggest there may be another vote on background checks before the end of the year. If, as David Wheeler suggested to us, this is a tipping point for the movement against gun violence, the moment has come to push harder than ever.

Make the promise: THIS TIME THERE WILL BE CHANGE.

Watch Bill's complete interview with Francine and David Wheeler this weekend. Check here for Moyers & Company times and channels. Watch a preview.

Originally posted at BillMoyers.com

A shadow box sits on my mantle. In it are the effects of my great uncle Homer who was killed in WW I serving as a U.S. volunteer in the Canadian forces deployment to Europe. Thereafter my family were pacifists. Pacifism, however, does not seem to shield you from danger anywhere on the scale from accident to terrorism to war.

My personal experience with guns started as a pre-teen. My father, drafted in WW II, managed to stay out of the fighting until the very end by teaching marksmanship at home until deployed as a company commander. He taught me marksmanship. Skill with a rifle did not serve me when, at age fourteen, I found myself looking at the muzzle of a loaded gun. A split second later I was shot in the throat, no time to react, to move, to speak, only to realize that in a split second I was going to be shot.

It was an accident. My best friend had picked up the rifle we had just been hunting with and thinking it was no longer loaded, pulled the trigger. He was smiling when he pointed it, a kids game, a toy gun like we played with for countless hours theretofore. This time there was real gun powder and lead and primer. This time the look on his face changed from play to terror as he heard the report and saw a hole appear in my larynx.

I was shot, knew it, felt it hit like the doctor would wrap your knee with his reflex testing hammer. The flesh didn't much resist. If I'd not seen the muzzle, the grin, heard the blast and seen the flash I might not have known I'd been shot. The bullet, a .22, bored a path from larynx to spine in a classic curve from the rifling and came to rest short of severing the brachial nerve of my right arm. I noticed a dull pain when I moved my right arm. The bullet rested there until it was removed during a six hour surgery. My parents were distraught, but a little plastic surgery later the only ill effects were a weak voice and a lightning shaped scar from jawbone to clavicle.

I was lucky. I was lucky beyond the reasonable. My mother's sister was lucky on August 1, 1966. That was the day that marks my first awareness of any mass shooting ever, when Charles Whitman began shooting people from the University of Texas Library tower. My aunt was on campus that day. But for the good old boys stopping their pickup trucks, grabbing their deer rifles out of their gun racks and shooting back, the toll might have been higher than 16 dead. She was lucky.

During the fall of 1970 I was at work in a gas station and got a call from my girlfriend, a nurse working for an obstetrician with addiction issues. She was at his home and implored me to come help her with him. He was intoxicated on some unknown substance. When I arrived she was calling the doctor's psychiatrist. She asked me to go check on the doctor while she remained on the phone. He was in his bedroom. As I entered I was frozen by the sight of the man sitting on the floor beside the bed loading a revolver. What went through my mind is that harm could come to any one or all of us there if he were to finish loading that revolver. I walked over slowly, squatted down in front of him and gently but quickly slid my finger between the frame of the revolver and the ammo holding cylinder, knowing that if you couldn't close the cylinder the gun couldn't be fired. I asked him, "What are you going to do with that gun doc?". He said, "I'm going to kill myself". I said, "I can't let you do that". He tried to close the cylinder three or four times and then gave up. I took it from him just in time for the psychiatrist to be showing up. I gave the gun to the shrink and went back to work. The doctor, the psychiatrist and my girlfriend were all lucky. So might I have been.

No guns were involved in Oklahoma City on April 19 1995 when Tim McVeigh blew up the Federal Building there. Another aunt of mine was in that building on yet another fateful day in the sad history of Americans doing violence to Americans with no rational explanation. She was facing the blast when it came, talking to a woman standing in front of her desk. That woman shielded her from a torrent of glass, concrete and steel shards so violent it tore the woman to shreds. My aunt witnessed it, mourned as only a survivor can mourn the caprice of fate, and survived. She was lucky. She was lucky enough to live to bear the searing yoke of survivor guilt, but she lived. She died a few months later of cancer, but had time to resolve with and bid farewell to her family, a peace not afforded to the family of the shredded woman.

In 1995 along Coal Creek Parkway in Newcastle WA a King County deputy discovered a naked man in an intersection on Coal Creek Parkway. He stopped his patrol car and attempted to talk to the naked man who thereupon grabbed the officer's gun and shot him to death. I passed through that intersection not five minutes before, carrying a gun as I'm licensed to do. Had I passed five minutes later I could have, and given my lackadaisical regard for personal safety probably would have, come to the officer's aid, as a distraction for the naked assailant at least. Officer Herzog was not lucky.

There is no tabulation of the lucky. There are only long lists of the innocent unlucky, the in the wrong place at the wrong time, the reckless and the criminal. Having lived through much and survived so far myself, having witnessed random violence visited on my family, I find it irreconcilable that solutions for violence that respect both personal liberty and personal safety appear to be beyond the ability of our political system to find. My luck, of which I've had plenty, may run out some day, and as a rule I depend on it much less that I used to. Neither should your family and children have to depend on luck for the sole apparent purposes of salving the paranoia of the 10% extreme wing of the NRA or the making of electoral math of the GOP easier.

Three days after a horrific shooting in Cumberland County, Ky. involving a 5-year-old boy accidentally killing his 2-year-old sister, the question of guns and children has reached a fever pitch.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Dan Baum, author of "Gun Guys," debated the topic on Thursday's edition of "All In with Chris Hayes." There was a clear line in the sand between the two on how the issue should be handled.

"Teaching young children to shoot can be disciplining," said Baum, who started shooting at age five. "It can be mind-calming. There's hand-eye there, there's family tradition. Teaching young children to shoot, I think, is a good thing."

Cummings held the opposite perspective, drawing upon personal tragedy. Back in June 2011, his nephew, Christopher Cummings, was shot to death in his off-campus apartment near Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va.

Representing Maryland's 7th District, which encompasses a large section of Baltimore, Cummings expressed his belief that the "inner city" is a different game.

"The young people in my neighborhood, 15-, 16-year-olds, tell me they can get a gun faster than they can get a cigarette, if they have the money," Cummings said. "That's a problem. And these are people with no training."

WATCH Baum & Cummings' debate begin at the 7:00 mark above. For the full segment, click here.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) arrived on Thursday night for a town hall. He left with a show of great appreciation from survivors of the Jan. 2011 Tucson, Ariz. shooting.

Slate's David Weigel captured a heartwarming moment from McCain's Oro Valley, Ariz. event. Speaking six miles north of Tucson, the senator was presented at the end of the event with a set of 19 roses. Each flower represented the 13 individuals killed and six wounded in the 2011 massacre.

The gesture stemmed from McCain's decision to break with most of the Republican Party and vote yes on April's background check bill. Authored by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), McCain stood as one of only four Republicans to support the measure, with Toomey included. The bill failed to reach the 60-vote bar for escape from a filibuster, with only 54 senators voting yes.

"I would like to thank you so much for your vote on background checks," said Pam Simon, a former staffer of wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), according to Slate.

In addition to his "yea" vote on the Manchin-Toomey bill, McCain was willing to publicly decry the Senate's decision to let the legislation go by the wayside. Among the events he spoke out on was President Barack Obama's speech addressing the same disappointment.

"I'm very familiar with the issue, but I understand how the president felt very strongly," McCain told CNN's Jake Tapper on April 18. "He was in Newtown. He feels the suffering of the families, and I can certainly understand, given his point of view, why the president got somewhat emotional."

AUSTIN, Texas — The National Rifle Association has spent much of the past year under siege, ardently defending gun rights following mass shootings in Colorado and Connecticut and fighting back against mounting pressure for stricter laws in Washington and state capitols across the country.

Now, after winning a major victory over President Barack Obama with the defeat of a gun control bill in the U.S. Senate, the powerful gun-rights lobby will gather in Houston this weekend for its annual convention.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — As one of five Democrats who opposed expanding background checks for firearm sales, U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas is facing pressure from gun control groups who are urging him to rethink a position they suggest could haunt him during his re-election bid next year.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns on Thursday brought the father of a student killed in the Newtown, Conn. school shooting last year to Arkansas in the hopes of arranging a meeting with the two-term senator. The director of the group also said it plans to soon air radio ads and send out direct mail pieces focused on Pryor.

This past Tuesday, in Cumberland County, Ky., a 2-year-old girl was killed when her 5-year-old brother accidentally shot her with a .22-caliber rifle in their home. According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, the gun "was a gift the boy received last year." As Cumberland County Coroner Gary White told reporters:

"It's a Crickett," he said. "It's a little rifle for a kid. ...The little boy's used to shooting the little gun."

White said the gun was kept in a corner, and the family did not realize a bullet had been left in it. The shooting will be ruled accidental, he said.

"Just one of those crazy accidents," White said.

Yes, just one of those crazy accidents that involve what child development experts call "natural consequences," specifically the "natural consequences" of leaving an unattended, loaded weapon in the corner of the room near two very young children. The news today is that this shooting death "might lead to criminal charges." Per NPR:

The Lexington Herald-Leader writes that "Kentucky State Police said Wednesday it is too early to say whether charges will be filed in the case of a 5-year-old boy who accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old sister."

That was a shift from earlier in the day, when a spokesman for the state police had said it was unlikely any charges would be filed.

"There is still some information that we don't fully understand," Trooper Billy Gregory later said, according to the newspaper. "As the investigation continues and when we finish, I'm sure we'll present the totality of the circumstances to the commonwealth's attorney and then he'll make a decision whether or not to present to the grand jury."

Just what type of charges might be filed is not known at this time.

If you are curious as to how a gun marketed to small children came to exist, Mark Follman at Mother Jones has the details:

The Pennsylvania-based maker of Crickett rifles, Keystone Sporting Arms, markets its guns with the slogan "My First Rifle." They are available with different barrel and stock designs, including some made in hot pink to appeal to young girls.

Business has boomed since the company's inception in 1996, according to its website. In its first year, it had four employees and produced 4,000 rifles for kids; by 2008 it had greatly expanded its operations, with 70 employees and an output of 60,000 rifles a year. KSA's site states that its goal is "to instill gun safety in the minds of youth shooters and encourage them to gain the knowledge and respect that hunting and shooting activities require and deserve."

"Clearly the issue of parental responsibility is at the center of this tragedy," writes Follman, "But ... it also points back to the big business of guns -- including how the industry profits from products aimed at children."

Obviously, this tragedy comes amid the ongoing debate over whether some sort of gun safety legislation should, or can, be passed into law. Arguably, the much-talked about Manchin-Toomey background check measure would not be the sort of regulation that could have prevented this tragedy. (Maybe something in a "do not market or sell deadly weapons to small children" is what we're looking for?)

If you're interested in a further discussion of this tragedy, and whether child deaths like this are the consequence of a prevailing "gun culture" will be a highlight of tonight's "All In With Chris Hayes," at 8 p.m. on MSNBC.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not?]

Nearly three in 10 voters say that Americans may have to take up arms to defend their rights, according to a poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University released Wednesday.

Twenty-nine percent of voters, including 44 percent of Republicans, said that in "the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties." Eighteen percent of Democrats and 27 percent of independents agreed.

The poll also found that half of voters think Congress needs to pass new laws protecting the public against gun violence, compared to 39 percent who disagree.

“The differences in views of gun legislation are really a function of differences in what people believe guns are for,” Dan Cassino, an analyst for the poll, wrote. “If you truly believe an armed revolution is possible in the near future, you need weapons and you’re going to be wary about government efforts to take them away.”

That some speculate about a worst-case scenario -- or are willing to agree with a pollster that one might happen -- isn't unusual. A HuffPost/YouGov poll last year found that a quarter of Americans believed they might see a state favor seceding from the U.S.

The poll surveyed 863 voters by phone between April 22 and April 28.

Stephen Colbert brought back the "truthiness" trope he introduced on his first-ever episode of "The Colbert Report" on Wednesday, this time applying it to the NRA, U.S. senators who voted against a background check bill and right-wing talk radio pundits who vehemently reject any and all forms of gun control.

He went after National Review columnist Kevin D. Williamson, Sen. Rand Paul and radio host Bob Davis, who said to Newtown families in a recent broadcast, "I'm sorry that you suffered a tragedy. But deal with it. Don't force me to lose my liberty, which is a greater tragedy than your loss."

Colbert offered faux sympathy to Davis, lamenting that losing a child pales in comparison to his inconvenience of having to fill out a few background check forms to get a gun.

He then pointed out that a listener offered to buy Davis a plane ticket to express his views to the parents of those killed at Newtown -- and the pundit has yet to respond.

Check out the clip above to see Colbert respond to extreme gun rights defenders.

On Monday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed legislation reinforcing existing laws prohibiting local governments from destroying weapons they collect from the community. This is the third law protecting the life of guns Brewer has signed since becoming governor.

Previous laws required municipalities to sell guns found or seized, but the new law makes it clear this prohibition also applies to guns which are voluntarily surrendered -- often through police buyback programs.

Instead of being melted down, these guns must be used or sold to the general public -- in other words, put back into the very circulation from which violence easily erupts. To be even clearer, guns that leave the hands of people who would just as well do without them, will now be placed into the hands of many who relish the thought of pulling the trigger.

Writing in The Arizona Sun, Howard Fischer reports that many of the 1,900 emails, letters and calls urging Brewer to sign the bill were encouraged by a single group, the Arizona Citizens Defense League, which, according to Fischer, "sent out notices to those on its mailing list urging them to click on a link to send a letter to Brewer."

The Associated Press reports that one of those letters came from the NRA, "which argued that selling seized or forfeited guns 'would maintain their value, and their sale to the public would help recover public funds.' The NRA letter said the bill doesn't prevent a private group from holding an event and destroying the weapons."

So, basically, the pro-gun-life argument is that since everyone else is making money off guns, why shouldn't local governments get a piece of that action? (consequences notwithstanding), and that the destruction of a firearm is a private matter between a gun owner and his firearm. So if you really want to destroy a gun, says the new law, no problem -- do it yourself. After all, can destroying a weapon of destruction be that much harder or more dangerous than setting your DVR?

Fisher writes that the law will have a chilling effect on programs audaciously designed to get guns off the street... by getting guns off the street. "Any chance of cities or counties conducting future gun-buyback programs is about to evaporate," he writes.

Not since the Supreme Court gave corporations First Amendment privileges has so much life been bestowed on non-living objects -- especially ironic, given the purpose of these particular objects is to end life in its tracks. Who knew that guns had their own pro-life movement?

Originally posted at BillMoyers.com