Despite last month’s tragedy in Newton, Conn., the National Rifle Association said this week its membership has grown by 100,000 members. That has some scratching their heads, and it has MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough annoyed.
On his Friday broadcast of “Morning Joe,” Scarborough explained how the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment as it pertains to assault rifles.
“By the way, can we just break through the B.S. here?” Scarborough said. “This is not for the NRA about Second Amendment rights. Justice Scalia clearly laid out in Heller what Second Amendment rights were and what they were not. The most conservative justice on the Supreme Court, Anthony Scalia, made it very clear, assault weapons were not protected by the Second Amendment. This is not about protecting the Second Amendment.”
He then explained what he really believed was really behind the NRA’s surge in membership: money.
“This is about gun manufacturers making millions and millions and millions of dollars,” Scarborough continued. “This is about retailers making millions and millions and millions of dollars. Do you know how much money these people have made over the slaughter of 20 innocents in Newtown? Do you know how much richer these rich gun manufacturers have gotten over the past month, and how the NRA uses that tragedy to gin up fears, and websites use that tragedy to gin up fears that they’re coming to take your guns away? Hey, got a message for you: they can’t take your guns away. We’ve got something called the Second Amendment in the Constitution of the United States. Justice Scalia said in 2009 they can’t come and take your guns away. You can have a handgun to protect your family. But outside of that, they can regulate guns.”
(h/t Mediaite)