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DN Editorial: ARMED & LUDICROUS Which one is more clueless: The NRA or 'Gungress'?

Both NRA and Congress should win the prize for being out of touch with the rest of the country.

IT'S HARD to figure out who is more clueless: the NRA, which released a report calling for armed guards in school one day after families of Newtown victims rallied in Connecticut's capital to support strict new laws to limit gun violence, or Republican members of Congress, who are threatening to filibuster new gun-control legislation little more than 100 days after the Newtown massacre.

But this doesn't need to be a contest-Both can and should win the prize for being out of touch with the rest of the country.

The "school safety" report, which was funded by the National Rifle Association and released Tuesday, needs little explanation: It's a few hundred pages expanding on Wayne LaPierre's unhinged call to have armed guards in every school in the country. The report calls for loosening restrictions on who can carry guns in schools, and would appoint and train "school resource officers" who would presumably roam schools while heavily armed, waiting for the next Adam Lanza to show up. It points out that Columbine had such an armed officer, who made the mistake of tending to a wounded victim instead of blowing away the shooters and thus was ineffective in the kind of Hollywood ending to that Colorado massacre that gun nuts all must dream about each night. Too bad the million dollars that the report cost didn't go to actual resources for students, like books or teachers.

But Congress - or, should we call it "Gungress"? - is another story. Last month, Senate majority leader Harry Reid had stripped Sen. Dianne Feinstein's measure on the assault-weapons ban, saying that there weren't enough votes to get it passed. Even that's not good enough for the GOP, which promises to filibuster the remaining measures that would require background checks for every gun purchaser and harsher penalties for straw purchasers of guns used by criminals.

Pennsylvania members of Congress have been polled by this paper, at the urging of former Gov. Ed Rendell, to get on the record on their support for the measures. Sen. Bob Casey and Reps. Allyson Schwartz, Bob Brady and Chaka Fattah said that they would support all the gun measures, including a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and act to prohibit Congress from stalling on a vote. Reps. Pat Meehan, Charlie Dent, Michael Fitzpatrick and Jim Gerlach wussed out, as did Sen. Pat Toomey in committing to not doing much beyond "studying proposals."

Five GOP senators have signed on to filibuster gun measures. Mike Lee of Utah said that the proposals would reduce the constitutionally protected rights of law- abiding citizens. (It's funny how Lee and other GOP lawmakers don't hold constitutionally protected rights as sacred when it comes to abortion.)

We urge Congress to look to Connecticut for lessons in legislative courage. There, a bipartisan task force came to an agreement on rewriting the state's gun laws to include expanding weapons on the list of banned assault weapons, limiting high-capacity magazines, requiring background checks for all weapon sales and expanding mental-health research. Connecticut is home not only to the recent tragedy in Newtown, but also to three major gun manufacturers who have threatened to leave the state.

That's how laws should be made: according to the will of the people, not the will and the pocketbooks of the gun industry, even as it hides behind the skirts of the NRA.