By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
At the height of the controversy over the shooting of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has tried to capitalize on the incident by blaming the National Rifle Association and attacking state concealed carry laws.
In a press release and on the organization’s website, the Brady Campaign asserted that the shooting of Martin by 28-year-old George Zimmerman was “the NRA’s vision of America.”
The campaign also urged voters to oppose two Senate bills aimed at national concealed carry reciprocity. Brady President Dan Gross called the measures the “George Zimmerman Armed Vigilante Acts.”
“Imagine that,” their website message stated, “George Zimmermans walking your streets. Armed and dangerous. That’s the gun lobby’s vision for America. But it’s not ours.”
The message continued, vilifying concealed carry laws because they would not “prevent someone like Zimmerman – who had an arrest record and a violent past – from getting a concealed carry permit…”
In a personal appeal, Gross contended the shooting of 17-year-old Martin is how the NRA would like the United States to be.
“The NRA’s vision is an America that looks just like Florida,” he stated, “where it’s easy for criminals and dangerous people to get, carry, and use guns. The NRA wants us to be a nation without any gun laws, a nation where just about anybody can get a gun and take it anywhere. Their leaders and spokespeople use fear, paranoia and misleading notions of self-defense to justify flooding our streets with armed and violent people, and the result is more tragedies like Trayvon’s”
The Brady Campaign’s entry into this fray followed several days of editorials and newspaper opinion columns, all demanding repeal or amendment of Florida’s “Stand-Your-Ground” statute. The gun prohibition lobby strenuously opposed such laws in Florida and other states, claiming that they would lead to an upswing in violence.
True enough, there has been an increase in homicides in the Sunshine State, but prosecutors have declined to file charges in several cases, where self-defense has been claimed by the shooters, and there apparently was not sufficient evidence to disprove that argument.
However, as new York Daily News columnist S.A. Cupp noted, “…since instituting its right-to-carry law in 1987, the Florida murder rate as averaged 36% lower than before the law took effect, while the U.S. murder rate has averaged 15% lower.
“The results are similar in other states. Florida’s “very lax” gun laws actually reduce crime,” she added. “That’s because criminals respect guns, not laws. Polling of incarcerated felons suggests that an untold number of violent crimes were not committed because the would-be victim was known to have a gun.”
Zimmerman, a registered Democrat, was portrayed as a vigilante who got away with murder, while Martin was initially portrayed as an innocent juvenile while the press continued to use a photo of him at about age 12. Photos of Martin as a teen, however, were not as sympathetic, especially images of tattoos purportedly to have been on the teen’s arm.
Also, reporters and on-line journalists uncovered texts alleged to have been Martin’s on Twitter before the account was shut down a few days after his death. It turns out the teen had been “tweeting” as “No_Limit_N—A,” a self-imposed slur.
