Today’s NRA is nothing less than a gun industry trade association masquerading as a shooting sports foundation. - Josh Sugarmann

Across America, the firepower in the hands of gun owners of varying stripes is increasing dramatically. The reason: assault weapons. Drug traffickers are finding that assault weapons—in addition to 'standard issue' handguns—provide the extra firepower necessary to fight police and competing dealers. Right-wing paramilitary extremists, in their ongoing battle against the "Zionist Occupational Government," have made these easily purchased firearms their gun of choice. And rank and file gun aficionados—jaded with handguns, shotguns, and hunting rifles—are moving up to the television glamour and movie sex appeal of assault weapons. The growing market for these weapons—coupled with a general rising interest in the non-sporting use of firearms—has generated an industry of publications, catalogs, accessories, training camps, and combat schools dedicated to meeting its needs.

It’s an unbelievably sad commentary that high-profile shootings occur frequently enough that we know the National Rifle Association’s rote four-step crisis management response.
One. Don’t talk to the press. You don’t want the NRA’s name associated in the public’s mind with mass shootings and the inevitable carnage that results from our nation’s lax gun policies. You want to make sure that the last thing anyone associates with a gun massacre is firearms and those who promote them. To argue to the American public that 32 dead college students and teachers is, as the NRA says, “the price of freedom” is far more difficult when the cost is seen with graphic horror, the faces and stories of the lives lost confronting us. The NRA depends on gun violence being an abstract concept to most Americans. Mass shootings make it all too real.
Two. If the press coverage is broad enough, issue a statement expressing sympathy for the victims. If not, ignore them.
Three. When the shooting no longer dominates the news cycle, abandon the bunker and rebuke any and all who have dared to call for gun control. Be sure to indignantly argue that anyone calling for measures to control guns is exploiting tragedy for “political gain.” And be sure to attack the news media for actually covering the story.
Four. Work to stop measures to address America’s growing gun problem that may be proposed in the wake of the shooting.
Repeat as necessary.

A gun-control movement worthy of the name would insist that President Clinton move beyond his proposals for controls -- such as expanding background checks at gun shows and stopping the import of high-capacity magazines -- and immediately call on Congress to pass far-reaching industry regulation like the Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act introduced by Senator Robert Torricelli, Democrat of New Jersey, and Representative Patrick Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island. Their measure would give the Treasury Department health and safety authority over the gun industry, and any rational regulator with that authority would ban handguns.
Real gun control will take courage. In the long run, half-measures and compromises only sacrifice lives.