NRA Ridicules Congresswoman Whose Husband Was Shot and Killed in Mass Shooting

The NRA has decided that it is great strategy to claim that Rep. Carolyn McCarthy whose husband and son were mass shooting victims doesn’t know what she is talking about on the gun violence issue.

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NRA organizer Colton Kerrigan played a clip of Rep. McCarthy (D-NY) advocating for gun control, and then said, “These lawmakers who write these laws have no idea what they’re talking about. They’ve never shot a firearm before, they couldn’t tell you what a barrel shroud is. They couldn’t tell you what a mount is for a bayonet. They probably couldn’t tell you what a flash suppressor is. Yet these are the people who are writing the laws saying we need to ban these certain types of firearms. […] The underlying theme of all of this is, at the end of the day, the lawmakers have no idea what they’re writing, never shot a gun before, and yet they’re going to tell you what you should and should not own to make everybody else safer, yet they couldn’t tell you the difference between the butt or the barrel of a gun.”

This all might sound like the typical NRA rhetoric until you understand that the House member they are attacking lost her husband, and had her son seriously wounded in the 1993 LIRR mass murder. McCarthy isn’t someone who is only blaming the gun. At the time of shooter Colin Ferguson’s sentencing, she said, “I do not believe you were crazy, Colin Ferguson, I believe you knew exactly what you were doing that night, and your justice is about to be served.”

The fact that the NRA would mock a person who has had their family victimized by gun violence demonstrates how out of touch with reality they are. Wayne LaPierre gave a speech at CPAC where he claimed that anybody who advocated for legislation that could lessen gun violence was insane, but this position goes a step beyond even that.

The NRA has turned into a fringe extremist group that because of their staunch opposition to both enforcing current gun laws and new gun laws is encouraging a climate of violence. Their mocking of victims of gun violence is exactly why they are out of touch with the bulk of the country, and their political power is grossly overrated.

Any politician that climbs in bed with the NRA is labeling themselves an extremist, and should be treated as such by the voters.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association