



In three words, the front page of Wednesday’s New York Daily News launched one of the boldest attacks on the National Rifle Association in recent memory.

The tabloid’s cover denounced “NRA’s Sick Jihad,” in characteristically huge typeface. The story inside accused the gun rights group of tacitly abetting the arming of terrorists by blocking a proposed bill that would make it more difficult for terror suspects to buy guns in the United States. The Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2015, formally known as H.R. 1076, was introduced in February, and includes a ban on the “sale or distribution of firearms or explosives to any individual whom the Attorney General has determined to be engaged in terrorist activities.”

The earliest version of the legislation was originally introduced under President George W. Bush in 2007, but it has yet to be signed into law. According to the Daily News, more than 2,000 suspects on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist have been able to purchase weapons in the United States in the last 11 years.

The story begins, “The NRA—and their gun-loving Republican cohorts—are refusing once more to stop terrorists intent on getting armed in the U.S.A.”