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SLAM!: Your fans not only like your music, they trust and respect you. But your Web page's statement, "We lose nearly 12 children a day to gun violence in this country. That's a Columbine every day," is an outright falsehood. It is a lie that was told by the Million Mom March to garner donations and support that they probably wouldn't have gotten if they had been truthful. HCI and Bill Clinton (the king of sexual harassers) also told this lie. And your new figure of 5,285 children in one year (more than 14 a day) is even farther off base.

Excerpts from SLAM's "We are SLAM!ing the NRA for:"

• "Calling federal law enforcement agents 'jack-booted thugs' and constantly undermining the efforts of law enforcement agencies to make our communities safe."
• You assign the blood of the Columbine shooting to the NRA,  but why is it apparently all right for a government sniper to shoot a mother (Vicki Weaver) who was holding her baby? Why was it all right for the government to allow the burning of the Branch Davidian's compound at Waco with children inside? No matter what David Koresh himself did, weren't those children as innocent as the students at Columbine? Aren't police (and government agents) supposed to protect and serve the innocent?
• When your fellow musician Bruce Springsteen sings, "41 shots," regarding the tragic and mistaken (but not criminal) shooting of Amadou Diallo, that means "jack-booted thugs."
• If the jackboot fits, the rogue cops, or (more likely) the rogue officials who put good cops in bad situations, must wear it. Your refusal to recognize this, while SLAM!ing the NRA, makes you hypocrites.
• "Helping to make our federal gun laws so weak that a child can legally buy an AK-47"
• Minors cannot legally buy an AK-47, or any firearm, at any gun store or gun show.
• "Making sure that there are no consumer protection standards for firearms"
• I'm sure a defective firearm is subject to the same civil liability standards as any other consumer product.
• "Opposing safe storage laws that hold adult owners criminally responsible if a child gains access to an unsecured gun"
• I think (and hope) the NRA opposes laws that would require adult gun owners to lock up their guns to make them inaccessible in an emergency, such as rape. Handgun Control Incorporated's own lawyer, Dennis Henigan, proved for himself that trigger locks can get their users killed in life-threatening situations. As for children-- Bill Clinton said, "Our cause has been aided by the deaths of all these children in all these schools, and in other settings. And I think we should pay tribute to them." Maybe that's why HCI tries to keep the NRA's gun-avoidence educational program for children out of schools.
•  Promoting firearms as an essential part of American life.
• A gross exaggeration. The NRA promotes safe, responsible, and enjoyable firearm use by those who choose to own firearms.