Last week, I reported with Peter Stone on the increasing personal and financial ties between the gun industry and the National Rifle Association, a relationship that was sealed in a fight to shield gun shops and manufactures from liability lawsuits.
"Your fight has become our fight," then-NRA president Charlton Heston declared before a crowd of gun company executives at the annual SHOT Show, the industry's biggest trade show [in 1999]. "Your legal threat has become our constitutional threat," he said.
After the story ran, I blogged about my own experience with guns and asked gun owners on Twitter what they think about the NRA's stance.
Though hardly a scientific survey, most felt the NRA was way out-of-step with the interests of typical gun owners:
There was also a contingent who felt that while the NRA may go too far at times, the organization is a necessary bulwark against a federal government eager to take away their rights:
And finally, there were a handful of totally bizarre responses, including one from a gun owner who suggested that hammers were more lethal than guns. He deleted his tweet, apparently, but here is a response: