After Connecticut: Guns, Gun Control, and Gun Culture

From Businessweek: Bucolic Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 26 people, 20 of them children between ages 5 and 10, is also the headquarters of the American firearm industry. A short distance from Sandy Hook Elementary School, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the country’s premier gun trade association, has its offices in a dignified white building on a gentle hill.

Like its better-known sister, the National Rifle Association, which represents gun owners, the NSSF promotes the arming of America—for hunting, shooting sports, self-defense, and the cultural significance that many Americans invest in firearms. The Sandy Hook massacre is the worst in the United States since the April 2007 rampage at Virginia Tech, which took place not too far from the NRA’s headquarters in Fairfax, Va.

Painful geographic juxtaposition of pointless slaughter and a marketing association doesn’t suggest anything profound. These are awful coincidences.  Or maybe there is something significant in the proximity….

Read the rest at   http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-14/after-connecticut-guns-gun-control-and-gun-culture#r=hp-ls