Why are there no consequences for this?

How many Republican Presidential hopefuls were at this meeting?

According to Right Wing Watch: "Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Rick Perry and others."

Yes, the NRA, the only organization with more blood on its hands than the PNAC, held a meeting and these men who would be President attended. And spoke.
At a meeting where this occurred:

VIDEO: At NRA Annual Meeting, Ted Nugent Talked About Shooting Sen. Harry Reid

http://mediamatters.org/embed/static/clips/2015/04/14/39539/nraaanualmeeting-nraannualmeeting-20150412-nugentreidvid

 Nugent called Reid a "lying prick," but described him as a necessary evil, stating, "If your child is dying and there is only one way to get to the doctor, would you get on Harry Reid's boat to get there? ... I'd get on the boat, get there, and then I'd shoot him."

And this happened:

NRA's Wayne LaPierre On Clinton And Obama: "Eight Years Of One Demographically Symbolic President Is Enough"

And of course, there will be no repercussions for their participation in this hate-and-fear-fest.

Imagine if a bunch of Democratic candidates had attended, um. . . well, there is no equivalent group on the Left. Nothing even close to an organization as disgusting and evil as the NRA.
But for the sake of argument, let's use the ACLU. I have a great deal of respect for the ACLU and I am NOT trying to equate them to the NRA. But to many on the Right, the ACLU represents pretty much all that is evil in the world.

Remember the way they hung the ACLU around Mike Dukakis's neck like an albatross? When Bush 1 was running against Dukakis, I, through sheer dumb luck, was handed a ticket to go in to the auditorium at Cal State Fullerton to see Ronald Reagan stump for Bush. I went in with a group of Dukakis supporters and booed him, don't worry. Anyway, one of the things that Reagan had to say about Dukakis was that he was a "card-carrying member of the ACLU" an organization which he claimed wanted to make it legal for our little brothers and sisters to be used in child pornography.

Obviously, this was total bullshit, but the Bush campaign repeted the "card-carrying member" trope over and over til election day.

So what are the odds that any Denmocratic candidate, or any surrogate, or member of the media will call out Cruz, Bush, Rubio, et al for their love of an organization that helps to make thousands of gun deaths possible each year? I'm guessing the odds are about zero. Maybe Alan Grayson might say something, but I can't imagine anyone else would.

Why not? Why shouldn't these candidates have to wear a scarlet A and a scarlet N and R? Every campaign ad, every stump speech by any Democratic candidate should hammer on these sob's embrace of the gun-nut fringe. What are they afraid of? The NRA represents, what, about 2 percent of the population? they claim to have 4.5 million members, that's about 1 and a half percent. Assuming that number is accurate, and assuming there are folks who share their point of view but haven't joined, let's say that's 5 million out of a population of 300 million. And as the recent post-Sandy Hook disgrace showed, the NRA doesn't even represent the views of a majority of its members who agree that the gun-show loophole shopuld be closed, and other mild restrictions should be put in place. So why worry about offending the NRA? You weren't going to get the votes of any of the gun-felaters anyway.

It's about time that we call these psychos out, make membership in their sick organization something about which to be ashamed. It's past time that anyone who admits being a member or supporter of the NRA be treated as a pariah. Talking about your NRA membership should be like talking about your online pornography subscriptions.

The NRA is a profoundly evil organization. There have to be some consequences for embracing them.

This story is not what we're talking about.

Mom who shot intruder inspires gun control foes

By By KATE BRUMBACK | Associated Press – Wed, Jan 9, 2013

I know, I know. The gun-humpers are going to use this story to illustrate why there should be no gun-control legislation or regulation and everyone should always be armed at all times and in all places and blah blah blah. But this is NOT what we're talking about!

No one (okay, almost no one) is saying that law-abiding citizens should not be allowed to own guns for personal protection. What we're saying is that there's no reason to allow civilians to own military-grade assault weaponry. We're saying that there is no need to allow magazines that hold 30 rounds, or guns that spray dozens of bullets in seconds, or cop-killer bullets, etc. And we're saying that reasonable regulations ought to be in place to keep lunatics from owning guns, or people with criminal backgrounds, or people who are on the Goddamm TERRORIST WATCH LIST, all of which the NRA and their fellow massacre-enablers firmly oppose.

That's what we're talking about, and no matter how many housewives shoot how many intruders (and good on her, by the way) that doesn't change the need for sensible gun laws.

It's a totally false choice that the NRA types like to perpetuate, that either every nut gets to own whatever machine gun he wants or jack-booted guv'mint thugs kickin' down yer door ta take yer gurns!!!!
It's bullshit, and they know it. We had an assault weapons ban for years, and it didn't prevent any moms from shooting intruders with pistols.

We need to start calling bullshit on these people.

Starting with bullshit like this:

There's Little We Can Do to Prevent Another Massacre

by Megan McArdle Dec 17, 2012 3:00 PM EST

That is a lie. There is a lot we could do. We could do what Australia did after the Port Arthur massacre. We could do what Britain does. There's lots we could do. There has just been very little that we have so far been willing to do.

And bullshit solutions, like the one that Ms McArdle suggests:

  I'd also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once.

Holy shit! You want children rushing directly into the hail of gunfire? Because they're going to be able to somehow pile on top of him? Maybe this might work if he was firing some old-timey weapon that had to be  cocked and loaded between shots, but a Bushmaster AR-15 spits dozens of bullets in a matter of seconds. The kids would be mowed down like the beginning of Saving Private Ryan!

And we especially need to call bullshit on the NRA. And those politicians who support them. Like Joe Manchin:

Wed Dec 19, 2012 at 01:30 PM PST

Sen. Joe Manchin: 'I'm so proud of the NRA'

“These are my friends,” Manchin, who previously served as governor, said of the NRA. “They’re good people. They’re hurting. They’re in pain the same way as every American about what happened to these twenty little children. 

That is a lie. The NRA doesn't feel a goddamned thing about those dead children. If they did, they wouldn't have been fighting tirelessly to perpetuate the conditions that ensure that these sickening slaughters will happen again and again and again.

It's possible that the NRA may have at one time been a legitimate organization representing hunters and "sportsmen" who were concerned that guns might possibly be banned, but today they represent no one but weapons manufacturers and they care about nothing but those companies' profits.  They do not care how many innocents are killed. Check out this little chart from Think Progress. (link) Every time there's a gun massacre, the NRA responds by trying to increase the proliferation of guns.

You say they are "hurting?" Whenever there's a massacre like this, gun sales go through the roof. That's no coincidence. The NRA and their enablers exploit these tragedies to gin up more paranoia amongst the gun-toting community. Either you better get you some more guns so you can defend yourself against the maniacs, or you better get you some more guns before the evil guv'mint comes to take them away! Hurting? They're laughing all the way to the bank!

We need to stop pretending that the NRA is a legitimate advocacy group.  They don't even represent their own membership. About 3/4 of NRA members are in favor of closing the gun-show loophole, for instance. The NRA will fight tooth and nail to prevent this. Because all they care about is selling more guns. They Do Not Care how many people die as a result of their lunatic policies. They will turn this entire country into a Peckinpah film if it increases their profits.

We need to start treating NRA membership the same way we treat membership in the Klan. Any sane, decent person who is currently a member should be strongly encouraged to tear up their card, renounce their membership, and not give another red cent to these death mongers. We need to get to the point where NRA members are ashamed to admit it in decent company. We need to get to the point that an NRA bumper sticker is looked at with the same disgust and loathing as an Aryan Nations tattoo. We need to call bullshit on this entire gun culture. And it needs to start now.