An NRA board member blamed Pastor Clementa Pinckney, one of the victims of Dylann Storm Roof, for his own death, claiming that his opposition to a bill that would have allowed individuals to carry concealed weapons in churches is the reason Roof was able to murder nine people Wednesday night, ThinkProgress's Jedd Legum reports.
In a post on a Texas firearms forum, NRA board member Charles Cotton wrote that Senator Pinckney "voted against concealed-carry. Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead."
"Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue," he concluded.
The bill to which Cotton refers would not only have allowed individuals to carry concealed weapons in churches, but restaurants and day-care centers as well.
As a state senator, Pinckney not only opposed that bill, he supported bills calling for even stricter background checks on gun purchasers -- not that that would have prevented Roof from acquiring the weapon he used to attack the pastor and his congregants, which had been given to him as a birthday present from his father.
A screenshot of Cotton's statement can be seen below.
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