NRA board member blames Charleston's deaths on pastor's vote against guns in church

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An NRA board member blamed the deaths of churchgoers in Charleston on the church’s pastor, South Carolina state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, because of his stance against bringing guns into church.

“He voted against concealed-carry,” Charles “Chas” Cotton said of Pinckney on the Texas Concealed Handgun License (TexasCHL) forum. “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.”

According to Think Progress, the TexasCHL, which lists Cotton as a moderator of its forum on its website, is billed as “the focal point for Texas firearms information and discussions.”

This is not the first time Cotton has gone after anti-gun activists in the wake of a tragic shooting. After the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy, Cotton attacked President Obama along with “multi-billionaires Michael Bloomberg and George Soros” and others and accused them of using the tragedy for their own ends.

“The anti-gun response by all of those making up the Obama-Bloomberg Coalition was too rapid, too coordinated, too well-funded, and too consistent to have been an impromptu response to the tragedy in Newtown Connecticut,” Cotton said. “President Obama obviously wanted to wait until after the presidential election to launch his the anti-gun campaign.”