June 22, 2006

Gun-Owners Afraid of UN “Conspiracy”

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This would all be quite humorous—

Americans mistakenly worried the United Nations is plotting to take away their guns on July 4—U.S. Independence Day—are flooding the world body with angry letters and postcards, the chairman of a U.N. conference on the illegal small arms trade said on Wednesday.

—except for the fact that the NRA tends, quite often, to stoke and inflame conservative fears that the UN really is plotting to erect some sinister world government or other that will take away all our guns. And the fact that the NRA then uses those fears to generate backing for its opposition to sensible regulations on the global light-arms trade, which is one of the major health crises of our time. And people die as a result. So I don’t know how “funny” I find it that we have a lot of gun-toting morons in this country.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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