Now that we have had the deadliest mass-shooting in the history of the United States, can we please do something to help stop the carnage? Sadly, I’m not too hopeful— if we didn’t do much after twenty 6 and 7-year-olds were massacred in their classrooms, we probably won’t do much when 49 people partying at a gay club are gunned down.
This is one of those cartoons where the research just sucked me down the rabbit hole. The deeper you look, the more awful this really is. Sure, assault weapons aren’t the only culprit in this tragedy. This and most other mass shootings require a warped mind as well as the tools to carry out an attack. But it seems to me the common denominator, and the most readily-solved part of the problem, is incredibly easy access to guns. If eggs have the American Egg Board, guns have the National Rifle Association— but don’t be fooled, they aren’t working for responsible gun owners, the NRA is working for gun manufacturers.
There are so many numbers floating around out there that attempt to detail how the NRA influences Congress. I found lists that show the “top twenty” recipients of NRA funding, but it doesn’t really look that bad. It is only when you dig deeper (thank you Center for Responsive Politics) that you can begin to see all the threads: direct contributions to politicians, independent expenditures, independent expenditures against an opponent, etc., need to be taken together to understand the NRA’s (and other groups’) influence. I’m sure I’ll be doing more cartoons about this in the near future, in the meantime, be sure to check out more of my work and go behind-the-scenes on my Patreon page.