NRA board member blames pastor for Charleston deaths

A board member for the National Rifle Association blamed the gun-control position of South Carolina state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, a pastor who was killed in Wednesday night’s shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, for the deaths of his congregation.

If had voted to allow gun owners to carry their own weapons, Charles Cotton wrote, “eight of his church members … might be alive.”


A spokesman for the NRA told POLITICO, “Individual board members do not speak for the NRA and and do not have the authority to speak for the NRA.”

Cotton, who according to his bio page has been a board member for 13 years, also moderates TexasCHLforum.com, described as “the focal point for Texas firearms information and discussions.”

In one thread discussing the shooting at Emanuel AME Church on Thursday morning, a user with the name ShootDonTalk wrote: “Something else to consider: The pastor of this church, who was killed, is a State Legislator in S.C.”

“And he 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,” Cotton responded to the post on Thursday afternoon. “Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue.”

The bill that Pinckney voted against in 2011 would have permitted gun owners to bring guns into public places like churches and daycare centers. It ultimately failed.

According to an NRA site, Cotton has also been elected to the Board of Trustees of the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund. Following the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Cotton wrote that President Barack Obama, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and others were trying to use the event to launch their “anti-gun response.”

“The shameful truth is that the Obama-Bloomberg Coalition used the Sandy Hook shootings as a Hollywood-like soundstage to launch their long planned attack on the Second Amendment,” he wrote at the time.