Robert Reich shreds NRA’s ‘stranglehold on GOP’ that is turning America into ‘a killing field’

Former Clinton-era Labor Secretary Robert Reich ripped into the National Rifle Association and Republicans powerful Saturday morning Facebook post.

"In the wake of another horrific mass shooting, we must not remain silent as America turns into a killing field," Prof. Reich explained. "Gun laws save lives. Consider the federal assault weapons ban. After it became law in 1994, gun massacres fell by 37 percent. The number of people dying from mass shootings fell by 43 percent. But when Republicans in Congress let the ban lapse in 2004, gun massacres more than doubled."

"The Second Amendment was never intended to permit mass slaughter," Reich continued. "The Supreme Court has upheld reasonable restrictions on gun ownership, but the NRA and the firearms industry continue to invoke the Second Amendment to stall action on gun violence."

"More guns have not, and will not, make us safer. There are few ideas more harebrained than the notion that we’d be more secure if everyone was armed," he explained.

"The vast majority of Americans want stronger gun safety laws," Reich noted. "There are few things Americans agree on as clearly as gun safety."

The professor also had tough words for the NRA.

"The National Rifle Association has a stranglehold on the Republican Party," Reich observed. "As one of the biggest spenders in Washington, the NRA has incredible influence over Republican leaders in Congress."

"The NRA is mostly a front for gun manufacturers. Although the NRA likes to claim they represent gun owning Americans, in recent years their membership has dwindled," he continued. "The organization's funding increasingly comes from corporate gun-makers looking to protect their bottom-lines."

"America is better than the NRA, better than the cynical conspiracy theorists who say guns protect us against government, better than the extremists who refuse common-sense gun laws," Prof. Reich argued. "America is the young people from Parkland, Florida, who are telling legislators to act like adults. America is all of us. And it’s time all of us stood up."