Around 60 to 75 protesters appeared in front of the National Rifle Association’s headquarters in Washington D.C. on Monday afternoon. Chanting “shame on the NRA,” the the small group, led by the organization CREDO, met several blocks away from the NRA’s Capitol Hill office and marched up to the doors of the NRA building.
The protest, a reaction triggered by the deadly school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, started at noon and lasted until 1:30 PM.
“The NRA takes tens of millions in corporate donations from gun makers and uses that money to lobby Congress and defeat anyone who opposes any gun-related law whatsoever. Even commonsense measures supported by the majority of NRA’s members,” said CREDO’s Josh Nelson to the crowd.
Breitbart News spoke to gun control activists who insisted they didn’t want to see all guns “banned” but to see “sensible gun laws” passed.
“I can’t see for the life of me if you’re against abortion, if you think it’s okay to shoot up six-year olds. It has to be getting rid of access to ammunition. It has to be a ban against assault weapons,” said one woman.
Another activist said, “I’d like to see the NRA go back to the policies they had in the 1960’s and 1970’s, saying ‘yes, guns should be regulated.’ I don’t think we need to ban all guns everywhere. I think we need to have sensible regulations. We should regulate our weapons as much as we regulate our Sudafed. “
No one from the NRA addressed the crowd or reporters outside during the protest. The pro-Second Amendment organization shut down its FaceBook page and has not used its Twitter account in the wake of the controversy.
Although the NRA faced criticism today, according to reports from Philadelphia, a local gun show found that the tragedy in Connecticut did not keep massive crowds from attending the event.