In line with the green/labor alliance news is the development of an alternative to the NRA which promises to resolve the unfortunate split of gun owners and conservationists.

The new group [American Hunters and Shooters Association] is “pro-gun, pro-conservation, pro-safety,” as executive director Robert Ricker explains. Ricker, a former NRA counsel and gun-industry advocate for two decades, became a whistleblower in 2003 when he gave testimony linking negligent industry behavior and gun sales to criminals.

I hope this is wildly successful. I’ve slowly come around to being not anti-gun but pro-safety. I believe gun laws should be specific to different cities and regions, depending on their needs. I believe even in cities more attention needs to be paid to economic problems than guns, as most gun-related crime stems from the former, only facilitated by the latter. Some control, and much education, is necessary, as a matter of public safety, and some gun owners have always supported some level of it. But the NRA has long been just plain nutty, making gun owners look bad.