NRA Removes “Good Morning Shooters” Tweet

I'm not talking about the NRA's response as a whole. I haven't followed that too closely because I already know exactly how that conversation goes. No one gets out of it smarter, or even equally smart, as they were before, and it's never anything more then an attempt to score a few political points by taking a tragedy and turning it into an anecdote, where when discussing policy, anecdotes are meaningless. The NRA may or may not have handled this tragedy fairly. But this tweet, specifically? Nothing wrong with it.

For starters, I heard about the shooting in the evening, long after this tweet was posted. If I were in charge of tweeting for this NRA magazine, I would be getting criticized and be completely confused as to why. The idea that the tweeter didn't even know about the shooting is entirely plausible.

Secondly, like it or not, it is the opinion of the NRA that there is not a causal link between this shootings occurrence (Possibly with illegal weapons instead, or legal firearms still capable of killing in mass quantities), and legal gun ownership. I am NOT saying that this is EITHER accurate OR inaccurate, but it is a hypothesis with supporting evidence, which is not unreasonable, which they believe. From their perspective, their is no reason for law abiding, responsible gun owners (Who may or may not have a inaccurate view of policy, but who also are deeply saddened by this tragedy) to shun even the most informal of spotlights and casual conversation.

I play a lot of video games, and I have read comic books on occasion. Fringe elements (Elements that from my perspective probably look just as fringe as gun control advocates appear to the NRA) have pointed fingers at violence in both video games and comic books as a cause of this shooting. In spite of this, I have no problem with playing games and discussing games openly with my peers, and I still am interested in going to read some of the old Frank Miller Batman comics before I go see "Rises". If someone says that this is shameful, I can't help but roll my eyes, because I'm just as sad as the rest of the country who are mourning, but not directly effected (I would never say my sadness could match that of someone who lost even an acquaintance in that shooting). When I see a person say that they avoid discussing a shooter game because they feel that doing so would be crass at this time, I respect that decision, but also consider it to not be necessary. Yes, it is possible that the NRA's POLICIES are dangerous and potentially fatal. But the COMMUNITY of gun owners, like the person who posted this tweet, I guarantee you feel nothing but sadness at this tragedy, and a generic greeting to their community cannot reasonably be taken as a statement with offensive intent or content.