And for our next trick, the other foot You know something? Like an increasing number of American liberals, I’m off the reservation about guns. The conventional “gun control” positions keep flunking various reality tests. Concealed-carry doesn’t correlate with increased gun crime; quite the reverse. The permit system in places like New York City leads, unsurprisingly, to the kind of corruption through which record-industry insiders with gangster connections can carry a gun, but I can’t. Meanwhile, banning guns outright seems to keep people from using guns about as well as banning drugs keeps people from using drugs. It may or may not be true that Americans are crazy about guns, but it seems pretty clear that the “gun control” approaches we’ve tried mostly serve to disarm the law-abiding while leaving criminals armed to the teeth. (Indeed, it turns out that when guns are outlawed, only outlaws…ah, you’ve heard it.) And on the personal level, most of the people I personally know who own guns are solid citizens, nothing like the violent lunatics of anti-gun demonology.

All that being the case, imagine how impressed I am by America’s leading gun organization when I read things like this:

The National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Reno, Nev., degenerated on Sunday into a session of gay-bashing, with one commentator referring to anti-gun talk show host Rosie O’Donnell as a “freak” for her recent admission that she’s a lesbian.

During a two-hour panel discussion attacking the media for distorting the views of gun-rights proponents, all but one speaker took an opportunity to slam gays and lesbians — including O’Donnell — in some manner. […]

Schlussel also referred to straight actor Jude Law, who she said admitted to hesitating before handling a gun for one of his films, as a “girly man.”

I’ve argued that the gun argument is too often simply a front for culture war: nice liberals don’t like people who like guns. But this is the other side: a cheerful hate-off among homophobic fatheads. That’ll convince lots of Americans.

It’s hard to imagine an organization that’s done more over the years to damage rational discussion of guns than the NRA. [12:31 PM]