Sen. John McCain is scheduled to speak before the NRA convention in Louisville this Friday, May 16, 2008, and I suspect he might have to perform a high-wire act to impress most of the folks in attendance.

The NRA has pilloried and even ridiculed Sen. McCain over the years in its magazine articles and graphic caricatures of him.

For example, there’s an article from the NRA magazine America’s First Freedom from July 2001, called, “What’s Happened To John McCain?”  In it the NRA says: 

The gun control debate in Washington has hit center stage because Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has now become one of the premier flag carriers for the enemies of the Second Amendment. …  McCain has joined with Al Gore running mate Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. – a gun ban advocate rated “F” by NRA’s Political Victory Fund – in championing legislation to close the so-called ‘gun show loophole.’  McCain is the poster boy for Americans For Gun Safety … appearing in their television ads calling for new federal restrictions on gun shows.

(There are other notable attacks in the June 2001, February 2002, and September 2002 issues, as well.  Online access to the magazine is restricted.)

Importantly, however, Sen. McCain still favors closing the gun show loophole, still defends the McCain-Feingold campaign financing law that the NRA bitterly denounced, and still maintains Sen. Lieberman as a close associate, taking him as an adviser in his campaign.  

If C+ rated Sen. McCain hasn’t changed, why is the NRA highlighting him in Louisville?

Does the NRA still believe McCain is a “premier flag carrier for the enemies of the Second Amendment”?  Or, is the NRA now willing to concede that the politics of gun control is now leaving them?

I think the answers will say more about the credibility of the NRA’s political leadership than they do about Sen. McCain.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

On Mother’s Day, May 14, 2000, approximately 750,000 individuals, led by mothers concerned about gun violence, gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC to demand sensible gun laws. Across the country, an additional 150,000 to 200,000 people marched in their own communities.

Marsha McCartney and her family, including two grandchildren, marched on Mother’s Day in 2000 at the local event in Fort Worth, Texas. Marsha went on to become a member of the Brady Campaign Board of Trustees as well as the Chair of the National Council of Million Mom March Chapters.

Concerned about the violence in our country, Marsha left the May 2000 events ready to do what she could to help make her community safer. Now the co-president of the North Texas Brady Campaign Chapter based in Dallas, as well as state president of the Texas Million Mom March Chapters, Marsha believes that one day her state will strengthen its weak gun laws, and that Texas communities and families will be safer because of it.

Marsha sent me the following column she wrote for this Mother’s Day, and I wanted to share it with you:

The Best Mother’s Day Gift of All

This Mother’s Day, millions of American moms will receive flowers, gifts, and the special attention of loved ones.

But approximately eight moms will receive something else – the news that one of their children has been killed by a gun. Another 48 moms will learn that a child has been shot, but has survived. On an average day in America, 56 children and teens are the victims of gun violence – and eight of those die of their injuries.

That’s every day of the year, Mother’s Day included.

And those figures don’t include the 76 adults who will be killed by a gun, or the 148 other adults who will be shot and wounded on Mother’s Day. Each of these victims is someone’s child, too.

Why does this happen? Because right now, it is far too easy to obtain a gun in America. In most states, even convicted felons and the dangerously mentally ill – like the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech massacre – can walk into any gun show and buy any weapon from an unlicensed seller without anyone checking their background. Or even asking them any questions.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Effective gun control legislation works. The Brady Bill, which was passed by Congress in 1993, has kept at least 1.5 million dangerous people from purchasing firearms. Think of how many moms have been unknowingly spared the pain of losing a child simply because the law prevented the purchase of a gun by someone who has no good reason to have one.

Unfortunately, the Brady Bill contained a loophole. The sensible and effective background checks imposed by Brady cover only sales by licensed gun dealers, but are not applied to the significant share of guns that are sold every day by unlicensed sellers at gun shows. It doesn’t take an advanced degree to figure out that if you want a weapon but can’t pass the background check, you go to a gun show.

What can we moms do? One common-sense step we can take is to help close the gun-show loophole. Legislation has been introduced in Congress to do just that, and all three of the leading presidential candidates have previously voiced their support of the idea. But our elected representatives need to hear from every mom, loudly and clearly, that we support this bill and that we will keep pressuring them until it is passed and signed into law.

Getting gifts on Mother’s Day is wonderful. But imagine if every mother in America joined together and persuaded Congress to close the loophole that makes gun violence against our children so prevalent.

That means eight more moms may get to kiss their child good night on Mother’s Day. That means another 48 moms might get to tuck their kids into their own beds instead of spending Mother’s Day at a hospital bedside.

Now that gift would be priceless.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

When we talk about making it harder for dangerous people to get guns, we usually focus on felons, domestic abusers and the dangerously mentally ill. Less often do we think about children in this context.

There are obvious reasons for this, yet a child with a gun poses its own set of dangers for communities and families.

According to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, over 30,000 people were killed with guns in America in 2005. Of those, over 3,000 were children and teenagers, with almost 1,000 16 years-old or younger.

As the Washington Post reported in 2006:

Gun-owning parents who think their children don’t know where firearms are kept or haven’t handled the weapons without permission may be in for a disturbing surprise.

A new study [see here] involving 201 parents and an equal number of their children has found that 39 percent of kids knew the location of their parents’ firearms, while 22 percent said they had handled the weapons, despite their parents’ assertions to the contrary. Parents who had talked to their children about gun safety were just as likely to be misinformed about their children’s actions as those who said they never had discussed the matter.

The dangerous curiosity of some children was tragically demonstrated by an incident in Indianapolis last weekend where a five year-old climbed to the top of a shelf of books in house, found his father’s gun with the magazine removed, but with a round in the chamber, took the gun upstairs to play and then shot and killed his four year-old sister.

There are many important ways that stronger gun laws can help protect children, including safe storage laws requiring gun owners to store their weapons locked and unloaded when not in use; child access prevention laws that hold gun owners responsible for leaving firearms easily accessible to children; as well as laws requiring trigger locks to be sold with every firearm.

Another idea that is already the law in New Jersey – and which is now making its way through the California legislature – is to require that handguns be manufactured to operate only for an authorized user, employing technology already in use with door locks, personal computers, cell phones and credit cards.

As well as helping to make handguns childproof, this technology can also help make unauthorized handguns useless to gun thieves, gun traffickers, and those who attempt suicide with a gun.

As America prepares to celebrate Mother’s Day this week, I hope we can take a few moments to consider some common-sense ways our elected officials can help keep children safer, and help cut down on the tragic loss of life every year because of too-easy access to guns.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)