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MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell went after the NRA's Wayne LaPierre after he attempted to exploit the Boston Marathon bombings with his claim that more of the city's residents would have liked to have had a gun while the manhunt for the suspects was going on.

Cops–not NRA’s armed citizenry–stopped terrorists in Boston:

“How many Bostonians wished they had a gun two weeks ago?” National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre asked an audience Saturday at the gun lobbying group’s annual convention in Houston, Texas. LaPierre argued more guns in the hands of Bostonians would have helped in the city-wide manhunt for the marathon bombing suspects and protect residents.

O’Donnell said that comment was “spoken like a man who knows nothing about Boston.” The Last Word host said guns could not have stopped the tragedy that unfolded following the deadly attack.

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The Daily Show's Jon Stewart took his audience through the good, the bad and the crazy that was the NRA's 2013 National Convention over the weekend. After pointing out that it looked a whole lot like a recycled CPAC convention with the same lineup of guests complaining about the same set of grievances, Stewart noted that they did eventually get around to the fearmongering and guns.

After showing some of Wayne LaPierre's "simple message" about how the only one that can stop a "bad guy with a gun" is a "good guy with a gun," Stewart pointed out that the message wasn't quite so simple at the convention this year, since the lot of them didn't seem to know just who the bad guys or good guys are, or what the definition of democracy and tyranny are for that matter.

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Your quote of the day from Coalition to Stop Gun Violence's Ladd Everitt when asked by Melissa-Harris Perry about the NRA's incoming president, Jim Porter:

EVERITT: If you love Ted Nugent, you're going to love the new incoming president of the NRA, Jim Porter. This guy basically could have walked right out of a militia camp.

Oh joy! Just what we need. Someone at the NRA more extreme than crazy Wayne LaPierre. Here's more on this wingnut from Hunter at Kos: NRA elevates crackpot conspiracy theorist to be their new president:

It looks like the NRA has no intention of toning down the batshit crazy, and calls for "responsible NRA leadership" just got shot in the thigh and left to bleed out behind the ol' shed. The new NRA president (the job rotates every two years, presumably because maintaining such a high level of indignant batshit crazy is a high-effort job) is current NRA vice president Jim Porter, who ascends to the job because apparently every last member of the NRA leadership is entirely off their rockers. Let's meet Jim, shall we?

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Saturday Night Live took a shot at President Obama and the Senate and whether there's going to be any meaningful gun control legislation passed any time soon. Sadly, their parody wasn't that far from reality on whether we're going to see anything will make a real difference make its way through this Congress controlled by the NRA any time soon.

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Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe is one of 14 Republicans who have pledged to filibuster any sort of new gun restrictions and as MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell noted, he now apparently believes enough time has passed that he feels free to insult the parents of the murdered children from Sandy Hook elementary school.

I guess Inhofe believes only senators who have an A+ rating from the NRA are allowed to talk about gun control.

James Inhofe: Gun Debate Has Nothing To Do With Families Of Newtown Victims:

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said Tuesday that the gun control debate doesn't have anything to do with the families of the Newtown, Conn., shooting victims, and that the only reason those families think it does is because President Barack Obama told them it did.

Eleven family members of Newtown victims were in Washington on Tuesday, meeting privately with senators to urge them to support a forthcoming gun package that would impose tighter background checks, crack down on gun trafficking and enhance school safety measures. Speaking to a handful of reporters, Inhofe said he feels bad for those families because they're being used as pawns in a political fight.

"See, I think it's so unfair of the administration to hurt these families, to make them think this has something to do with them when, in fact, it doesn't," Inhofe said.

When it was suggested that the families of Newtown victims actually believe the gun debate pertains to them, Inhofe said, "Well, that's because they've been told that by the president."

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The NRA's National School Shield Task Force chair, Asa Hutchinson may have finally conceded, after being badgered by Fox host Chris Wallace that he might be willing to go along with more background checks on gun sales at gun shows or over the Internet, but he was still being just as unreasonable as his cohort when it came to doing the checks on other types of private sales.

Take the word gun every time it's used here and replace it with the word car in Hutchinson's response.

WALLACE: Even if the NRA is right and we have had Wayne LaPierre on the show and he says, look, if a bad guy wants a gun, he's going to find a way to get a gun. The fact is 1.9 million sales, as I say, have been blocked. Why not make it as hard as possible for people to get their hands on a gun who have this history of either a criminal record or mental illness?

HUTCHINSON: Well, if you take those statistics at face value then the current system in place has been effective in blocking people who are not entitled to obtain a firearm from getting one. So, that's effective. Now, the question is, do you want to expand that system from where it is right now.

And I think in general concept, Americans, everybody would like to see effective background checks so that criminals do not have access to firearms.

But as a practical matter -- and I read the bill last night, if you are a farmer, 30 miles from town and you want to transfer a shotgun to a neighbor, you've got to go 30 miles into town, find the federal licensed firearm dealer, fill out the paperwork, pay the fee, have the background check and then you have a responsibility to keep those records for inspection by the government and that's a huge burden on citizens.

So, my look at that is, I don't know whether that's going to pass or not, but it's not going to address the problem of safety in schools. I'm not a spokesman for the NRA on this topic. I'm expressing my views but I want to look at things that work and keep children safe.

Yeah, what a terrible "burden" to keep from selling a gun to someone who shouldn't have one. I wonder what else he thinks those farmers would refuse to do if it required them driving more than 30 miles?

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The chairman of the National Rifle Association-funded National School Shield Task Force on Sunday shrugged off traditional talking points used by pro-gun lobbyists and insisted that requiring background checks at gun shows "would seem appropriate."

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday asked Asa Hutchinson if he could support background checks for all commercial sales, including closing loopholes on Internet and gun show sales.

"From my view, if you go to a gun show and you buy a firearm from a licensed dealer and you have the background check you also go out to somebody's vehicle and you get a firearm there and you purchase it and you don't have the check, there's some inconsistency there," Hutchinson explained. "And certainly from my personal standpoint, that's a fair debate. And again, Americans would like to see that."

"You're saying you would support expanding the background check to include non-dealer sales gun shows and also, for instance, sales on the Internet?" Wallace pressed.

"I can't speak to all of those because it's all in the fine print," Hutchinson replied. "You have to look at the language. I would look certainly at the gun shows and the sales that surround that in that environment. If we can make sure there's a comprehensive check and we keep criminals from obtaining guns in that environment then those checks would seem appropriate."

As late as last month, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre said that his organization opposed background checks at gun because they were a "dishonest premise" that only acted as a "speed bump for the law abiding."

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Almost as soon as it went up yesterday the knives --or guns-- were out for Jim Carrey with this one.

via NBC

In a biting "Hee-Haw" themed Funny or Die spoof, the outspoken comedian takes aim at America's "heartless" gun enthusiasts -- including Charlton Heston, the late actor and former NRA president.

Carrey performed double duty in the video, as both Heston and the twangy lead singer of the band performing the catchy "Cold Dead Hand." (The title is an allusion to Heston's rifle-toting 2000 NRA address, in which he referenced the famous slogan "I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.")

"Charlton Heston movies are no longer in demand, and his immortal soul may lay forever in the sand. The angels wouldn't take him up to heaven like he planned, because they couldn't pry the gun from his cold dead hand," Carrey sings, with help from famous peace advocates Mahatma Gandhi, John Lennon and Abraham Lincoln -- all peace promoters assassinated by gunmen.

The lyrics also hit male gun owners below the belt, suggesting that they are overcompensating for an anatomical deficiency:

"You're a big, big man with a little bitty gland, so you need something bigger with a hairpin trigger."

Carrey seems unrepentant.

'Cold Dead Hand' is abt u heartless motherf%ckers unwilling 2 bend 4 the safety of our kids.Sorry if you're offended… say.ly/jtu5rar

— Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) March 24, 2013

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This was a nice change of pace, watching a Republican get shot down for their fearmongering on the air: ABC Journalist Calls Out Karl Rove: ‘Stop Scaring People’ About Background Checks:

During a heated debate about gun regulations on Sunday morning, ABC News’ Terry Moran accused Karl Rove of using “Orwellian” language to scare people about background checks, noting that the federal government is not seeking to confiscate guns but rather keep them out of the hands of criminals and people who are mentally ill. [...]

The proposals currently being drafted would require a background check on all gun purchases including those by private sellers while exempting family and temporary transfers. In some of the drafts being circulated, private dealers would have to maintain records for all private sales, while other exempt non-commercial private sales from record keeping. None of the bills would maintain a national gun registry, which is already illegal under current law. But the record keeping provision is important, advocates claim, to ensure that the checks are being properly conducted.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that 88 percent of Americans, including 85 percent of gun owners, believe “those purchasing firearms at private sales and gun shows should undergo a background check.”

Full transcript below the fold.

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Here's your Congress at work, still doing the bidding of the NRA and Wayne LaPierre when they hope no one is paying attention. As Zack Beauchamp at Think Progress noted, you'd think that after the tragic shooting at Newtown any new gun regulations would tighten regulations and make it harder for criminals to attain them, but sadly, just the opposite is true.

The First Federal Gun Laws To Pass Since Newtown Are All NRA Approved:

Six gun provisions were passed as riders attached to the resolution funding the government through September on Thursday. While all six had been federal law since 2004, each was approved by Congress on a year-to-year basis only. Now, four of the provisions are permanent. According to National Public Radio‘s Tamara Keith, the NRA “is the driving force behind these provisions.” Here they are:

1) Limit enforcement tools against crooked dealers. One rider would prevent Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agents from shutting down gun stores due to “due to a lack of business activity,” arguably a sign of criminal sales.

2) Shield gun dealers who “lose” their guns. This legislation precludes any federal law that requires gun retailers to count their guns and submit the results as a mechanism of determining whether any weapons have been lost or stolen.

3) Interfere with ATF gun trace reports. The ATF is now mandated to include, in any reports concerning its tracing of guns back to crime, that trace data “cannot be used to draw broad conclusions about firearms-related crime.” Academic work on guns has used trace data to firmly establish that several firearm regulations effectively prevent the spread of guns to criminal.

4) Expand the class of protected guns. According to Roll Call‘s John Gramlich, the fourth permanent law would “place a broad definition of antique guns and ammunition that may be imported into the United States.”

As Martin Bashir pointed out in his rant above, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre might be crazy, but he's crazy like a Fox when it comes to the success of his lobbying efforts.