An NRA official blames the massacre at a South Carolina church on the slain pastor’s anti-gun position.

Charles Cotton, a board member with the gun advocacy group, posted a comment on a firearms forum that he moderates in which he noted that pastor and state Sen. Clementa Pinckney voted against concealed-carry gun legislation.

“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,” Cotton wrote on texasCHLforum.com.

Pinckney last year voted against permitting the concealed carrying of handguns in eateries that serve alcohol.

Last year, he introduced legislation for stricter background checks for gun owners.

Cotton, a leader of the Texas State Rifle Association, was assailed in February for writing on the forum that disciplining a child by corporal punishment may prevent him from “having to put a bullet in him later.”

“I’m sick of this woman and her ‘don’t touch my kid regardless what he/she did or will do again’ attitude,” Cotton wrote, talkingpointsmemo.com reported.

“Perhaps a good paddling in school may keep me from having to put a bullet in him later,” he added.

Meanwhile, Dylann Storm Roof, 21, who is accused of gunning down Pinckney and eight other worshippers during Bible study Wednesday night at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, is due in court Friday.