text: I hate to burst your bubble, free-fire fetishists, but the NRA has no more interest in you as an individual gun owner than the Tobacco Institute had in you as an individual puffer. It is a trade group tasked to increase the profits of the weapons manufacturers, at any cost. It deals in bribes and threats, carrot and stick, nothing else. The body count of American bystanders is beside the point. The point is more, more, MORE gun sales. 
  
  Here's an incredibly obvious piece of political advice—follow the money.
  
  There is no such thing as an absolute right to individual assault weapon ownership. If you refuse to accept any sane restrictions on guns that the overwhelming majority of Americans are begging for; if you insist on proclaiming that you have more of a God-given right to make massive bang bangs than a child has to celebrate his or her next birthday, you are likely to lose more of your "freedoms" than you think. 
  
  And you should.